My Living in a State of Mindfulness

Disclaimer: This is my “new age” post.

I have just spent a month living mainly in the state of now. I did not worry much further in the future than where am I sleeping tonight, what will I do today, or when will I eat. I accepted what the situation was at the time and then acted accordantly. At times I did just what I always advise people, breathe and never felt the taffy pull of anxiety stretch my available energy to it most depleted state.

It has been a total decompression, a real holiday, as it should be, away from the pressures of my normal cares and responsibilities. 

There has been plenty of room to empty my head of useless thoughts and focus in on what is important. I have cleared my mind of the seemingly endless chatter and have been able to make decisions quickly because there has been little to no anxiety in my life.

Once again I have seen the beauty of the world. The grandparent playing with a child, the unbridled joy of connecting with strangers for a meal, or sharing a travel story, or even sharing experiences together for a short time, and the kindness of a stranger when I am lost or confused, helping me see the way.

I am experiencing a strong state of gratitude. Thankful for the life I have, the friends and family I cherish, the numerous opportunities that avail themselves to me, and the connections I have made with people along the way.

It is if I have been dancing with wild abandonment and have experienced such pure joy.

This trip has affirmed for me, that I can live amongst people of different cultures and find the commonality that exists between us.

It is not always easy not knowing what lies ahead. But I never lost confidence that something new and exciting was just around the corner.

As I sit here trying to add more of the descriptive posts to my blog, I wanted to share with you my personal feelings.

No trip is complete for me without the connections, to the people and places.  I fell in love with the beauty of many places I have visited and shared them at the moment via Twitter and latter at times via Facebook.

I expect this trip will sustain me throughout the year. That at times when I get upset or anxious about what is going on, I recall the attitude that helped me realize I was never never really lost, just experiencing another adventure.  That I continue to expect the best from people and they in turn react in kind.

My attitude on this trip has left me open to meeting special people, seeing incredible sights, connecting with history, and learning to forgive myself and other people for things that they we are not responsible for doing.

I hope you enjoyed the travel too and found something about it that resonated with you as well.

The Final Train Ride (for this trip)

I just left Brasov and I am on the train to Bucharest. I am taking the train because I heard the views are spectacular. I am being diverted from this experience by

• Getting on the wrong car (I am on train 347 not car 347, you can see how I could get confused?) and
• A mental challenged and drooling teenager, who also gawks temporarily sitting down across from me.

But now Minnie is all plugged in and I have a windows seat facing the right direction, with my new fav snack “Gusto” (fried corn puffs no additives, all natural, blah, blah, blah) and water to sustain me.

Sighisoara: Bring Your Garlic

My first introduction to Transylvania.

I really enjoyed my stay there. Nathan’s Villa was well kept and the people who stayed there amicable. When it wasn’t raining, I enjoyed sitting outside underneath the arboretum, drinking my a Siva beer and reading or working on my computer.

The town was fairly easy to navigate. I enjoyed running around the small Saxon city, which is birthplace of Vlad Tepes, Count Dracula, shopping at the local markets, meeting people, and visiting various buiildings

My favorite activity there was when I went to mass. The Romanian Orthodox Church service was very interesting. The service was filled with chanting and priest going in and out of a room in front, where he would open and close the doors while praying. Then at the end, the priest took loaves of bread and put candles in them, then he blew them out, but the bread in a bowl and covered it with oil, after that people came and took Holy Communion and left with bags of bread.

I made friends with a few people at Nathan’s Villa. First Neil, a British fellow now living in Sighisoara (he became night manager during our visit) via Berlin. An intelligent, interesting, and kind fellow, he seems a bit lost as to where to place himself in the world. If you ask me, he made a good decision staying on in Sighisoara, he might just decide what he should do next. The, Alison, a sweet young lady from outside of Mexico city – we will be spending more time together in Brasov.

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I liked the small town, easy pace of Sighisoara and even though there wasn’t a lot to see and do, I could have stayed a few more days (most people stay a day or so), after three days it was time to head to Brasov.

A Small Note About Romanian Food

Sausage, cabbage, meat, polenta, and potatoes, it’s fine but no where as good as the food in other countries I have been visiting. I mostly ate what I call the backpacker meal: ramen noodles, fresh vegetables, meat and egg. Backpackers eat a lot of pasta and ramen noodles when cooking in the hostels, we just do.

The Ride Between Sighisoara and Braşov

Getting off the small jitney bus at the rest stop between Sighisoara and Braşov was an experience in and of itself. Just take a look at some of the rest stop pictures. Do check out what they sell at the store, stuff for yo9ur car, weapons, snacks, trinkets….

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Bathing in Budapest

I thought I would have so much time to write during this trip, but instead I have been so busy trying to see and do everything. Of course I have been active on tweeter and Facebook, so you may have been getting snippets of my experiences.

Dorm Living

First off, I decided to forgo trying to get private rooms, since in most places I would have to share a toilet and shower anyway, I needed to start embracing dorm living. They are also about a third to a half of the price of single rooms if I can get them.

This has not been without its comical and noteworthy incidents.

Living in a dorm environment one gets an education in the latest of fashion for young men’s underwear and sleeping attire. It was in Budapest, that I woke up and saw the young man next me wearing super hero underwear. Another day one of my dorm mates spent the whole day in his superhero lounge pants. But most of the time the boys (yes I am hanging out with people who are young enough to be my children and some of them is more comfortable with the fact than others) wore the traditional backpacking dark y fronts. The girls normally sleep in t-shirts and both sexes sometimes barely managed to make to their beds normally sleeping in their day clothes till the late hours of the morning.

People party hard and rarely do you see someone headed to the dorm prior to midnight or waking before nineish unless they have to catch an early bus or train. All in all at Goat Hostel, the people were pretty courteous. The staff was very friendly and did a great job of keeping the place clean.

Budda and Pest

I enjoyed Budapest, once again the architecture took center stage of my attention to this city.

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The outdoor sculptures, the ornate cravings on the buildings, the mosaics, on the streets or the M1 the oldest metro line in the city built in the 19th century, were like eye candy to me. Yes, once again, I walked and walked, and then walked some more dazzled by what I found every time I looked ahead or around the corner.

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I also enjoyed the baths and managed to go three times, twice to Gellert Baths and once Szechenyi Furdo. I liked them both for different reasons, Szechenyi has a more local feel and Gellert was more upscale. At Szechenyi I even took a water exercise class in Hungarian. They both had numerous hot spring and normal temperature pools, steam rooms, saunas, etc.

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Dinner on the Town

My favorite meal was the one with tasting menu I ate at Olimpia which I live tweeted. It was a memorable and (I think was) 10 courses with wine pairings.

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Unexpected Connections

I am pretty open to meeting people. I was able to meet up with an artist friend of a friend of mine, who was very helpful to me. In trying to connect with her I met the owner of a gallery that had just finished showing her work.

M. the gallery owner invited me to come in on Thursday to see some of the photographs of the artists he represents. I saw some very interesting work of Eastern European photographers. Then M. asked me if he could show me some of the night life. I ended up spending the next two nights with him and a photographer from New York. God bless M., putting up with two New Yorkers for two evenings in a row.

The first night we went to the park, drank beer and listened to music. The second night was the Night of the Museums. Which is very cool, all the museums stay open until 2 a.m. and they have shuttle buses running between them.

We went to the a couple of museums. I loved the first show we saw. It was an incredible contemporary art show at the Műcsarnok. The picture to the left was taken by S. of all three of us.

Whew – I think that gives you a snippet of Budapest. Let’s see if I can start writing more about Romania tomorrow.

Some Budapest Pictures Posted to Facebook

 

Pictures on Facebook

No More Overnight Trains with Robbers

I am sure I have your attention now.

Yes, someone actually tried to rob me on the train from Budapest to Sighisoara. But tried is the operative word here.

It was a weird evening. First I couldn’t find my ticket. Then I found I had it in my day pack. Next I read the date 21.06 as the time instead of 23.13 which was the actual departure time, leaving me plenty of time to hang around the train station with no apparent waiting room. Hanging out at train station in the middle the night is not fun, it is spooky.

When I boarded the train, there was an anxious young Romanian woman, who spoke excellent English, already in the cabin, she had been traveling from Vienna. She was very nervous about the train. I remarked that we only had one lock on the door instead of the three I have become accustomed to on this trip. She said she had noticed that also and was concerned as well.

We reassure each other that the rumors regarding train travel are extravagated and go to sleep. Next thing I know (an hour or so later)  all the lights are on in our cabin. Still half asleep I ask my roommate what is going on and she tells me someone unlocked the door and tried to enter and she shoved him out. She was working on a way to barricade our door.

I have to tell you, that I sort of did not believe her. After all she was so anxious before we left Budapest, I just chalked it up to a bad dream. Then when the Hungarian immigration people boarded she went out to talk to our neighbors. It turns out that everyone had a similar story, except two people where robbed and one of the woman’s purses was found in the WC.

Apparently I wasn’t that concerned and fell asleep again, only to woken up by Romanian immigration. For those of you following me on twitter, you know I tweeted about it. Somehow I still managed to go back to sleep, the bed was very comfortable and woke up in time to wash up before arriving.

Perhaps I was not as unaffected as I would like to think. I lost the key to my locker two times within  twenty minutes this afternoon.

Bottom line, I went to the markets and bought food, made a nice lunch and went to sleep.

 

 

 

Now I am drinking this genuine Transylvanian beer: Silva only 7% alcohol (hiccup), typing and chatting with my French roommate underneath the arboretum in the back of the hostel.

I am glad to be out of a big city. The birds are chirping, I can hear not just the hum of the cars, but the clopping of the horses hooves as the carts go by.

Making Polish Popcorn – Part I

I could bore you with more stories of all the places I have seen in Poland.

Like listening to bored street musicians.

Or visiting a church.

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Or running around Old Town, with the largest town square in Europe.

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Or going to Oswiecim to see Auschwitz-Birkenau

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to be continued…

Update from Budapest

Besides the fact that I am behind with my writing, I have been having trouble uploading my blog entries with LiveWriter from this hostel. I will continue to write. Look for my tweets on the right hand side.

Budapest is another wonderful city. I am enjoying running around and relaxing. The Goat Hostel is very clean and the people are friendly. I am in a seven bed dorm, but last night it was just Tony and I. Tony is a sweet young man from Spain. People are generally considerate and it is fairly quiet.