Winners

You know that actually Western Europe’s architecture is very similar? Places tend to be so very same, that it can give you the creeps. I even started thinking that maybe I am just fantasizing about traveling, and not doing the real thing.

Its because of the winners. The continent has a record of balcanization and wars for such a long time that it is easy to think that if your village is at war and loses, the winners come giving their genotype and their thinking to the ones that lost. If you take it from the cultural prospective, then someone has won a long time ago.

And this winning culture continues to win, spreading itself to the East. Some may call it globalization, but rather than big regions assimilating small in a distributed manner, it is more of the West spreading to the East.

Imagine from the opposite point of view. Being asian and all the people around being with the same skin and hair color. But on the billboards, on TV, on magazines, wherever you turn your eye you see the western ideal of beauty. Imagine what happens in your head.You wouldn’t want to be the person you are, to have the look you have.

Inspiring this type of self-hatred is one of the known ways to make a nation weaker.

I would call it cultural raping. But this is the way things go. Winners take it all.

Something  very far from the above topic – the US did make a terroristic attack on the Middle East in 2001. The bad thing about our enemies is that, in order to beat them, we become like them.

Свобода

Свободата e всичко, което си мисля. Всички теории, които градя въз основа на преживявания, които не мога да обясня.

В мига, в които седна да обяснявам, се изправям срещу ограничения си речник, срещу невъзможността да споделя опита си директно, за да покажа на отстрещната страна защо моето заключение е толкова значително.

Бих могла да гледам на горното като на мрънкане и пореден опит за изграждане на стена между мен и външния свят, или да го приема като предизвикателство.

Досега знам само, че като се срещна с думите, те със своята определеност променят смисъла на моята мисъл и ме объркват, защото не са това, което исках да кажа.

Та свободата е точно тази липса на определеност, която създава светът около нас. Свободна съм всеки ден, когато съм сама, защото мисля каквото си искам. Свобода отвъд тази има само след смъртта.

a bad day?

1. I am having a stress disorder from the earthquake, I feel hungry all the time, I have a headache and I need lots of hugs

2. The essay I was proud of scored 39/100, it gave me 25th place out of 25

3. The fucking financial crisis hit the family with my sister being sacked from a big american company today.

4. I am monogamous. I am not deaf, I am not blind, I like pleasures. Just when I am with one person I do not dare to think about someone else. I stopped drinking on parties to limit the risk exposure, especially after the last time in a series of blackouts. So it turns out he kissed another because he felt like it.

5. Then I am wrong with the sudoku again, I got two 7s in a column. At least I am doing it in the highest difficulty. I have systems

So all in all, this day is a bit stressing. After gettin over with the fear that I am of mediocre intelligence, I have to cope with the fear that tomorrow there are 5 degrees with snow and I have to go with the elegant boots to make a good impression on an interview. Supposed I sleep this night.

I will get some sleeping pills from my mother because I feel that my head is going to burst. Good night.

P.S. In the end I am alive, shit happens, usually not to me, but it happens. I am still optimistic and positive. I have redrawn the sudoku to start it from the beginning, I will try at another essay competition, my sister is going to find a job, she is an excellent professional. I ate a big big dinner, so I hope I will stop with the stress. Earthquakes are part of the systemic risk, can’t help it if I die in one. And the kiss? I will accept it, do I have a choice? Accept and try to move on because I love that man. If I don’t manage to move on then my love has not been so strong. If it happens again, I will leave him for good and go to a monastery because I would be fed up with all those retards that are the other part of humanity.

parlami d’amore

Well, well, again back to Sofia. Strange is the difference when you get all the language spoken around you.

Maybe in Italy the people are the same, or maybe just here they don’t know how to be happy. My staying-at-home period continues smoothly.

Amore amore amore… its ironic how my heart seems to choose targets as far as possible from here. But I think it is better to be with a worthy person within a 2k km distance than with someone less here. He is just what I wanted and what I need. Negramaro – Solo per te.

You know days don’t run away from you. Time is always at its present. Its just us, with our mortal senses, that give it speed and frustration.

I had long afternoons in Torino, a brief flu, too short evenings, too short weekends. I had the pleasure to take part in a Red Bull Soap Box Race, our vehicle was a wild west settler’s cart, but some memorable ones were a platform with toilet and baththub, a big homer simpson on a tyre, a barbie car, an egyption thing and in total 60+ house-made-house-designed-vehicles:-) We were 19th, counting from the back.

My amore brought me as a suprice to Cinque Terre, a beautiful place, consisting of 5 villages next to the sea and we even hired a canoe and sculled from one to another village. Check it out in Google, its beautiful, memorable.

On my own I went to Genova, and this city is brilliantly beautiful. It is full of big churches, small hallways, prostitutes and small shops:-)))))

And Torino itself. This time I went there for a different reason, and for the better somehow I know that my erasmus has ended and left me a very grown up person. I still have to see the town of the Savoia in winter, but from now on it is only a scenery, not a main hero in the play of my life:-)

Back

Back to basic, back to Sofia, back to Bulgaria, back to the sanctuary of my room and the questioning eyes of my cat:-)

It is not like home anymore. I left home in Italy with an blue eyed italian and I have now to go back there every once in a while to stick my flag on the top of it (of the home:-)

So I am here back as a guest only, which is even a better way to enjoy it:-)

The key from the cellar

Well, now is time for a bit of free advertising.

Maybe you have wondered how could an erasmus student, living entirely on her grant (and daddy’s affection which grows with the distance between us), not working, to be able to do such a big trip.

Its easy.

I just bought all the tickets two months before, they were low cost, I used Ryan Air, German Wings and Wizz Air. There are also Easy Jet, My Air and others, but used only the first three. I selected the cheaper options for without check-in luggage, so I was travelling for 20 days with my backpack, in it two t-shirts, some underwear, a sweater, a jacket, some spaghetti tops, camera, cabels, liquids (in 100ml packages, less than 1l, face cleanser, facial cream, sun cream, no shampoo), a soap and some other small stuff.

It was very important to have a card, so when I went to Norway or Sweden I just withdrew the currency from the ATM machine, I admit that I have no idea of the charges and would like to continue this blissful state of unawareness.

I didnt go into museums, I didnt eat much, I travelled in public transport without a ticket a few times, I learned to ask for my student reduction.

After that comes couchsurfing.com . This site literally saved my sorry poor ass.  But not only it reduced my costs to zero, I even met some wonderful people. I met a very sweet muscian in Oslo, who took a bit of social damage for letting me stay, I met a great painter and saxophone teacher in Berlin, who had that beautiful positive air around him, I met yoga teacher in Warsaw and went with her to a yoga lesson in the early morning from 6am till 10. While I was staying with her in Warsaw there were also 3 spanish guys, two of them were doing a bicycle ride from Spain to Beijing. It was nice also to listen to the excited phylosophical talking from the guy from London or just enjoying the silence when I am reading my book and my host is reading his in Paris.

I didnt have any bad situations, I was safe everywhere. Ofcourse there are also negative experiences, ofcourse you have to have a back up plan, addresses of hostels and so on, but for me, till now couchsurfing has been a wonderful experience.

It is also a network of people sharing a passion for travel, who are open for new experiences and cultures and love to have the inside view for a place.

well well

I think I never was that happy to come home as yesterday evening when I arrived in Torino. It was an evening, the lights were set as in a movie and it was beautiful.

Before that I was thinking I would enjoy a full first class ride from Paris to Torino (1st class just because it was cheaper than second class) but then it turned out that the italian railway had a strike (again, almost on a two weeks basis) and from the border we were transported with a bus. Well, there wasnt a first class bus for my money, but the train was nice enough:-)

And then Torino… I was so happy tobe finally home:-) Somehow Paris is nice, but Torino is better:-) The hints in the architecture of the buldings, which I liked in Paris, are pillars here:-)

Well, Torino doesn’t have that taste of a cosmopolitan city either, but it is just how I like it, not too big, not too small:-)

So I’ve decided to try to stay here as much as possible, as much as I want, and I just hope for it.

 

So back to Paris… yes, it is nice:-) I went only to one museum, museum d’orsay, it was a 3 hours walk and I do not remember almost anything, but I saw Van Gogh, I saw some french guys, I liked some pictures and I’ve got the artists´ names written somewhere.

I couldn’t force myself to wait for the Eiffel tower and I was anyway too stingy for it, so I just went to Monmartre and the sacred heart basilica and from there the view is nice enough. If you visit Paris I recommend you to buy a batobus ticket, it is a river shuttle to all the major sights, it is on a hop on hop off basis and it gives some very unique views and it is on the river:-).

I guess in that city of love I was only of the few people, who were alone there, but this is the way I liked it even more. From this big eurotrip I learned that travlling should be done either alone, either with a lover (havent checked out that yet) or with a friend, who has the same preferences (too difficult to find, so back at alone.)

Somehow french cheeses didn’t go well with my stomach, so I didn’t enjoy that much french food.

Hmm, nothing else to log.

End of transmition:-)

Mmmhh

Well, from today on I am stopping alcohol consumption temporary for a unspecified period.

What did it? Being bored, 7-8 glasses of french champaign and a bit beer. Fact is I do not remember anything. or almost anything.

It all started as a cocktail party at the fine arts museum in Lille. It was promised to be Jazz party, and there was jazz, but slow and smooth. Between the 3rd and 4th glass I had a juicy conversation with two other girls, after the 6th, or maybe it was 7th or 8th?, I crashed the dancefloor with a guy from Pakistan, to make company for the drunk briliant Russian proff, who was dancing with one of the indian girls. Today the proff looked also like shit, I bet she regretted dancing:-)

After that I got between two german proffs who suggested to me the idea that I am pregnant. Well, yes, I have a belly, who doesnt, and it is somehow nice to be taken for slightly pregnant. But I bet they were also drunk.

After that our group went to a bar and from somewhre there I do not have any memory, or just flashes.

I have to thank an indian guy, who found my shoe in th metro and kept me straight:-) and to the canadian girl with the nice tatoos that brought me to my room:-)

So all in all everything went nice and funny. The hangover was hell. At 6am I woke up in my bed, alone luckily, and was still drunk. I went for refreshing shower but was still drunk. At 8.30 I woke up abruptly and went to report. I drank lots of water but at some point before noon it came back the same way and I was rather sick.

Now I am ok, I am waiting for the chilli dinner, after it I will enjoy Lille city centre with the indian people and sleep.

Tomorrow I am in Paris.

what happened after Sweden?

Good question.

Then came Warsaw, Oslo, Warsaw again with early yoga lesson, then was Koln and the EM finals, where germany lost, then came Berlin, in which I fell in love, London, in which I could recommend only the Speakers Corner in Hyde Park. Then there 3 or 4 days hectic break, with my mother being in Torino, and now I am in Lille, France.

I am here a volunteer for a conference for women in science, food is good, Paris is after friday, parties look good, guys are scarse, so standards are so low that there is no point in taking them into account. Its only we, girls and them, adults – professors.

I am reading Good Omens, a souvernir from London stansted airport. Talking about airports – I have a vital tip for people suffering from severe cases of cabin pressure – on your next flight get on with bonbons and consumate them during the whole flight energetically, so that your jaws get enough movement and your Esomething tube doesnt decide to go on vacation.

Hmmm, what else? I don know. The speakers corner was just amazing, a place of complete freedom, theoretically ofcourse, where you just need to carry a chair to climb on and you can start preaching to the world your ideas ranging from God to home recipies. you should only be sure not to sound too anti, as I bet there were lots of civilian policemen there.

Berlin… I still cannot shake off my head that incredible linden perfume. Sure people living there get easily high from it and this throws them in all those historical extremities, from nazism to love parade. And the atmosphere, all those caffees.. it is sweet, it is precious, and I love it.

Hmm. I wonder when and how to go back home, maybe linger a bit in torino, or maybe come back straight, but at least the return way is clear-train from Torino to Venice, stay there for a few days, then with the ferry to Greece from where if I get lucky I would return early enough to take some exams.

Sweden

I came, I froze, I liked

Can put a pin on Gothenburg now! If you are ever coming to this part of the world skip the city and try for the beaches, islands and all the other signs of the outrageous nature here:-) It´s severe, but beautiful.