The Big Balkan Trip. Novi Sad, Serbia

The Trip began quite unexpectedly, because we caught a ride from some forgotten gas station near Brno straight to the Serbian border. We crossed a border on foot, watched a sunrise and had a coffee on the back of the gas station and watched huge Muslim family having huge breakfast.

In few hours we were already in Novi Sad and watched all the wonders of ex Yugoslavia for the first time.
From cars with old, Yugo-plates, whole streets full of old, falling apart buildings just a few meters away from new and shiny buildings, dozens of cats, Cyrillic writings in this lovely, funny language, we somehow more or less understood.

Through discovering new, local vegan food, accidentally finding a wonderful bike-cafe and getting to know lovely people. And the impression of microcosm hidden in the little, pastel-co loured, calm streets as well as the conscience of going through the hometown of a friend of mine, knowing it only from her stories.
And the first contact with the heat, which was still pretty mild as it was supposed to turn out.
Lots of positive energy and a long train ride to Belgrade.

Jealousy vs. The Black Queen aka down.with.love.

And now for something completely different. Sorry, it will get personal again.

You all, even those who weren't yet born before Freddie had died (how, for the hell's sake, is that possible by the way!) surely know the band called Queen.
It's been one of the first bands in my music education and I would call it the most important one in creating my choosy music taste for melodies and out of the ordinary solutions and I've loved them since I was 6. I love them still, for the ideas, for the form, for the music and.. for the lyrics.

Countless times the music in general saved me from being totally down and wreck. In last days I had to have a lot of music therapy.

"Oh how wrong can you be?
Oh to fall in love was my very first mistake
How was I to know I was far too much in love to see?
Oh jealousy look at me now
Jealousy you got me somehow.."

Oh, yes, I promise myself never, ever be jealous of anyone ever again. I felt it was the most annoying feeling I could emit and the one that made me feel the most pathetic in my own eyes.

But falling in love never again seems like not so bad idea as well...
I know, that *love is revolution* whatsoever, but I slowly start to have an impression, that maybe it's not the actually the best thing for me.

There are so many beautiful things about being in love and sharing it and projecting it on others and teaching it to others and even living and feeling it with others.
But for me the bad part in it is falling out of myself and becoming weak, brainless, dependent, mediocre, pretty boring and passive person.

It happened to me already 3 times. One time I remained myself, because I was in a distance relationship. The other times I failed.
At the moment I'm on a best way to become my-real-self again, strong, independent, fascinating, alive to the bone, with all the malice, sharp tongue, sharp mind, lust for life, passion, impulsiveness, amazement, and energy..
And the love, of course, in endless resources, but this one I still need to learn how to manage and dose it really wisely.
Before that happens, I'll care a bit less, expect little or nothing, go rather for patience and acceptance of what comes and fight when there's a threat and a deep need.

"Walking true to style
She's vulgar 'buse and vile
Fie-fo the black queen tattoos all her pies
She boils and she bakes and she never dots her "I's"

Forget your singalongs and your lullabies
Surrender to the city of the fireflies
Dance with the devil in beat with the band
To hell with all of you hand in hand
But now it's time to be gone - forever"

I'm not going to dot my "I's" neither. And take a good care of my fireflies.
So take it as it is, with all the good and the bad sides, with no regrets.

Balkan Street Art

When i started to sort out the pictures from the Big Balkan Trip I realized that I've seen so many great pieces of street art that they deserve a separate post.
There you go then, chronologically.

Novi Sad, Serbia

First city on our Balkan map, first big surprises.

"BIGZ" Belgrade, Serbia

Amazing place, lots of good works.

Prokuplje, Serbia

Some little town in north Serbia we just passed through on a hitch hike roam towards Kosovo and not as impressing as surprising pieces.

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina

Mostar, Bosnia and Hercegovina

The most amazing piece of art I've seen. 1 m wide, hand made owl (no copy!), placed on a fence surrounding ruins of a building.
Respect.

"MEDIKA" Squat, Zagreb, Croatia

Not especially hospitable place, but with a great potential and lovely art.

One day we'll be old.

You woke me up with this song. At 1:30, one hour and a half after the moment, when you said you don't want to talk today, because you're too tired and you almost fell asleep in the middle of the sentence.
Sure thing, let's talk maybe tomorrow. Maybe never again.

I went to sleep with my ear-stoppers but the sound of a deep bass of this song, coming through 3 walls from your room woke me up.
Not that it's so beautiful like some of my favourite songs, and not even the lyrics, which fit to the status too well. It just makes me think of you. And thinking breaks my heart every time it occurs. Even your room smells like a heartache. Because all of this memories, and all those things and places which will forever remind me of you. And your smile... But didn't I read something like this somewhere else already?

I tossed and turned for some minutes and decided to leave. At 2.00 I was already on the roof of library, writing. In a perfect silence of a small town, with no more sounds of the evening, and yet no birds, in a smell of linden blooming and all those magic smells of humid Summer night.

But wait a minute, wasn't this blog supposed to be about travels?

I dream about travels lately a bit. I dreamt about a red Volks Wagen van and the house in Alps (the one from my other dream, where I wake up in sunset light with a confidence,that this is my home). I dreamt about Panda, that she came back, when few days ago she didn't show up for the night and we luckily found her in the animal shelter.

I think I also daydream too much lately, and then I travel back in time to the moments few months ago, when you were still close and we still shared our hearts and thoughts. When it was so beautiful, we were both in love and full of will, "when nights ended up in the morning, just because they were too amazing to interrupt them with a sleep".

Tonight we finally were brave enough to admit, how far away from the reality my dreams are. I invited you to join me on the roof and there, with the first bird songs and the first sun we were gone.

2,5 hours of poor quality sleep, two million thoughts, one "after-break-up-profit-and loss statement", one coffee, 40-50 tears, 10 articles on-line and 3 book chapters ago. Still holding on. I'm the tough one, am I not?

Forgive me, all of you who read it (and especially you, my lost, who will probably never read it) for being so personal - it's likely some intuitive way of heartache self-therapy.
Thank you for those imperfect times. I hope I'll learn on my mistakes. I wish you'd tell me one day, you've learned something too.

And yes, one day we will be really old.

Foto: Copyright © Mark Sass www.marksass.de, Bad Oldesloe 2012 – all rights reserved

Remain

On this beautiful Summer evening almost all of my flat-mates came back in full sunshine from Fusion festival, a weird place well known throughout western Europe for non-stop electronic music and unrestrained drug consumption (but I've heard gossips that some people got also drunk in good old style).

They poured out from the overcrowded van together with a pile of tents, backpacks, crates with food they didn't eat and drinks they didn't drink. Sun-tanned, joyfull, tired, young. All at most in their early twenties.

I was so stressed out with they arrival, predicting the wave of babbling and laughing about how great it was there, that I escaped to library with a strong resolve to write an article I was preparing for most of the day.

My netbook and me: overworked, well organized, boring, in my almost thirties.

I don't remember when for the last time I felt so terribly lonely.

And when for the last time I felt so outcasted with my decision about not drinking, smoking, taking drugs and having occasional sex. Not even mentioning being vegan..

I remember times when being Straight Edge I saw as something cool. Not really in this sXe scene meaning, because when I got to it for the first time some time in very beginning of 2001 I was living in a small town near Warsaw and knew no one who would also be sXe who I could join in a good, clean fun.
It was fun just for the reason to show, how mature I am comparing to all the early "adults", freshly allowed to buy alcohol and cigarettes, I was the one who didn't give a damn. I was strong, proud and an outsider anyway, and with this a bit over it all, so that was yet another point on my map of creating my adult personality.

After no more than a year I dropped it with no regrets and came back some years ago being already more mature and experienced I've ever wished I'd be. And stronger than ever before.

Hanging around in Animal Rights circles makes things easy. So many people share the idea, combining it with veganism and anti-consumerism and so on. But we are so few.
There is whole big World outside full of young, political oriented people (or at least those, who think so about themselves or those, who make you believe they have a potential, that some good things can develop from them).
They all want to party hard. More or less often, but the whole idea of being FREE from any use seems so abstract and mystic for them, that sometimes makes me feel like I've fallen from another dimension.

I drink a tea from a fresh peppermint leaves. It makes a mood go up. At least just a bit.

Bella Italia. Firenza !

In the end of the Italian trip we stopped in Florence for one afternoon. The plan was to find some vegetarian restaurant, which someone recommended to one of us and to eat there before long night train ride back to München.
I personally wanted just to eat pizza.
I already tried Italian coffee, feast, hospitality. It was about time for pizza.

End in end after 1,5 hour wandering around we stopped just anywhere (to my delight) and ordered damned good one. Nevermind it tasted just the same as any pizza you can eat around whole Germany (including the North Sea) in any random Italian restaurant.
This one was Italian. And of course Vegan.

And the city! Despite amounts of tourists, calm, beautiful, vibrant.
For the first time in my life I saw so many motor scooters.

I also realized that Florence is one of the favourite cities of Hannibal Lecter. And it was the Florence's tower from where he threw Rinaldo Pazzi.
I haven't seen the tower, but I realized suddenly how lucky I am to be free to travel and surprisingly see places I've never dreamed of seeing. Like this city and whole Toscania, about which I read in a book when I was 15 and only imagined how beautiful it must be to satisfy Lecter's sophisticated taste.

After this short time and some talks with Italian friend I promised myself to come back and take a better look around.

Or fill the plan B: move to a one of the Italian squats and live out of dumpster-diving and join dozens of street artists selling self drawn postcards to tourists.
I plan to remain this free.

Bella Italia. Isola d'Elba

Liebesfest. Lovefest. People from around the world meeting in one place to celebrate my friends' happiness. Because weddings are overrated, just like marriage.

With the weight of worries from last two months, all piled up emotions, exhaustion, stress and a clear plan to just rest I came to Elba.

What I found, outgrew all the expectations.

The weather mild, perfect combination of temperature, rain and sun, nature of the island full of sights and smells creating a cloud of a dream.
The sea so gentle, salty and calm, making skin soft, soaking into hair and cooling down.
Amazing food, the simplest and most delicious vegan dishes I've eaten since ages.

The feeling of being surrounded by friends, those I love, those I feel good with and the new ones, I met here, because they just came for the same reason. To celebrate, to rest, to share, to have fun. But at the same time I was completely on my own, just sitting next to people I felt good with, spending time and exchanging what we wanted to exchange at the moment. Talk, language lesson, building a kite, Grinberg massage, cooking, or even just reading together. Just sitting in sun on three chairs with three books.

I was never so deep in connection with myself as then. I let the disordered thoughts and feelings float through me without stopping them, without thinking and feeling them. For all the 7 days I didn't figure out even one simple solution, idea or attitude. That came after, in the train, on a way back home.
But I was myself, no more, no less, just my body and mind, independent from anything and anyone, free from relationships, love, sex, responsibilities, ideas.

Swimming in the sea and sleeping topless on the beach.

Never so much in one piece, so quiet and confident. I came back with this feeling and clang this in all the bad moments which came after.
I remind myself this state every time I feel like I'm falling apart.

I imagine myself swimming in the sea, so salty and quiet. In one perfect piece.

It's always so bitter-sweet

Sometimes I feel like I could easily make a movie about my life. Or really cool music video to one of my favourite songs. Sometimes in this bright moments I feel like having just heart and soul and everything is just freedom. And art.

Like me, sitting on a roof of a house project on early Summer day, in all those clothes and hairdo, swallows squeaking over my head, writing a blog on netbook covered with politically involved stickers, waiting for the rain.
Me, jogging through perfect green fields outside the town.
Me, on a easter-European train, reading a book about anarchist revolution which can and will happen only in our heads, dripping with cool quotes.
Me, helping with painting a graffiti with friends and one of my love.
Sun in the hair of one of my love, while we hitchhike, on the side of the road somewhere, hugging and laughing.

But then, sometimes it feels like it didn't even matter. When nothing makes sense and like the horizon would flip upside down and suddenly everyone, including me, would look at my life from different perspective.

Like I could as well say just now: "How much I will miss you one day, boy. In explosion of youth and ideas, you remain calm, but lost anyway, with deep consideration of your best interest, however far from my steps they pave your path." In one of this days I found this song, astonished how it fits me and tells the dark side of the story with all the scary details.
The dark side of freedom and independence. This, what I always hide on the bottom of the backpack.

One of my best friends told me "It would be wonderful to always have someone around who does things just because of you. But then I thought, that I care more about people, who fulfill themselves, and I suffocate in a situation, when someone does something only because of me. That this is weird and I don't really want it. That this can't be healthy for this person and I prefer that s(h)e knows, understands and fulfills him/herself. And then I could love her/him unconditionally and freely. This is also what polyamory is for me. Giving freedom to myself. Not binding forever, but bravely opening your heart and abilities."

I couldn't disagree. Although it hurts sometimes so much. And despite how much I long for home sometimes. And how I feel that I lost or my way, or direction.



"Ghost Towns"

I've got no need for open roads
'Cause all I own fits on my back
I see the world from rusted trains
And always know I won't be back

'Cause all my life is wrapped up in today
No past or future here
If I find my name's no good
I just fall out of line

But I miss you
But there's comin' home
There's no comin' home
With a name like mine
I still think of you
But everyone knows
Yeah everyone knows
If you can, let it go

I seen more places than I can name
And over time they all start to look the same
But it ain't that truth we chase
No, it's the promise of a better place

But all this time, I been chasin' down a lie
And I know it for what it is
But it beats the alternatives
So I'll take the lie

I still miss you
There's no goin' home
There's no goin' home
With a name like mine
I still dream of you
But everyone knows
Yeah everyone knows
If you can, let it go

Wild East : Київ - Львів

One of the saddest and unexpected places. How hot and exhausting it all was, first the hitch-hiking just to get close to the Polish - Ukrainian border, then bloody expensive train station food shopping and crazy journey in amazing huge, cheap night train, as dark and unfamiliar, as tired and lost we were.
By the good-night snack I learned to read cyrillic-alphabet on a train ticket.

Sleep came with ease, in the morning everything looked so much better, brighter and easier. The tea was served by ticket inspector in old-school glasses with handles that my grandmother used to use until middle '90s.

In Kiev sun and heat punched us to the ground, we got covered with gray dust and so it was about to stay for next couple of days.


We had so wonderful time, I was head over heels in love, felt this powerful tiny threads between us, old and new friends, all other people, through easier and heavier moments.


But Ukraine, you're so sad, gray place covered with dust.
With dirty, crowded streets in the city and collapsing houses on villages, omnipresent stray dogs, little yellow suburban buses, Orthodox churches dripping with gold.

Vegan ice cream and vegan mayonnaise. Both on a religious ground.