Noah moved to the Algarve from Ireland last year following visiting a friend here. He told me he collected all his belongings and his cat and took the plunge, explaining that “everything fell into place; the great weather, nice people and a great apartment kept me here.” He added that “this place reminds me of Cyprus, which I really love following living there for a little while. I am finding a lot of good opportunities here and there are a lot of spiritual people and a lot of people I resonate with.”

Noah kindly shared a synopsis of his book which reads “In September of 2020, I left Ireland to walk Camino de Santiago, starting in Paris, to untangle my heartbreak and make sense of what life is. This book is a collection of writings I put down during my travels. In this book, I repeatedly attempt to express the connectedness of love in our everyday lives—the exciting simplicity of relationships that are always complete in all their sharp corners and curves. The emotional journeys lovers go through separately and together, how large the space between two people sharing a life can get. And how close a person can remain, as the imperceptible cord of unconditional love ignores time and space, we’re all so reliant on to keep us sane.”

Different stages in life

“The first piece in the book is in Germany and then it goes to Ireland and then I jump back to Cyprus and then back to France and then the last part is in the Algarve and all of the last pieces set in Portugal are more or less the beginning of a different stage in life with more independence.” Adding that “I have changed so much since I started writing this book, I feel much more self-assured and independent and I have found many more things to be very grateful and happy about in life.”

I asked what readers can expect “From Here to Bordeaux” and the author told me that the “main topics are travel, love and life and all these topics are very interrelated with each other.” Adding that “I wanted readers to be able to resonate with it and people who have read it have said it sparked personal reflections of their own experiences.”

Noah revealed that he didn’t plan to write this book and that a couple of years ago he started writing a horror novel which he told me was not his best work but he learnt a lot from the process. By not planning this book worked really well as he kept putting down little pieces of creative non-fiction and little by little, I found I already had a good chunk to make into a book. I started to rearrange all the pieces and it built its own structure.

Inspiration

He explained what inspired his debut was “after breaking up with a girl he was with for a long time and that he went to do the Camino walk but was unable to finish it.” “It was October, it was very cold and I didn’t do enough research and it was too freezing to stay camping in a camping hammock so I only made it to Bordeaux. During this walk, I was writing about the emotional journey after a break up so more or less the inspiration was all of the feelings.”

I asked Noah if he found writing to be healing and he told me “I expected it to be that way but when I was finished the book and by writing all of that, I was trying to cling onto the past and the girl and my own feelings and writing more and more so I could relive old memories and relive what was not physical anymore. Regardless, I think it was a good outlet anyway.”

From speaking to Noah, I could tell he was very passionate about his craft, “I think when I was a kid, I didn’t know I wanted to be a writer because I wanted to be a detective and more exciting things back then but as I was going through all of these phases, I was writing about all of them and I realised writing was the one thing I have always done and has always stuck with me no matter what ideas I had.”

Old towns

I asked if the Algarve has inspired him in which he enthusiastically replied “Definitely! It is very relaxing here and there is this old Portuguese feeling you can find in Faro for example. I find a lot of inspiration in a lot of these old towns that have been preserved.”

Noah affirmed that he is working on writing novels, “the first one was terrible and at the time I didn’t have the skill to write a novel but now I realise how complex it is to build an actual novel so I am slowly but surely trying to write a novel.”

“I want to keep writing,that is the only thing I see myself doing so I don’t think anything else could replace writing” and he affirmed that he plans to do more book signings in the Algarve, in the future.

“From Here To Bordeaux” is out now! You can purchase a copy by visiting https://coffeewithnoah.com/. Additionally, you can keep up to date with author Noah Balulis via https://www.instagram.com/noahbalulis/.

Author

Following undertaking her university degree in English with American Literature in the UK, Cristina da Costa Brookes moved back to Portugal to pursue a career in Journalism, where she has worked at The Portugal News for 3 years. Cristina’s passion lies with Arts & Culture as well as sharing all important community-related news.

Cristina da Costa Brookes