Back to Aarhus

This Saturday I got back to Aarhus. My heart is not as opened as I hoped for this return. I found the same calm city I left behind... nothing new. The Christmas decorations have been taken away and also the financial crises seems to have arrived here too, because some stores have been closed and others have final sales, which means they are going to be closed soon.

I have a new room, Mara's room. I moved the furniture before leaving because I wanted to find it nice and not depressing. Not that it worked but, at least I don't feel like I'm leaving in a hallway.

Now I’m waiting for school to start and hoping to find a job. I feel useless and I have a lot of time I'm just loosing by sitting and doing nothing...just getting depressed. Right now...I am not happy.

How beautiful dreams can turn into nightmares

There is no certain receipt saying that, when you choose to add an ingredient in your life it will make you sweet or sour. This receipt is not written in books and cannot be easily made by following certain steps. You only find out if you added the right ingredient after you taste it. If you close your eyes after you taste it and pleasant feelings go through your body (just like in Ratatouille) than you go it right.

Sometimes what we think is right for us turns up to be nothing but agonizing pain. Still our huge egos don’t let us give up, wanting to prove something and trying not to disappoint anybody, including itself. Long term decision can be even more dangerous because as time passes we change. We change our minds, we change our perspective or we just grow and realize that this is not what we want. Still, the ego steps in and forces us to peruse what used to be a beautiful dream even though it easily turns it into a nightmare…a nightmare, that turns into every day routine and from which we try to escape with small, insignificant pleasures. And when the pain lasts longer than it should we get used and don’t feel it anymore, until we get reminded about how it shatters other beautiful dreams and turns them too into nothing but nightmares.

Why can't it be easy?!

Traveler's bag

I have a new apartment mate. Her name is Edita (nice name) and she, just like Marketa, is from Czech Republic. She studies molecular biology and came here because, she says, Aarhus University offers the best research in this field in Europe. I don’t want to be arrogant and/or ignorant so…I will just let myself discover her in time and not put a mark on her forehead before knowing what she’s all about. Playing smart-ass is not for me anymore.

Discovering the things she brought with her, in her bag, from home…made me think how responsible we, as travelers, are, and how our inner comes out in objects we choose to put in the never too big bag we take with us. I was very surprised when Marketa told me that Edita brought with her a pot from Prague. A pot made by Ikea, which is a multinational company and Scandinavian based. What is striking is how, even if the world gets smaller and smaller with all these globalization processes, we still tend to get stuff in our bags which could be bought wherever we would go, made by the same brand and most probably at the same price (especially in the EU).

Than I started to think about my bag…and Marketa’s bag…and other people’s bags…Me, for example, I only take clothes, cosmetics, medicine and a book or two (not to get bored). I never take survival stuff, not even towels…unless my mother would remind me. I don’t know why I do that. I always buy other clothes where I go and wear those, not the ones I take with me, and I always have problems packing. Another example is Marketa. When she came to Aarhus, she came with an empty big trolley. At the begging I didn’t get it, but than it all made sense. Because she didn’t want to have a heavy bag when arriving for the first time in a city she didn’t know anything about, she just took an empty one, which would be filled when she would return. Her parents sent her everything a few weeks later by post mail. On the other hand, Mara came with a bag bigger than mine, twice as big. But I never knew what she had in it. She didn’t have so many clothes, no food, no books…it’s a mistery. The second time we came here doesn’t count…it only counts what you get with you the first time you go to a place you’ve never been before.

I was thinking about making a survey just for my own personal amusement.

So what does your bag look like?!