un dimanche matin, détendue

Butter your toast this Sunday morning with British Sea Power.

connections par des photos

Chain Bridge. Budapest, Hungary

Liberty Bridge. Budapest, Hungary

Charles Bridge. Prague, Czech Republic

Metro escalator leading to up to the other escalator (that leads to the stairs) that leads to the city.

Prague, Czech Republic.

pensées d'un voyage. Budapest, Prague

Thoughts on the bus ride from Budapest to Prague. 15 février 2010.

Lift your eyes, love, and let your worries drop like snowflakes onto the field of fields.

Lift your eyes, love, and feel this place.

Its crooked hills.

Its quiet people.

Rub your cheeks with the ice cold of this winter

and know that this snow won't last forever,

nor the hills, nor the mountains --

Walk these streets with the brisk of this wind

and know that your thoughts are going into this place,

your thoughts, love, are forming this place.

So lift your eyes, love, lift your eyes.

***

The thing about American travelers....

It's not that we're not proud of where we came from (double-negative, wham!), we just want to get away. America is huge. There's a lot to see. But America is, well, full of Americans. There are languages to be learned, cultures to be exposed to, and food to be eaten! My friend Julia says that "traveling has to do with curiosity." I think that's true. But the thing about American travelers is that when we're away, most of us feel a tad bit ashamed of who we are (and the stereotypes that come with our culture). Loud. Unfashionable. Hungry. Cheap. And the shame gets mixed in with the pride.

So there we were, three American girls in Prague - me, Julia (Colorado-ian), and Natalie (New Yorker). The city is booming with young American girls...students mostly. With Northface sweaters and white poofy earmuffs (which only permits them to be able to yell even louder so they can hear one another). I'm not judging. Don't judge me for sounding like I'm judging. (because I am). Really, if I were to turn around and spin into a dizzy whack of what the hell, an icy mirror would go "smack" in my face, telling me that I'm just the same. I'm a young American passing through Prague with an American accent, wearing a bright blue American coat to compliment my oh-so-American jeans. And everyone knows it. It's not like I really care, actually, it's more the disappointment of having to tell someone that I'm American after they find out I speak English. Come on, if I speak English, I at least want to be Irish or Canadian or British or Austrailian! In the end, though, I'm happy to be American and talk America.... because, you know, Europeans like the films and the TV shows and even Obama! But I've wondered if maybe people from other cultures feel the same way sometimes -- this sort of funny retort toward their own culture?

For Example:

on the Tea House in Prague, 17 février 2010 (true tale)

There once was a Czech guy talking to a Greek couple, and the Greek couple said that the Czechs were friendly and nice, but the Czech guy said, "no the Greeks are friendly and nice." The Greek man said, "Greek people may seem friendly because we like to talk, we talk and talk

and talk, but you, you people think, you feel. Greek people just make noise in the street and talk without thinking." And the Czech said, "all Czech people think about is beer."

......oh, and us Americans are also proud of McDonald's. Because sometimes a McFlurry is just irresistible...even on an enchanted night in Budapest.

mars est arrivée

February came and went like a needle slipping through my fingertips. It was there and I could feel it it’s pinch - the blistering cold of the central cities and the soothing sting of ginger tea...but at the same time, it felt lightweight, delicate, and barely there. February seems to have gotten cut short, in large part because there’s only twenty-eight days in the month, but mostly because just when it seemed like time was slowing down, the snow was gone, the sun was out, and voilà, spring was on its way.

When two to three days just disappear from your schedule, it makes you realize how much a month actually counts. I tend to get thrown back into the calendar when a new month rolls around - and there’s always something exciting to me about what’s to come. Retrospectively speaking, the middle of a month has got to be the least interesting. The beginning and the end are what make your heart race. Like a novel or a marathon run. It has to do with balance of extremes, I suppose. Yin and Yang - Moon and Sun - Birth and Death - that kind of stuff. What I find most fascinating about existence, though, is time. Time balances without a beginning or an end, it just steadily continues. It is constant, but it’s opposite does not even really exist. Therefore, it balances without extremes. And this is its phenomenon. All that can be said about it, really, is that it continues moving forward.

What stays are things like love, belief, greed.

What dissipates are things like cement, shoes, computers.

There is that saying, “the only constant is change,” that comes from a greek philosopher...but if you think about it, change comes from time. So I say, the only constant is time. Don’t lose it because it’s not going to stop. Or, as Ferris Beuller would say, (obviously much more wise than Heraclitus) “life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”