I love Istanbul.  It’s much of what I thought it would be but better.  I imagined a city similar to what it actually is but dirtier, rougher and crazier.  I am happy to say I have been proven wrong.  It’s…European.  I think it’s funny that because it is predominantly Muslim, I automatically assumed that it would be Middle Eastern rather than European.  The beauty of Istanbul is that it has been able to blend its beautiful culture and history with the order and relative stability that you would expect from a European country.  I am pleasantly surprised.

Some of my initial thoughts on Istanbul what I REALLY think about the other cast members:

Some other first impressions of Istanbul:

-       Immanuel Kant said that we can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.  If that is true, then the Turkish have very big hearts.  I have never before seen such kindness and compassion towards stray cats and dogs.  People treat them with respect, feed them outside their shops and sit in the park and pet them.

-       The “Asian” side of Istanbul is not really “Asian” as you’d expect it.  Sure, it’s on the Asian continent, but I was expecting noodles and pagodas.  It’s pretty much the same as the European side.

-       This is a very hilly city.   My calves scream in protest every time I leave my apartment and attempt to go anywhere.  I’m hoping to have the legs I’ve always dreamed of by the time we leave.  No need for a gym here…just walk around for a bit and you’ll work up a sweat in no time.

-       You see very few homeless people here – in fact, you’d see way more at home in Victoria.  I was told by a local that Turkey is making a concerted effort to become part of the EU and one particular effort is taking care of the homeless issue, so many factories and large businesses have a quota of challenged or disadvantaged employees that they hire.  That, and they are harassed by the police if they are found hounding locals and tourists for money.  Ah, that sounds more like it.

-       A smile goes a long way.  This is often the way when travelling but I haven’t found a Turk yet who, in the midst of a communication breakdown due to the fact that I don’t speak ANY Turkish, wasn’t charmed by my smile.   This has come in handy more than a few times already.

Hey Jet Set fans! My name is Nick and I’m excited to announce that I have joined the cast of Jet Set Zero for Season 3: Seoul!

Admittedly this post is a bit overdue as I actually arrived shortly behind the rest of the team and have been sharing in the adventure of life in Korea.  Adjusting to teaching English to kindergartners, living in what basically amounts to a closet, and the whirlwind pace at which adventure comes our way has been an experience in itself so I wanted to make sure I didn’t neglect the blog any longer and shared some of my story with you.

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Brian, Matt, Jed and I were all born during the auspicious year of 1984– a year of plenty. We took our first steps as Joe Kittinger made his daring hot-air balloon voyage across the Atlantic. We spoke our first words as Doug Flutie threw the game-winning 48-yard Hail Mary pass to Gerard Phelan to defeat the University of Miami Hurricanes 45-41. Just three days after the dawn of this brave new year, Jed Mitchell was born. Although today marks the 25th anniversary of that special day, you can still occasionally find him nursing a bottle. Last night was just such an occasion.

With the whole team assembled in Tokyo, at the beginning of Season 2, we decided to celebrate one of our most valuable team members with an orgy of grilled meat and beer known as “Yaki Niku”– all you can eat, all you can drink. There is no greater sound to our impoverished souls than the promise of never-ending grilled meats, but the greatest part of all was, of course, the company. Together, we roasted meats ranging from scallops to “beef face”, and performed a series of rhyming toasts to each episode (“To Episode 1, when it was done, we knew we had won, and our lives would be fun”). We drowned the night with merriment, absorbing the neon glow of exotic downtown Tokyo, filled with laughter and hope for 2009, the 25th –and best– year of our lives.

Happy birthday Jed, from your colleagues and friends at Jet Set Zero.

It only took one conversation with Brian on New Years Day to be sold on the plan to work and travel around the world.

I
had been living in my hometown of Oswego for most of my life, minus a
few short stints in Rochester, London and Barcelona.  Just prior to
leaving for Seattle I was working at a pretty good job in the IT field.
It wasn’t my dream job but I worked with some great people and had a
chance to learn some new skills and expand my knowledge base daily. The
only problem was, I found myself living in the same city I grew up in
and I wasn’t really doing anything new in my day-to-day life.  I loved
the friends and family that lived there with me, but I also missed
meeting new people and seeing new places.  I came to the conclusion
that I had to move away for a while and see the world.  I figured I
could either save up some money for another year, quit my job and then
travel around on my own for a little while or I could travel and work
along the way with some of my friends and capture the whole adventure
on film.

That was a while ago now. Since then, I’ve quit my job
and moved out to Seattle in April.  It’s already been a pretty crazy
ride so far.  Since my departure from Oswego I’ve travelled to the
westernmost point in the continental United States (Cape Alava),
touched the Pacific Ocean for the first time, met the Mayor of Seattle,
shared a house with a couple of punk bands, and camped at the base of
Mt. Rainier.

I’m still not too sure what the future will bring
but if the last few months have been any indication, it should be an
adventure i’ll never forget.

 

Dan and Rob relaxing in the livingroom.

I spent the last six years in the Bay Area. The first four were consumed with philosophy, literature, social theory, and other things practical. The last two were spent at a nonprofit futures think tank/foresight group/ forecasting consultancy called Institute for the Future (IFTF). And yes, there is some minor confusion about how to
categorize ourselves.

Working with IFTF was a dream job – I could research issues such as the future of education, sustainability, and leadership, to name a few. I worked with some of the most creative, intelligent, and intellectual people I’ve ever met, who, btw you can check out here: http://www.iftf.org/people/iftf

Here’s a picture of me facilitating a discussion around how new social media might change the nature and form of work in the next decade.

Facilitating at TYF 2008

So why would I walk away from an amazing job to join Jet Set Zero?

I think it boils down to 3 factors (for some reason, justifications/inspirations always boil down to 3 factors).

Adventure

This is a time in my life of immense freedom. No family to support. No house payment. No career to construct immediately. Actually, I think many people in their young 20’s enjoy a similar freedom. I think it should be adventurously exercised – not just to go crazy or wild, but to engage in endeavors that are risky but approached as learning opportunities; slightly reckless by virtue of their uncertainty; and promise personal and intellectual development.

Friendship

It’s not just an opportunity to travel. This is traveling with people you trust, respect, and whose company you enjoy. This is traveling to meet new local people. This is an opportunity to celebrate existing and emergent friendships. It’s a cause worthy of any human being.

Compelling and Important Story

Travel can expand minds and perspectives, cultivate a cosmopolitan sense of things, and prepare one to participate in global affairs. Travel can do these things, if one travels in the right ways. For us, this is neither vacationing nor tourism nor backpacking. It’s an immersive learning journey through another culture – living, working, and socializing locally. The closest term we’ve encountered is vagabonding, but ours is with a twist. We’re leveraging the digital tools largely native to our generation – we’re not unplugging but using social media to share our experiences, connect with people across the world and next-door, and enabling others to participate in our journeys.

See, the real question is how I could walk away from an opportunity and look at myself in the mirror everyday thereafter?

Snowballs in July, Mt. Rainier

Out of all of the crackpot schemes Brian hatched at IHOP, only one really caught my attention.

“I have this great idea,” he says. “We start a travel show. Go around the world and film it in HD.”

The fact that he was selling the idea over a funny-face pancake didn’t help his case—but to me it made perfect sense. I like to think of life in terms of stories. Like books furnish a library, good stories decorate a life and give it meaning. That’s why I had decided to marry my wonderful girlfriend and take off to Ghana in the Peace Corps.

But each weekend, we would talk about it nonstop over beers and omelets and each time I found a new reason to go. Finally, I called the recruiter that I had worked with for over a year and told her that I would be filming a travel show. In the end, risking everything on this company might seem foolhardy compared to the guarantees of the Peace Corps, but it sure makes a better story.

After only a few months at my job in Seattle I began to notice a strange phenomenon in my office:  the walls grew a bit more oppressive each day, and the light a bit dimmer.  However the meetings, hallway discussions, weekend recaps, long days, working weekends, political power plays, and assignments remained exactly the same.

Day after day, after day.

Presenting in Mumbai, India

About every month I would travel to a conference or event, sit through meetings extraordinarily similar to
the ones back at the office, attend and present sessions about a multitude of mundane topics, and indulge in lavish company dinners.

On the whole, I loved the travel.  As soon as it became international I got to frequently travel to places that before would have been a brief vacation if I was lucky and willing to spend the money. It was an outrageous lifestyle: dinner in Singapore, meetings in Tokyo, a conference in Barcelona, presentations in Mumbai.  I was traveling almost 100,000 miles a year. It was amazing, and it was surreal.

There was however a severe catch to it:  I was alone.

Singapore Airlines Business Lounge, Hong Kong

I realized quickly that as much as I loved travel, and was truly excited about each new international destination – it just was not the same experience I had come to appreciate when I had adventures before, friends by my side. I was sharing these experiences with my friends in story only.  I shrugged it off as an insane complaint, I was so lucky to find a career at a successful company that let me travel, there was no one on earth that could feel sorry for me.

A thought keep nagging me though.  Why couldn’t I travel with all my friends?  Why couldn’t we head to all these exotic locations with the same, or an even more frequent regularity?   Why couldn’t every day be spent seeking out awe inspiring experiences with your friends? There was a short list of reasons: money, time, commitments – but with each new day in my ever dimmer never changing office an excuse fell away.

Finally I was left with nothing but the conviction that this was possible and that it would be insane to do anything but work as hard as I could, as soon as I could to make it happen.  I would have to give up a lifestyle I had become accustomed to living. It would certainly be the most difficult, ambitious, and risk filled undertaking I had ever dreamed up.  And I could already hear of chorus of concerned objection from friends and family.

However the chance to travel the world each and every day, the chance to seek out adventure and awe as a lifestyle
instead of a vacation, and the chance to do it with my friends was worth leaving behind a comfortable existence, was worth risking financial security, and was certainly worth the work to make it possible.

Living the Dream