Some around-the-world journey last only 80 days. Luckily, others forget the rush and extend up to almost a year and a half. Juny, a former Project Manager at CERN, decided together with his wife Mónica, who is now also an exCERNie, to travel all over the world.
Europe, Central America, Latin and North America and Asia: a total of 15 countries, including two very special ones: Colombia, and the joy of its people, and India, with its no need to be all the time doing things, as their yoga teacher used to tell them.
Juny was born in the north of the province of Alicante (Spain), in Denia, one of those cities bathed by the Mediterranean that in summer fattens its population. Nearby, at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), he studied a degree in Industrial Engineering. During his first professional experiences he realised that though, he was not a very bad engineer, he was better at coordinating people, so he decided to study a Master’s degree in Project Management.
Juny, who already had experience as a Project Manager in some Valencian construction companies, made the jump to CERN in early 2011. He worked here for 3 years, being responsible, among others, for civil engineering works for the upgrade of the LHC during the Long Shutdown 1 (LS1).
What he liked best, and what he missed most from CERN afterwards, was the diversity of its environment, and the sense of inclusion. “Your environment greatly affects your understanding of what life is and how things are”, Juny says with conviction.
He thinks this was one of the main reasons why, last month, he returned to work for a European institution. He is now a project manager SST at SatCen, the European Union Satellite Centre. But before he got here, even before he worked for 5 years at PLD Space, came his long-awaited shared around-the-world journey.
Mónica and Juny left in search of different beauties and new perspectives. They wanted to try to understand this great little world called Earth. It was their first time travelling as backpackers. It was also the first time that they were going to be without a job, and that can be a bit of a panic. But often things happen without knowing why, and suddenly they found themselves on a one-way flight towards the unknowns. They had saved money and made a budget to be able to travel for at least twelve months.
During their stays and transfers, Juny and Mónica gradually discovered the sense of awareness and freedom when not knowing what tomorrow will be like. This only prolongs the adventure that is our life, in which we must learn to let ourselves go.
Perhaps that is why Juny, who loves making plans, and thus has spent most of his life planning the next steps, prefers to live in the moment. “I have made a rational decision not to plan for the future, at least for now”, he says.
Juny is living a dream. Now they are waiting for their third daughter, who will arrive in December, to bring light and many joys to this 2020. Who knows if in a few years’ time the Junys’ blog will be back. Who knows when those five one-way tickets will arrive.