By most definitions, I am not a “millennial.” I belong to the tail end of “Generation X” (“Generation Y,” by some definitions). But for the last three and a half months, I indulged in that most stereotypically millenial pastime: I was unemployed and living at my parents’ house.

Although I didn’t pay rent, I wasn’t a complete freeloader. I helped my dad with various projects in and around the house and I cooked or cleaned up after the occasional family dinner. But at the end of the day, I have to call it what it is: mooching.

And mooching off my parents was pretty nice. After my trip around the world, I needed a vacation from my vacation. I didn’t have some epiphany about what my second career will be while I was traveling, as I’d hoped, so I also needed some time to do some career exploration, maybe do some freelance work, etc. And since I had only minimal expenses, staying at my parents’ extended the length of time I could continue to live off my savings.

I was thrifty, to be sure. But I wasn’t particularly productive. It’s December now, after all, and I still don’t know what I want my second career to be.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I want my second career to be… retirement. I want to join the leisure class, to be someone who never works but always has plenty of money, like a character in a Jane Austen novel. But I’m not rich, I don’t have any rich relatives to inherit from, and I keep not winning the lottery. So I’m going to need a plan B.

The problem with coming up with this plan B while living at my parents’ house is twofold. First, I arrived in Maine in early August. August and September are nice months in Maine, and I enjoyed them to the hilt. It was much more fun to go swimming and kayaking in the lake than to sit in front of my computer applying for jobs.

Second, living with two retired people, I discovered, doesn’t inspire me to make major life changes. My parents aren’t bored; they have plenty to occupy their time. But the types of activities they take part in are routine. Daily chores of cooking and cleaning. Grocery shopping once a week. Seasonal tasks like mowing the lawn, leaf blowing, and clearing the driveway of snow. And interspersed between these periods of activity are regular TV watching: The People’s Court at noon, Judge Judy at four, and two or so hours of Netflix at dinnertime beginning at six on the dot. My parents don’t have any long-term goals or projects. Not any that I saw evidence of, at any rate. And that made it hard for me to concentrate on everything I need to do to begin the next chapter of my life.

Those are my excuses, anyway.

And so, as I noted in my last post, I decided I need to go off by myself again. Back to Poznań, Poland.

The idea is to focus more or less full-time on my job search. Poznań is cheap and nice. And during the fall and winter months, it’s cold and dark. Swimming and kayaking are definitely not going to be distractions. And I’ll be in a good-sized city with plenty of ambitious, driven people to inspire me. (Plus a healthy dollop of less-than-inspiring winos, but that’s part of Poznań’s charm.)

I’m not looking for work in Poznań, as much as I wouldn’t mind living there. I conceived of my last trip as auditioning prospective future overseas homes, but having scratched my travel itch pretty thoroughly, I’m no longer dead set on leaving the U.S.A. I don’t want to go back to D.C., but I’m willing to move to pretty much any other city in America (or the developed world) provided the job I get there pays enough to cover the cost of living. I’ve dabbled in freelance work over the past couple of months, and in doing so I discovered that it’s very unlikely to pay my bills, even if I’m living in a low cost of living area. Plus, I’d really like to have health insurance again. I’m in my 40s now, and going uninsured is a risk I’d prefer not to take. I need a real job.

And so I’m off again, to live cheaply while I get my act together. As with my last trip, I have a plan and a budget. Poznań is my destination, but since I’m flying into Warsaw, and I didn’t go there on my last trip, I might as well spend a week there and check it out. Łódź, Poland’s third-largest city, is roughly halfway between Warsaw and Poznań, so I’ll spend a week there. Then, when I finally arrive in Poznań on 11 December, I plan to stay there for two full months. At that point, my 90-day visa-free stay will be just about expired, so I’ll zip off to a non-Schengen country like Romania or Croatia for a week and then, if I haven’t got a job offer yet, I’ll head back to Poznań, rinse, and repeat.

My budget is more parsimonious this time around. $30 a night, max, for lodging and $10 a day for food. European accomodations are cheaper in the winter, and outdoor cafés are definitely less enticing in Poland in December. To avoid blowing my food budget, I’m going to limit restaurant meals to one a week or so, and while eating in, drink only water and abstain from alcohol and sugar. We’ll see how that goes.

Oh, and one other thing: Given the limited daylight this time of year at Poland’s latitude, I’m going to… drumroll… GET UP IN THE A.M.! Yes, I intend to be up at sunrise every day, or at least every weekday. I’ll try to use my initial jetlag to get into that pattern and then power through afterward.

Six or so days in, that plan is holding. On 26 November, the Monday after Thanksgiving, I flew to Warsaw, arriving the following day. And that’s where I am now.

The jetlag has been gnarlier than anticipated. A six-hour time difference, I figure I can get over it in a couple of days. But, remember, I’m trying to become an early riser. While living with my folks, it was all I could do to get up before noon, and that was only so that I wouldn’t miss The People’s Court on weekdays. On weekends, I got up when I felt like it, which was, on average, 1pm. This time of year, sunrise in Warsaw is about 7, 7:30. That means I’m getting up six hours earlier each day, in addition to the six-hour time difference. It all adds up to a 12-hour difference. That’s like going to China! No wonder I’m still (as I type this, it is Sunday, 2 December 2018) struggling to adjust.

The day I arrived in Warsaw, and again today, the temperature hovered around the freezing point, about the same as in Maine. But all those days in between, it was face-freezingly cold. And it’s dark, too. At 52° north latitude this time of year, there are only eight or nine hours of daylight each day, and the sun is never very high over the southern horizon. Even at noon on a sunny day, the light has the character of late afternoon — weak and casting long shadows.

But I always explore a new city on foot, and I wasn’t going to adjust my m.o. just because of a little cold. Unfortunately, Warsaw is a sprawling city without a compact downtown. It was painful.

Exploring Europe in the winter isn’t as much fun as in the summer, but there is the joy and spectacle of the holiday season. In case I forget later this month, let me wish you a merry Christmas now.