Back home in Cordoba

Back to Cordoba, I think this city is good for me. It gives me time to write. So it's going to be a long one, because I haven't written in a while.

The two months in Mendoza were particularly busy. Noel's goal was to get the platform up and running and to start publishing it. By January 5, the platform was up and running. I spent Christmas week in bed. I think I paid for my pace of work then.

For my Christmas present, I treated myself to a safe paragliding trip, a gift from me to myself. I'm learning to take care of myself, and not to abandon myself in my work.

Once the platform was ready, we got a lot of bad feedback from our first registrants, which helped us make the platform better.

I also took the time to carry out an optimization phase, in particular, I had to change the system that was working by a much more efficient competing system. I had to relearn how to work with a new tool and redo everything with the new system.
All without losing the data of those already registered, of course, and without changing habits too much.

I had to redo all the tutorials. So today you'll find videos of me speaking Spanish to explain how my website works. I've spent a lot of time studying the paths to success of big companies, doctolib for its market takeover, and how a company gets mentioned by the government as a reference platform even though it's a private company. I looked at the different ways of marketing, and what could be most profitable.

Of course, we have the google ads approach, where we pay to be first on Google and advertise, which would allow us to make our product market fit and see if it works.

But, I think we're on a sort of market opening, where we'd like to explain our way of traveling and discovering the world. For that, advertising on Google Ads wouldn't allow us to define whether there's a market or not, and above all we don't currently have the budget to do both.

So we choose to take the long way around to make our product market fit, by going through the personal branding stage. In other words, I explain what I've done, where I come from, why I do what I do, and share my path to a kind of inner peace, hoping to inspire others who, like me, might be at rock bottom, hesitating, for example, to take the plunge, travel or experiment with something new.

Alongside this, now that the platform is more or less up and running, I'm looking at how application development works, because this is a part of IT that I've completely ignored.

To better conceptualize the functional issues of an application and to be able to discuss with technical people. I need to better understand how it works. So I found myself a little project to do, which could even potentially make us some money! And I confess that if I could stop getting up at 3/4am without a rhythm. That would make me even more efficient. But I have the problem that I love teaching.

I think this will be done differently in the future, as I posted an online class on my YouTube channel for a sick student. As it turned out, the video was viewed over 1,500 times. I got stalked on Linkedin for someone to ask me a question about my class. And I realize that some people are that motivated.

I spend a lot of time working, and I realize that traveling and working at the same time is very energy-consuming. Fortunately, I'm chatting with a few digital nomads virtually, and I realize that I'm not the only one who travels more leisurely.

But I think I've found my rhythm: once a week I try to do something unusual. So I've had the opportunity to go paragliding, but also rafting, as well as a few treks (where I think I'll make a few videos). I even bought my own tent, comforters, saucepan etc. so I could go away for longer! I bought it from a French student who was going back to France for very little money.

That's just it, I need a vacation! It's a good thing my parents are coming for two weeks.

And yes, Mom and Dad took a two-week vacation, the first back-to-back of their lives.

I think that as retirement approached, my sister and I had to get them ready to go on vacation for all their lives.

When they arrived in Santiago de Chile, I had arrived 2 days earlier, because I had a class to teach. When they arrived, I had to interrupt a student who was presenting to open the door for them.
Normally, I'd keep them waiting for 10 minutes, but they'd flown 14 hours and driven 4 to see me. I run to open the door, give them a little kiss and go back to finish my lesson.

We spend 3 nights in Santiago, the time to discover the city a little, but above all to rest a little after a long journey and a lot of work.

We then head off to the city of Valparaiso, where we discover a city painted by numerous artists. Every wall is covered with art of all kinds, from dragons to designs drawn from all the world's beliefs and religions. Hinduism meets aboriginal beliefs. Representations common to similar beliefs in two distant parts of the world. There are also cosmonauts and political denunciations from which the origins of the city's designs can be traced. In fact, it was in the early 60s that the Socialist Party, in opposition to the ruling party, began to denounce the government's decisions, using the walls as a means of sharing their messages with the city's sometimes illiterate population, many of whom were the workers of the billionaires who had come to settle in Valparaiso.

In 1973, when the dictatorship arrived in Chile, the army covered all traces of protest on the walls. And in 1990, when the dictatorship came to an end, Valparaiso saw its walls transformed, and from here developed an artistic side that is still present today.

You will find a multitude of photos on my Instagram or in super quality on my photo site

 We end up in the Chilean seaside town of Vina del Mar, where I find a store and the physical product I need to reduce the clutter of the sound card microphones I have with me, which weigh a ton. The conditions are such that these microphones are only for my classes or for an interview we did with Anisah. (of which we never heard anything, by the way).

I'm looking to lighten up because I'm at the limit of what I can carry. So we're in minimalist mode as much as possible. The cool problems of the traveler.

The two weeks went by very quickly, with great discussions, experiences, hikes, restaurants, ice creams, pool games, Charlotte's LESSON in pool with Dad (you're not really part of the family if you don't know Dad's shot at pool. She had to learn, it was her baptism), full-size starbucks and CARD GAMES, ice cream in bed, but also pushing yourself, working on your health, letting go and learning to find yourself, to share, to laugh, to organize and Dad's joke :

" 

"Gracias" sounds a bit like "gra", "siiiii" and "iiiiiaaaassses" doesn't it?

                                                         Dad

"

I'll leave you to look, we've given up!  

We drop the parents off at the airport, Charlotte stays with me until April and we have lots of cool plans.

But, first, meeting her boyfriend. Unlucky for me, it's not the fireside chat about your life... No, no, no! Between the few hours on the plane between Paris and Cordoba, you've been able to sleep! Come on! I'm taking you into my daily life, because tonight there's a Mundolingo event!

The three of us arrive, and of course the aim is to meet people. So it's not a case of you telling each other about your lives over a beer and a lover's reunion. No, we're here, and we're going to split up into groups, so see you in 15 minutes or at the end of the evening.

Here we play with the universe and leave room for chance to express itself - you'll be playing lovers later.

Ahhhh I've got a whole blog about our 2 weeks together I'll tell you all about it later.

I'll stop here, and I could write so much more, but I'm already glad I took the time to catch up!

And for those who've scrolled this far! We've made the first recordings of my spirituality videos with Charlotte! Watch out for this!