Living The Life
Moving to Las Palmas is maybe one of the best things I ever did. I was a little afraid of getting the same experience as the one time I moved to Utrecht. Together with a good friend we had a nice startup there, but the city(-life) itself was quite disappointing. Not that we lived in the best neighborhood 
This article is again in English and yes I’m still dyslectic, so feel free to fix my grammar on GitHub.
No time to read this now?
Save to Pocket
The big difference is the kind of people around you. You have some co-working spaces in Utrecht but the ones I’ve seen where filled with ZZP’ers (freelancers)* who where not so innovative. In Las Palmas I work at CoWorkingC, a nice place where you meet new people every week. The owner likes to organize meetings or BBQ’s and the co-workers like to have 1,5 hour lunches together (for € 8,50 you’ll have three courses). The workspace adds a social sauce on top of the office.
There are all kinds of people working there; web developers, marketers, bloggers, entrepreneurs, writers and happiness people. If you look further then only the co-working space you will meet Erasmus students, teachers and journalists. That are nice occupations, but that it is not the field you bond, you are doing the same. Most of them left their place to become a digital nomad or a location independent worker -as some people like to call themselves. Some even for more then 10 years, those people see the life a little different then I do, and I like it.
But…
Interesting people around you, nice working place, those are good things, but what could be better?
Well, the cool people of the working space work in the basement, there are no windows, no daylight. It is nice in a way because you have no notion of time, but if feels not very Las Palmas. So I might move to a different floor, problem solved. What else?
Well, I still have to do the some thing as I did in Amsterdam; the thesis. Oh man, what a celebration will it be when I have my diploma. It becomes a red line in my life and I hope it ends soon. But okay, this is not very Las Palmas related, so one last time, what else?
Sometimes I mis having beers with my fiends. Getting to know new people is cool, but also a little exhausting. I’m glad I choose to stay there for a minimum of 6 months because then you can really make friends. But missing friends, isn’t that on of the reasons why you moved to a cheap flight destination?
It was one of the reasons, indeed. I got an oversized apartment with 3 bedrooms, plenty of place to host friends. A friend was asking me, why do you spent this money on an apartment while you also could pay 50% less for a place you share with other people.
As I wanted to start defending my choice, a recently red article announced itself in my head. The article had some impact on me, it was a summary of a reddit topic with tips of 60+ year old people for younger people. One of the tips was: “Don’t invest in products, invest in experiences.” I loved that one, for some people hard to believe maybe, but it really hit me. So I explained that I now could invite friends that should otherwise not come to Las Palmas and experience the island together. And I strongly believe that in a later stadium of my life, those things are the things I will remember.
In my previous blog post I mentioned that GoldRepublic was not flexible enough to keep me there, but they proved quite differently. I got a call from Stefanie (my favorite ex-colleague) asking me if I was willing to fly to Amsterdam and help them a few days to launch the project I had worked on. That is pretty cool, so I turned the YOLO-mode on and here I am, sitting on an airplane to Amsterdam. Thanks to Marleen & Stefanie!
Living the life does not only apply to Las Palmas, you can do it everywhere!