#82 Katia Dimova | Chateau Co-Living

In 2023, we spent a month at a castle in Normandy with over 30 other worldschooling families. There, we met Katia Dimova, the founder of Chateau Co-Living. We spend many long nights talking, laughing, sharing moments, and creating friendships. 

Katia founded Chateau Coliving, where she combines her passions for travel, history, and community. Originally from Bulgaria, she has lived in over 50 countries, often alongside her partner Emmanuel and their rescue cat Gipsy. Katia's journey has included leaving corporate life, managing humanitarian projects, and launching a design business as a digital nomad 

Nestled in the heart of Normandy, Chateau de L'Isle Marie is a 12th-century castle reimagined for the modern remote worker and travel enthusiast. This historic estate uniquely blends ancient charm and contemporary comfort, featuring workspaces, a gym, and lush gardens. 

It fosters a vibrant, collaborative community ideal for those who value cultural diversity and shared experiences. With a focus on environmental respect and social interaction, Chateau Coliving is the perfect setting for balancing work and leisure in a tranquil, inspiring atmosphere.

▬ Episode links ▬

• https://www.chateaucoliving.com
• https://www.instagram.com/chateaucoliving 
• https://www.instagram.com/mybohemianstories 
• https://www.facebook.com/chateaucoliving 
• https://www.youtube.com/@chateaudelislemarienormand6262 

Chapters

• 0:00 Castle in Normandy Co-Living Experience
• 8:07 Community Living Dynamics
• 26:54 Building Community Through Co-Living

Transcript

00:00 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Ah, I've looked forward to this episode. Today we are together with Katja Dimuba, who we met a little more than a year ago. First of all, welcome, katja, so nice to see you again. 

00:12 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
Thank you. So nice to be finally on the podcast that I've heard so much about. 

00:20 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
When people ask us who travel full time, about our adventures and where we meet other people, then sometimes we kind of just say, oh, but Berkeley, who is traveling with us now? We met him last year in May at a castle in Normandy and they're like what? Yeah, we lived in this awesome castle for a month in Normandy, and the reason I'm mentioning the castle is well, it is yours and your wonderful husbands, and you have done an amazing thing with the castle Turned it into a co-living. So first of all, thank you for that, Katja. It is one of the experiences in my life that have been very meaningful during the last couple of years. We made so many friends here among you and I need to know why did you create a co-living? 

01:20 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
Wow, wow. Well, first of all, thank you for being there, for coming, because it's thanks to people like you coming that this place exists in this concept, why we turned it into a co-living, for a lot of reasons. So, first of all, me and my husband, we are travelers ourselves. We've been location independent since 2011 I think 2010, 2011, way before covid, way before it was trendy. We didn't even know that it's a thing. We just thought that we are weird people that are doing that. We couldn't explain this to anyone else, like they were not co-living at the time, at least, we didn't know of any. So what we would do? We would go to one place, stay for a few months or for as long as we like it, sometimes a few years, and then move on to the next one, to the next one, and then, along the way, of course, you meet people, you become friends, usually with the locals, sometimes with the foreigners that live in this place, because you don't speak the local language, so the only people you can connect with are the foreigners. And, um, we, we had this way of life for many years before we knew that the concept of co-living exists maybe didn't exist at the time and uh, then we stumbled upon co-living. Only in 2019, when we went to nonanko, living in Tenerife, we fell in love with the concept. It was the first time when you arrive somewhere and you don't have to explain yourself to people because they already understand, they understand your lifestyle. That was so new to me because always, like always, always, when we meet new people, you are so much in the defense because there's so much don't understand. But how come? But what is your? Where do you work? But how do you? But like all the questions, and you are always like in this explanation mode. And suddenly we arrive in this place and they're like oh, these are katya and emmanuel, and everybody is like super friendly, everybody understands, no questions, no, like everyone is living the same life. And I'm like, wow, what just happened? We came home. This is impossible. Um, so yeah, that's when, when we fell in love with co-living. That was 2019, so one year later, we all know what happened in the meantime. 

04:16
The castle, I mean, was existing for many years, obviously, but we were not hands on on it. It was like most castles operating as a luxury hotel with a big star, michelin chef, with like a lot of luxury services and stuff like that we are not part of the hospitality business. We both don't work in this area, so it was managed by completely other people. We had nothing to do with it at all. Uh, we didn't. We were not even aware how exactly like with the operations or anything, um, but then with covid, things changed very quickly. Everybody was forced to close all the short-term stays, everything Like. We all know the story. 

05:11
And then a few months later, we found ourselves with this place that has huge history. Of course it's beautiful, it's very nice what you see on the surface, but it costs a lot every month and if you don't do anything out of it, you just cannot. You cannot keep it and in a moment of COVID, you cannot sell it as well, because it's not exactly the moment where people were looking to buy huge properties. At the same time, we had our beautiful lockdown in a co-living place in tenerife. We had maybe the best lockdown ever and I was even feeling bad to to talk about it because all of our friends, they were stuck in tiny apartments, you know, in paris and london, in a tiny place alone. It was so hard, so depressive. 

06:05
When we were in a group of people, we were keeping, like, keep working and having fun all the time. And then I realized but this place is so big, it's in nature, it's a huge private place. Why? Why people should be stuck in their tiny apartments when they can be potentially locked down there? So I wrote to a few friends that I knew are able to work from home and I'm like oh, we'll be, we are out of tenerife, we'll be spending the next lockdown in, uh, normandy. It was the moment when they were opening, closing, opening, closing. Uh, if you don't want to be in a tiny apartment, come join us in Normandy. There is a lot of space. There is like the big park and everything we don't have. It's a private park so we can still go outside. I'm making the story very long, I'm sorry. 

06:56 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
So yeah, no, I love it, it's a good story. 

06:59 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
Some friends came. They fell in love with the place. They came, they fell in love with the place. They are like, oh, you should turn this into a co-living. Yeah, it's not that. It didn't cross my mind, of course, when we were in Tenerife and when we were living in this beautiful place. Of course you know that there is this property, but at the time still, the kind of work and travel digital nomad concept was so new that most of the people would go to tropical islands, bali, surf places, tenerife. I would never think, like why? Why they would go to normandy? It was not so common. There were not that many people that are doing that. Um, so I thought, yeah, that's not the kind of place that people are looking for. But but actually we decided later to give it a shot and it worked. 

07:55 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
And it worked. 

07:57 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
Because, if I have to be totally honest now, after so many years of living this life I don't know, maybe you will agree with that, but at some point, yeah, it's always nice to be in a nice place. Yeah, it's always good to have your nice room and stable internet and all of that. Those are important things and they are the basics, but at the end of the day, what is the most important why people are coming is because they are with other people that understand them. 

08:28
They are in a like-minded and I was trying to to explain this also to to people that have much more traditional life. They it's it's difficult to to explain why, for example, marketing in our case doesn't work in the same way like traditional marketing works. I'm coming with marketing background and I know you as well. Like the people that come to our place, they also come to places that go to places that are completely different price range, because they don't go for the place. They don't go for whatever is the place, providing they go to spend time with the people that will be there, and that's the magic of co-living. 

09:20 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah. 

09:21 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah. 

09:22 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
One of our T-shirts that we should make, uh is, the adventure is the people. We've been traveling for six, six and a half years now, full time, and it's just. You can see all the waterfalls and all the art and all the cities and all the architecture and all the cathedrals and I do want to see all that and I enjoy it very much. But the real adventure is the people. We meet always and we, when we travel, it's always because of people. We go somewhere, because we're going to see someone, and then they're all the cathedrals on the way, but it's it's. 

10:00 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
It's really for the people and I, ce Cecilia and I have talked about this, but we are actually even better versions of ourselves when we live together with other people. We argue less, we disagree less. Life is just easier. 

10:35
And that's a bonus, because normally if we had been alone something Cecilia said I can be annoying as it. No, but the thing is, sometimes when your partner says something, it can grow inside of you, but if you hang out with some friends instead, it was not that important and life just gets better and easier. And today I would actually. Sometimes I'm considering should we slow down at some point, not travel full time and live in a place? 

11:11 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
I'm like yeah, yeah, but not alone I would like to live with other people, now people are connecting to, to live with friends in the same, like little villages and neighborhoods, and stuff like that, the nomads that's meant to be. 

11:25
That's the new trend, but yeah, for me it's, um, it's quite fascinating also how much you learn about yourself when you live with other people. Uh, how much, I don't know. I I grew up in Eastern Europe and I grew up in a culture that is very direct, very like we don't sugarcoat, we say things as they are. There is no impolite, it's how it is. We are a very judgmental culture, which I've lived enough years abroad to not have that anymore, or at least to fight it very consciously. But in co-living is something that, at least for me, makes a huge difference. Because imagine, sometimes you, I don't know, let's say, you go out with friends and someone in the group that you just met, you don't vibe with this person like on the first, first glance, yeah, it's a friend of a friend, but it's not the kind of person that. Nothing wrong, but it's just we don't, we don't vibe. So basically, I will probably never see this person again in my life. Right, it's yeah, we're not gonna be friends, I'm not gonna look for this person, we're not gonna see each other again in co-living. This person spends the whole month with you. So you have to make an effort. You have to. You don't want to create conflict. It's I'm not talking about. I'm not talking about problematic people, I'm not talking about someone that is actively make doing something wrong. I'm just talking about purely people not vibing together. 

13:13
Then, when you spend some time with this person, you get to know them. You understand their background, you understand their story, their childhood, their, what they've been through in their life, you know what. And then you understand certain things that might be in the beginning triggering or annoying for you. You're like, oh, okay, I see now. And then, the more you get to know each other, the more you like each other, the more you understand like. Maybe like is too much. Maybe sometimes it doesn't go that far, but at least you are much more understanding, you are much more open, you are much less judgmental. 

13:58
For me personally, that was a huge thing that I discovered about myself is that having to spend time with people. It really changes your perspective on people and it really reflects back on yourself and how you see yourself and you're like, oh, no, a month ago I would have been like this person is super annoying, I don't want to be around. And now I'm like, oh, it's actually a really cool person and you know we have things in common and we can. It's um. It's one of the the things that I really like about co-living. 

14:37 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Just thinking. So we do a lot of co-living, but different style mostly than the castle experience. At the castle most people have their own little unit, I think. And then maybe you share bathrooms with a few, but not with everyone. So we were fortunate enough to share a lot because we shared the shared kitchen, so we had a lot of shared time and I I'm just thinking about how, because you said before, the new trend is to move in with your friends in the same little village and live close to someone you know and then maybe move on together. 

15:20
And to me, the magic of co-living is to be around other people all the time. So I would brush my teeth near someone I didn't know last week. I would do my yoga in the face of someone I didn't know last week. I would do my yoga in the face of someone I didn't know last week. All these little things. I'll sit down, do my work, and and and and all the everyday things, and when we do that, we get to know people so fast. If and and all of these, I don't know if I vibe with this, it's not even relevant it goes away within 48 hours yeah, but at the castle. 

15:59
How is it exactly the co-living works? 

16:02 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
so when you were, maybe to give some context, uh, when you were there, it was a pop-up dedicated only for families. So because it was families, like the adults and the children, we were quite packed. Actually, we are never that full. Usually we are around 20 people. Everybody has a private room. There are no shared rooms, except if it's a couple, of course, and, yeah, some people have private bathrooms. A couple of people have private kitchens as well. 

16:38
In the manor building, most of the people in the castle are sharing the big kitchen, uh, and yeah, a couple of rooms are sharing bathrooms as well. Like, it's always not more than two rooms sharing one bathroom, uh, which, with the families, was a bit more packed because there were also people involved. There were also families staying multiple people in one unit, but normally it's less people. Still a lot of sharing. We do also, in the regular co-living, a lot more curation. So this time, when you guys were there with the families, it was a more organized group, like a few people already knew each other actually a lot of people at least. 

17:28 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah, yeah most people knew at least someone. 

17:32 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
At least someone, yeah which with us is usually not the case. Very rarely someone knows other people from the group, so it takes in the beginning a bit more energy on our side. We try to have a call with the group before we curate. We put them in the same Slack group to share rights like who is coming at what time, all of those things we also organize like family dinners, lunches, community events, stuff like that. We try to find out in advance what are people passionate about? If they have any like interesting hobby or something that they can talk about, that they can share with others, if some people have similar jobs or something that can create some kind of interaction or synergy between them. So when we do except for the organized pop-ups when we do it with individual travelers it's a bit more curated in the beginning just to get it started the first week and then it goes naturally. Then people fall into, they understand how it works, so they start to self-organize. 

18:54 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
And it's usually a month, or is it a month minimum? How does that work? It's a month minimum. 

19:00 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
But now we do it with a kind of fixed date, so from the beginning to the end of the month, to make sure that the same group will be together, that there are no people coming and going in the middle, because we realized that actually for people who travel a lot, it's very exhausting to have this turnover of people leaving midway and new people coming. Also, just from a community building perspective for the group. When you arrive in a group that has already spent two weeks together and you have just arrived, the dynamics are can can be a bit weird. So, yeah, that's why now we have from the beginning to the end of the month. The dates are not fixed, fixed like we give the whole weekend and the Monday and the Friday so that they can arrange the most convenient travel. But, yeah, more or less they arrive at the same time and they leave at the same time and then they can stay multiple months. Uh as well. Okay, then again with the same uh, the same group and the same dynamic. 

20:10 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
This works really really well, in my opinion, much better than uh when people are coming and going in terms of connections catcher you are have created a place that's to me it's kind of magical and, of course, it's on a castle as well and I felt like a beautiful princess with long blonde hair while I was there. But it gives this you're creating a place that creates friendships for life, People who live together like that, and it it it. What a gift to give to people. It must be amazing. 

20:53 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
Yeah it, I will not be modest about that. It is. It is amazing to see how people become friends, how people sometimes they meet their partner, uh, in this place, like life partner. Sometimes they meet business partners. Sometimes Sometimes they start projects together. Sometimes, like it's so fascinating to see, like sometimes on Instagram they tag oh Chateau Reunion in Mexico, like five people traveling together who met at the Chateau. They found themselves again in Mexico or wherever, like South Africa, the other side of the world. They found each other again or they are actively planning things together. It's really nice to see that we actually did exactly that now that I think about it. 

21:49 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I didn't tag it, but we met up with two families that we met at the castle in Mexico and then two other families. Yeah, we met up with two families that we met at the castle in Mexico, and then two other families. 

22:01 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, we did that. So four families. So we met with Kenya and Mira and we rented a house to get with two of the other families. 

22:15 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
We have been hanging out, yeah, so thanks a lot it's really nice, I must admit yeah, why do you? 

22:31 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I do not want to talk too much down about the whole nuclear family, but only mention from my side that I grew up in a family where it was mom, dad and three kids and a dog, and that was what was normal. Now, the life I live, now, when I look at it that way of living together at small, tiny family units and people who are so unlucky to get separated so the family units are even smaller, I'm like it is just wrong way to live. I don't think we are meant to live like that. I think we are meant to live together. And at the same time I'm not ready, maybe I'm afraid, to live in a community where it's like, oh, now we invest all our life into living together with these people for the next 10 years. I'm not personally totally ready for that. And that's where the co-living come in. At this wonderful midway for me, a leeway over to more community living maybe. 

23:42 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
Yeah, absolutely, I think especially. Yeah, I don't want to talk about cliches and the digital age and how we are so disconnected because of our screens and all of that, which is true, unfortunately but human connection is something that is becoming more and more luxury in our times. Now, through human connections the real ones, not the fake I'm gonna post the best things on social media and make people jealous or whatever like the real human connections. Like I remember also with the world's cooling pop-up when we were sitting and talking about actual problems that people are facing, because we all have problems. Travel, life is amazing, everything is great, but everyone is facing challenges and problems and the level of of support from others, the level of understanding, all of those things when you are in a community makes a huge difference. 

24:46
At the same time and I understand, I'm like you, like I wouldn't live in a like one community with one group of people forever and we share everything. That's a bit extreme, at least for me at this point, uh, but people, we need this kind of connection and we need this kind of support and understanding. And, um, I think if we go back in history, like before capitalism I hate to say it, but people were living in groups and in tribes since prehistoric ages. We are meant to live in groups and to protect each other in one way or another. I think it's since this recent individualistic culture where that we are more and more separating into I want my, my stuff, my this, my dad, a lot of things for the for the ego to to flare up and become too much, take census stage when you don't have the community mindset. 

26:03 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
And I don't know. I mean what you did when you, when you risked it and allowed for the world schooling families to arrive at the castle last year, was it was really courageous because we were a lot of people. And I mean for the single traveler or for the couple traveling I would say, hurry up and sign up for some co-living at in Normandy because it's an awesome place. But I I'm also thinking right now, how many places do we have for the families traveling? I mean, we have found our way. Our tribe is just spread out over the entire planet and we move around between the different places we have where we know there are great people, and then we make pop-up communities for as long as we stay and sometimes we travel with one more family and arrive to a third one and then we're big enough group to be an actual group and have group dynamic, maybe 20 people together or something of that size. It's a reasonable size, but with children and I just think how do we make it work for families? And maybe that's the reason people stop. 

27:21 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
It might be. I think the difficult part is it takes so much organizing. 

27:32 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
You know how we are we are difficult to make an agreement with. That's the problem. 

27:35 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
This is the third time we try to have this, for example, but commit it, yeah it might want to go I don't know. 

27:47 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
My observation yeah, there are. It's more challenging with the family, of course it's. It multiplies the cost of the travel, the cost of the stay, but that's valid for families traveling. It's more logistics for sure. Um, when it comes to to living in a group in community, it's also each family has their own dynamics in a way, their own little habits, their own things. I think there are not a lot of co-living that are, um, catering for families right now. I think it's something that is coming big time because it's needed. I think it can be organized in a way with a bit more, probably a little bit more autonomy for each family, but then a big common space where everyone can hang out so that it doesn't disturb the normal family dynamics that everyone is used to. I don't know there are, there are ways to to do that but that you, I mean. 

28:57 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
You know the market and, as far as I see, there is no co-living that really caters for families as such, except for these big systems where you sign up and you pay a monthly fee and then you have, but in Egypt you get all you can eat with the families. 

29:16 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
That's not what you're meaning. 

29:17 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
That's not what I mean. 

29:21 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
No, but it will come and we could take part in trying to organize it at some point. Katja, one of the things besides loving all the late nights we had just sitting talking in the kitchen. It was so wonderful. I loved that a lot. 

29:39
What I really like about the co-living is these, you know, conversations where it starts in the morning but then people have stuff to do, it continues during the lunch and it maybe ends two or three days after. And what I really love about it is that co-living gives time for conversation to not be stressed and you can walk and think about something you said or I said and we can return to it. When I look back at my earlier life, I felt like I visited people more than I lived together with them. I went there and then there was almost a schedule you meet up, you're sitting down, going to have dinner, you talk about stuff, stuff, stuff, and then you need to have the dessert and then you need to do some kind of ritualized now we are together thing. Where I really like the talk when you meet in front of the kitchen or walking in the hallway and you stop and talk for half an hour. I, I love that yeah, that's the personal growth. 

30:55 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Again. I think that that I mean it's that's what co-living can do, that the social life of the people living in each their unit cannot do. Yeah, that you grow so much more it gives. 

31:10 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
Yeah, what is one of the big benefits is, as you said, it gives time, and it gives time to talk about things that are not on the surface, like we are so used to conversations on the surface, like even with friends, you call someone, oh, how are you? I'm good, yeah. The family, yeah, they're good, okay, me too. The job, yeah, it's okay, and you, yeah, like it's so much on the surface oh, yes, you know you're not gonna no, you know you're not gonna sit and talk for four hours. 

31:44
It's not like in the co-living, you only talk, but it's just like this surface level is gone super quickly in a minute, first time you brush your teeth in the face of someone else. 

31:56 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
You know it's just gone and you start talking about real things. 

32:00 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
And then you talk about real things and then it makes things deeper and more meaningful and even sometimes, like I, I really enjoy like small interactions which have big significance. Like someone in the co-working is like oh, what's up? Oh, I have this client, they want this. Oh, why don't you do this? And that like people immediately jump in to help or to give advice. And it's probably not, it's not a big problem. You know, it's not something that you would call someone. You would never call a friend for someone like that. It's just something that just happened to you during the day. Like someone you have a difficult work situation, but not difficult enough that you have to make a big deal out of it. You wouldn't normally talk to anyone about it, but since people are next to you, they're like oh, maybe we can help. Have you tried this and that? And oh, yeah, good idea. And like it's so, it happens, so natural. But these small things, they, they help a lot also, I think it becomes very personal very fast. 

33:13 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
it because you live together, you get to know each other very quickly. 

33:16
We said that like 45 times by now and and I just noticed that when we move around, then if you see someone and there's something you know you you'll stop and say are you OK, what's what's up? And it could be oh, I just stepped on a sharp stone, ok, no problem moving on. But it could also be I just had this call from my mom and you know my uncle is sick, and this, this and. And then you have someone who notices you right away before you would call out for help, before you would find your spouse or your best friend and say I need to talk about this. It's painful for me. Someone sees you because you are around other people who actually do know you and you'll have dinner with them tonight and you brush your teeth with them a few hours later and it will just be this dynamic and I think it becomes personal and it also very quickly people start taking responsibility for each other's happiness basically, which is such a beautiful thing that happens in these co-living moments of life. 

34:23 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
And sometimes or often, we grow after having spent time with people. It is often when we have lived together with other people. We often have a half a day of driving until the next adventure and there we share what we learned and what we could see we could do better and what we wouldn't copy in our life. And, for example, we have just been recently together with our good friends Chris and Doris, and Chris is so good at giving grace to people. When we leave, he often has an almost ritual of sitting down together where he shares in a non-invasive way and it's a fun word to use about it what he likes about you, what he appreciates about you and how he sees you and sees how you have grown since last time. It's overwhelming, but it's really a nice thing. I would like to learn from seeing how it affects me to really see another person. 

35:51 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
Yeah, that's interesting. It's really something that you can do when you, when you feel much deeper connection with the people. And also like, coming back on the question of like, I like to give the example of living in tribes and supporting each other and all of that. But you remember, even when you were there, um, there were people that would have like I don't know, one of the children is sick or something like that. The other child is taken care of, someone cooked, the other kids are playing. 

36:36
It's like life becomes easier and you don't feel like a burden because it's not like you called your best friend and you said, oh, I'm sorry, I have an emergency, can you babysit for me? It's not the case, it happens naturally, and you are not feeling like you are asking for a favor. You are not feeling like you're asking for help. It just people collectively, just everyone does what they can to help the situation when they see that someone is having a hard time, and this is, for me, something very beautiful. That doesn't happen otherwise, like doesn't happen in normal life. Very often it's a lot of people are struggling by themselves. I'm not gonna mention even single parents, people with sick kids sick parents, yeah, makes life much less lonely yes, katja. 

37:32 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
How do you think that people not ready for co-living maybe they don't think they have the opportunity, maybe they are not living, a lot of people haven't yet changed into a digital nomad kind of lifestyle where you can move around, of course, but the best elements of co-living have you thought a little about how people can try to integrate this in, I would would say, normal life? Um, what can they do, if they want to, to get the taste of what co-living is? 

38:20 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
I haven't thought about it that much, to be honest, because I didn't have this life for many years, so it's very difficult for me to come back. There are a lot of people, for example, living in I don't know, in units like condominiums or kind of complexes, like family apartment complexes and stuff like that, even with houses, gated communities and stuff like that. Even with houses, gated communities and stuff like that, do they really know their neighbors? Do they want to meet their neighbors? Um, how, how can they basically get to know just the people that live around them? How can they maybe organize something together? Try to interact a bit more, try to learn a bit more about the person than what they do for a living. It's's something that I posted on LinkedIn a few months ago. 

39:28
When you ask people to introduce themselves, very often they start with their job. But your job is not who you are, your job is not your label. Why you don't start with your hobby or with what you like, like, oh, I like cats, you know, or whatever. This is what says more about you than your job, if you think about it. So I think very often even, yeah, starting with the neighbors is one thing, and then doing things with friends, maybe for a short time, maybe just for a for a week or for two weeks, maybe just for a for a week or for two weeks. Rent a house, do something with friends and see how, how you live together, how you, how you interact together I remember when we had a house we we had sometimes there was like a street party thing that way. 

40:27 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
That was very rare, but we had some of the neighbors we decided that we would have dinner every second tuesday together, so it became more like a regular thing and we had a lot of children, they had a few children, so it was a big ish thing. 

40:43 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
That's not hard to do either, to like make local little things that make your neighborhood more like a co-living area yeah, actually, the more you do that regularly, the more the connection goes on a deeper level, the more you, uh, stop talking about the things on the surface and the everyday things that are anyway. Everyday things are happening. It's not that we should always have only deep conversations, but if you really want to get to know these people, the more often you spend time together like in co-living, you are together all the time, so it goes quickly. But yeah, as you said, if you meet every week, then the first week you learn the basics about them. The second week you learn a bit more about their past, their family and the fourth week what they hate about their family more and more and more and more, yeah and then and then you get to the good stuff. 

41:42
Yeah, I mean I hate to say it, but at least in co-living most of the people it's so easy to bond over. I don't want to call it trauma, but small traumatic events or difficult things that happen to you Big or small, it doesn't matter but it's really much more a point of connection than the happy moments, to be fair but it also I love this stupid little saying that, uh, scared pain is half the pain and shared happiness is double the happiness, and maybe pain needs to be be halved more than happiness need to be doubled sometimes. 

42:33 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Katja, it is about time because we try to keep our podcast in a in a certain length. From my side, I just want to say to everybody if you are traveling, a nomadic want to have the best experience and of your life, you should check out the chat to co-living and uh, catch where do people find you and follow you and um, read more about your wonderful project thank you so much for saying that. 

43:04 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
First of all, uh people can find us. Our website is chateauco livingcom. All together uh instagram handle as well chateauco living tiktok soon. We keep postponing it because because we are above the age limit. Now I don't know if we are allowed. 

43:26 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
They don't let us in. 

43:28 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
Yeah, but all the information is on Instagram and on the website. And we are now talking about deeper connections. We are, in winter, hosting also thematic months which are about fostering even deeper connections between people when they have a shared hobby or a shared interest. Uh, so that's what we will be doing this winter. We have one month that is dedicated for writers, one month that is a french immersion for people who learn, want to learn french, uh, so that people can bond a little bit more than just being nomads or location independent, but also over a shared interest. And, yeah, all of that is on the website. 

44:20 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Wonderful. 

44:21 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
We will put the links in the show notes as well. 

44:23 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Absolutely. 

44:25 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
And I hope we'll be back soon. 

44:27 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Oh yes, oh yes. 

44:28 - Katia Dimova (Guest)
Always a pleasure to talk to you. It gives me throwbacks to the late nights in the kitchen thanks a lot for your time, katja thank you.