"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow."- Lin Yutang
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It's 4:46 AM at the moment; I feel wide awake so I'm sitting by myself in the living room, downloading MSN in the hope of catching some European contacts online. I arrived on Australian soil at about 2:40 yesterday afternoon; already I've spent hours catching up on the phone and no doubt there'll be many more hours to follow, including a good ol' inebriation session at Pera tonight :-) However, I thought I may as well write a final chapter now just to wrap things up, while the experience is still fresh in my mind... so here goes!It's true that in some ways, Round 2 of my European travels didn't leave me feeling as deeply moved as last time. Perhaps I just went back too soon - after all, it's natural for anyone to get bitten by the Eurobug but, perhaps, not quite so natural to work your arse off and go back in just five months, even if it sends you broke (as this trip did). However, this trip was also undertaken for different reasons to the last: more than being just a holiday, it was a means to "test" different regions of Europe (western, northern and central) to see where I'd like to work and reside in a year or two. And my conclusion, as I predicted from the very beginning, was either the UK or Poland - Finland was too remote and under-developed, and Amsterdam was.... well, a shithole.
But anyway, what happened in "Chapter 11" of my European trip? Well, the last 24 hours were actually among the most enjoyable 24 hours of the trip. In a nutshell, me and Nath met up with Wojtek and Ania on our last night for a Polish-style dinner in Kazimierz, Krakow's former Jewish district which has, in recent years, become tremendously popular for its atmospheric and laid-back night life. It was a pleasure to catch up with those two again and, as I've told Paul, whenever me or him next return to Poland, they insisted that we join them for a trip to Zakopane, Poland's #1 winter holiday destination and reputedly its most enchanting region.
The next day we were up at 3:30 in the morning, and by 4:30 we were in a taxi on the way to Krakow airport. I'd pre-organized the taxi earlier with a cab driver who'd driven us home the night before; a very jolly and talkative man who, by the time we got to the airport about half-an-hour later, felt like an old family friend. We then caught the plane to Vienna and, from there, back to Melbourne, where we got drunk on the plane and made a disgrace of ourselves together with an inebriated (and very funny) Czech guy, who arrived at his seat cursing Austrians and muttering "No wonder they lost the war!" I seem to have a penchant for finding myself next to friendly drunks on planes: on the way to Amsterdam I talked to a drunken Finn ("This time, I go to Amsterdam for PLEASURE!" he kept announcing to me), and, on the way to Warszawa, I had an inebriated Dutchman sitting in front of me, who kept turning around and telling me about everything from 60s rock music to his fear of relying on other people. However, for bluntness, loudness and sheer political incorrectness, this Czech guy far outdid them both, referring to one fat woman on the plane as the "Michelin Man" and exclaiming "Shit!" in his heavy Slavic accent every time we encountered turbulence.
And that, in a way, sums up my trip this time round (at least the UK, Holland and Poland): light-hearted, enjoyable and thoroughly disgraceful :-) The concept of thought before action was hurled out the window during our twelve nights in Amsterdam, Warszawa and Krakow, whereas hardstyle techno, Okocim Mocne and 'Romper Stomper' impersonations were in. On the plane back to Melbourne, our random announcements in Polish caught the attention of a young Polish lass, who spent the rest of the flight trying to catch my eye and coming over to ask random questions, pretending that she couldn't speak English.
Anyway, what did I learn from my second European Adventure? Well, that's always a somewhat personal thing but I guess I learned that you should only ever deal with reality, whether you like that reality or not. Thinking about it, whenever I've been a realist I've been successful, while the dreamer part of me (which has, unfortunately, become very prevalent over the last few years) has only ever caused me trouble. I've never wanted to execute the dreamer - ultimately I think it's the better part of me - but this trip has convinced me to do just that; to try to abort my chronic habit of idealizing, fantasizing and romanticizing about everything in life; to stop (if I can) expecting the world to work as it does in the movies. Chasing the European Dream, that unexplainable, multi-faceted ideal that arose from my last trip.... well, it was a beautiful concept but I may as well go off chasing clouds. I made an ideal out of Europe last time I was there, and this trip has shattered that ultimately naive creation. It was, to be sure, a painful lesson to learn, but painful lessons are always the most valuable and necessary ones, and while it may not have been quite as "special" as the last one, this trip has been far more beneficial in its after-effects, in how it's changed me and my outlook and what I've taken away from it.
So that now, instead of chasing the past, I can focus on and stride forward into the future :-)
Catch up with you all soon,
Mateusz
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"I still believe in Paradise.But now, at least I know it's not some place you can look for. Because it's not where you go; it's how you feel for a moment in your life. And if you find that moment - it'll last forever."
- Richard, The Beach
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