People often romanticize being a writer. They think it’s just chilling in a log cabin somewhere in the mountains, sipping from a steaming cup of coffee and letting the words flow onto the virtual Macbook paper while people outside wait eagerly to devour what you’ve come up with.

The truth, unfortunately, is slightly different: Mostly, writing is sitting in your office keeping warm on instance soup, trying not to browse Youtube as you wonder what will kill you first: The cold or the existential angst of being a failure in life.

Mostly.

Sometimes, you actually do get that cabin in the mountains. And when you do, you have to go for it. That’s how I ended up in Austria, near the border to Italy, surrounded by four dogs and a whole lot of mountains.

And that’s where I was that guy. The romantic writer in the cabin, sitting at his computer and writing, developing something cool with colleagues, petting dogs, baking cakes, watching Star Wars and then going out to watch the actual stars.

Okay, I was that guy plus baking and geeking out.

Pretty cool, nonetheless.