In my weekend summary, I mentioned that “the body adapts very quickly to these altitude differences.” It might be important to elaborate on this topic a bit,

since what else is moving abroad about if not acquiring adaptation skills?

I cheated a little because I researched what to expect before moving. The most enduring thought was something like: “you will have the ability to adapt quickly.”

This, of course, is partly a skill, an aptitude, and partly something that can genuinely be developed through practice.

Let's first look at the “physical” layer, perhaps that’s the simpler one.

When I arrived, I knew I was coming to a hilly island. I also knew I didn’t particularly enjoy running, biking, or cross-country skiing on hills. I don’t even like stairs. So, it seemed like a good challenge, given there would be plenty of opportunities to overcome this.

I usually like to buy deliberately, slowly, and not impulsively. Despite this, after 20 minutes of searching, I got into a taxi to buy my bicycle. And it was such a good decision! Many people tried to discourage me later, saying that Malta is not a place worth cycling. Maybe they’re right, but this was mostly said by people who either hadn’t tried it or only tried it once or twice.

I found that it takes about 2-3 weeks (in my case, 12-15 hours) of cycling for it to start feeling comfortable. My body also reflected this period because after this, I couldn’t get my pulse above 180 anywhere (last November at a running race in Normafa, it took me 13 seconds 😊).

So the body adapts, but what about the soul?

Here, perhaps the question of personality is more dominant. According to those highly professional online tests, I am right in the middle of the extrovert-introvert scale, which I long viewed as a huge burden and disadvantage, feeling like I was neither.

Of course, in reality, I can actually enjoy the advantages of both.

This helps with the daily routine, searching for balance.

• Meeting 20 people within 1 hour,
• then taking a long walk alone in the purple sunset, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Malta.
• Participating as the only Hungarian at an all-day business event,
• then listening to my favorite Hungarian songs for a couple of hours.

Obviously, this list could go on indefinitely, but what I want to say with it is that

everyone has their own toolkit developed over the years to moderate these swings. The best we can do is to use this toolkit.

And if it’s successful, we easily find ourselves modifying our preconception that “it will be very difficult” somewhat.