I got news. I’m shutting down part of this blog. I want to move to more personal stuff in my emails, so i’m moving to email blogging. It just means that you’ll have to suscribe to my newsletter to get updates from me .

I might keep this blog, to publish thoughts i have on different stuff. But the private stuff will be in the email.

It’s been 1month and 1week since my last newsletter. A long month, full of great times.

I’ve succesfully immigrate to Brasil, as i told you in my last post. Ever since my days have been quite full, and it’s only now that i can find some time to keep up with you.

What do you do ? I’m pro blogger.

This a question we all get often. Even more for me, since i’m abroad, and therefore i meet a lot of new people every day. I always found it hard to answer this question. When i was still working, used to answer :
- You want to know what i like to do, or what do i do to pay my bills ?

But now that i’m unemployed, my answer has evolved :

- I’m unemployed
- I’m a problogger
- I’m a nomadic entrepreuneur
- I’m a location independent worker
- I’m loving life

Most of those answers grant me an akward face from my interlocutor. Except the unemployed one, and sometimes the pro-blogger. Which is good, since that’s the two things i do the most. Well unemployed is not a job, but it’s the easiest way to justify that i can go out at anytime, regardless of the day of the week.
And pro-blogger is really thriving and challenging to talk about. I’ve started a blog, about location indepent working, and all the ways to make it happen. This is a concept which is getting quite common around the world, thanks to internet and the new technologies. But in France it’s not yet. For cultural reasons mainly. Anyway, that blog is eating a lot of my time. : Writing good content, Working on the design, getting your blog to be known, responding to comments, thinking about how to make money from your blog etc.

It’s indeed a full time job, with a lot of challenges. It’s not my first time working on a blog (apart from my personal one) but it’s the first i put so much dedication to it. I will succeed (because i’ve made that blog my primary focus) but, well it’s not easy.

Here is the address : http://www.moutonbreak.com

I also have a some other stuffs going on.

Openning Bar ? you are going to drink all the alcohol.

This is a true comment from someone i know. i wonder why he said that…
The first reason for me coming to Brasil, was to see my friend, escape from the winter, and attend the carnival.
The second reason, was because i wanted to open a business in here, namely a wine bar.
So far i’ve not made a lot of progress. It’s hard to find reliable partners, and even harder to find information. The 4 main problems i face are :

- The visa : you need an investor visa, before you can get anywhere. And it’s damn hard to get.
- There’s a lot of bureaucracy in here, so it’s gonna be a pain in the ass to open my business (2 worst country to invest in, according to doingbusiness.org)
-It’s darn expensive. The cost of life is really high, and it’s getting higher every day (thanks to the world cup). And because of that renting and employement fees are skyrocketing !
The importation taxes are horrible. To import wine you need to pay 30% importation taxes. Because of that, most wine product are out of the reach of the general population !

I haven’t gave up, but i’m trying to rethink my project. I’ll keep you posted as i have more details.

Let’s move on to more general subjects !

sometimes you need a sidekick.

i’m writing this from Petropolis, a city in the country side of Rio de janeiro. A friend has a beautiful house with a garden and swimming pool, and surrounded by mountains. So it’s a 3 courses menu : trekking, barbecue, chilling by the pool. Awesomness !
We are 7 ppl and 4 dogs. Which make quite an atmosphere. Only downside is, out of 7 ppl there’s 3 couples. That’s when you start to miss having someone on your side …

What’s next.
i’m going to spend the carnival in the north of brasil, Recife. They say it’s the best carnival in Brasil, so i had to see for myself. I’ll also take advantage of that time to visit some Natal, the city of my friend and host in Rio, and some other cities up there.
Apart from that i’ll keep working on my projects, because, this is the year i’m gonna make it happen (with the help of God). I’ll let you know when that happens of course.

This was, Faouzane Edouard Batiga, live from pretropolis, brasil. Back to you. (gimme some news people !)

The place where dreams meet reality.

Merry chrismass ! I hope you all had fun with your family and or friends !

I don’t generally consider myself a superstitious person, but over the years i’ve developed a very specific one : « the more you talk about your projects, the less they will come true ! ». Read more…

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do with my life. And I’ve came up with many answers ( that  I’ll cover on another newsletter), but among those one was real clear for me :
Read more…

Hello Beautiful people !

It’s been a real long time since i sat for a second and took the time to keep in touch ! It’s 6 months for god sake !

A lot happened in my life since !  I went for a one month road trip in Europe, i had a good friend visiting from Brazil, Read more…

Dimanche : me voici à porte de clignancourt pour trouver un stop. Première expérience de la route. Premières erreurs aussi ! Je suis pas au bon endroit, j’ai pas le bon panneau et mon package à l’air trop gros. Après 2h d’attentes et quelques ajustements de panneaux ( de germany – allemagne on est passé a nord de Paris – allemagne ),  me voici dans une voiture avec une cougar de 50ans et 2 jeunes filles de 19 et 23 ans.
- Alexandrine, sorte d’agent immobilière,
- tracy, auxiliaire de vie pr 3 eme  age, agressive dans la parole ( mode wesh wesh t’as vu)  sur la défensive, mais qui des choses intelligentes ( elle a le cerveau bien fait comme on dit chez vous)
- et Laura, jeune femme au chômage ! Qui vient de commencer une relation ac Mehdi, jeune rebeu qui vit a la caserne militaire de Versailles.

Après quelques péripéties elles m’ont déposé à la première aire après le péage.

J’ai ds les 5 min trouvé Said qui montait à Bruxelles pr tourner un film indépendant sur van gogh ! Il m’a laissé sur l’aire d’autoroute de ruisboek.  Après 3h sans succès, je décide d’aller me coucher.  Je plante ma tente à 500m de la station. Première nuit de hhiker, première nuit sur une autoroute et première nuit seul sous la tente !
Note aux autostoppeurs : Une tente c pas du luxe.
Note to myself : même si tu n’as pas froid au moment de dormir mets des chaussettes.  Il fait froid de 3h au lever du soleil.  Très froid !

Voila ma première journée de HH.

Je viens d’avoir une idée un peu folle, aller a Riga, Lettonie  ! Mais pas en avion, en Auto-stop !! Je vais rejoindre Charlie !

Me voila parti avec un sac à dos, une tente, un sac de couchage et une trompette. De belles aventures en perspective. Ces aventures seront retracées dans une série de posts.
A moi Riga !

Premier jour : http://www.batiga.com/?p=12

Yay !! ça y est j’ai décidé de retravailler sur mon blog.
La conséquence immédiate est que le thème du blog a changé !  Maintenant que je suis au chomage, j’ai du temps libre pour vivre et écrire !

bon je vous laisse. Le cocktail qu’on vient de me servir au B-bar (un bar de Riga) est diablement attirant !