Ramadan

Alright so the first thing to bear in mind is that this is not a faithfully informing report on what Islam or Ramadan is. Quite simply it is what I have come to understand so far and have come to experience about both. If there's something here you don't like or think is inaccurate, don't be offended (it's not my intention in any moment), it's just how it has come through to me. Want to add, correct, suggest, critique, hate-mail me? I'd love to get it all (just send it as a message and not as a comment).


     So when I got to Turkey my friends reminded me that the month of Ramadan was coming up and therefor some of them would fast for that entire month. Now I don't know about you reader (depends which reader you are I guess) but to me Ramadan always sounded like that exotic thing Muslims do every year and that excuses them from joining in on pic-nics and hikes. Of course after a good deal of traveling and 5 months living in a 96% Muslim country (Kosovo) I had become slightly more informed than that. And now I was in an officially Muslim place where everyone (not really everyone, specially not in the touristy Sultanahmet area of Istanbul where I was living, but a good deal of the Muslim population) was going to observe it and what it demanded and what it encouraged.

     In an attempt to better understand Muslim culture, Islam and what it really feels like being a Muslim during this month I decided also to fast for the whole 30 days. Of which I kinda cheated because I'm not a Muslim and therefore did not follow absolutely everything demanded or suggested by Islam of course (I mean if I'm not a Muslim it won't be the same). But I tried my best to the delight of my Muslim friends and the frustration of those non-Muslims around me.

So a little background info is due:

     If you like you can go ahead and google Ramadan, Ramadhan or Ramazan and get the wiki explanation but I'm trying not to read it so I give a full, personal and unmarred-by-correctness opinion. So yeah, googleing it might be useful.

     Ramadan is the month in the Islamic calendar in which Mohammed [(Peace be upon him) I won't repeat it every time but you can if you want] received the revelations of God also known as the Quran. So it says:

     The month of Ramadan is that in which was revealed the Quran; a guidance for mankind, and clear proofs of the guidance, and the criterion (of right and wrong). And whosoever of you is present, let him fast the month, and whosoever of you is sick or on a journey, a number of other days. Allah desires for you ease; He desires not hardship for you; and that you should complete the period, and that you should magnify Allah for having guided you, and that perhaps you may be thankful.

Quran 2:185

     So fasting this month means that if you take those words to heart or in many cases if you are simply born into a Muslim tradition, you abstain from eating, having sex or drinking anything at all while the sun is up. That means about 16 hours of no food, no sex and no liquids whatsoever. In addition Islam does not condone drinking (although it says nothing specific of smoking) even though many Muslims do drink. During Ramadan many that otherwise do, refrain from drinking alcohol or smoking (mostly the no smoking only lasts until the end f the day). All of this is done not only to burn your sins away as the name implies but also to remind you of those who have nothing and should be shown compassion. That's why during the month of Ramadan, Muslims should give more money to those in need (Zakat), curse less, do good deeds, pray and recite the Quran more (the Quran should be recited completely by the end of the 30 days).

     To me the spiritual part (sins, prayer and recitation) has no effect but the idea of making yourself feel physically what people who do not have food or drink available to them is a remarkably selfless and noble thing that really pushes you to compassion towards those in need as well as strengthening the bond of brotherhood between human beings. It is something I would recommend anyone doing as it also teaches you how we take so many things for granted.

     In a sense this type of abstention is something I have practiced towards money during my travels without cash, plan or readily available food, but this is more organized and widely supported.

     Anyway, you wake up and go by your day normally, of course trying not to look at people eating and not pushing yourself too hard because your body is weaker. There are 5 daily prayers which you should attend either at the mosque or at home and so the day goes by until it's around 8:30 PM and with the call to prayer from the nearest mosque, Muslims are allowed to break the fast (Iftar). It takes place at home, on the floor in the mosque, in restaurants, in parks or anywhere you can (although it should be in the company of family or friends).
     In Turkey it is broken with dates or olives and water, followed by a light soup a main course and quite often a dessert and black tea. This of course is how it is served in restaurants (and encourages over-eating). In some homes it is served much lighter, sometimes having no meat or the main course being quite light. As I've been told Mohammed simply broke his fast with 3 dates and water, prayed the sunset prayer and only then ate a proper meal (but try having 3 dates and then stop and concentrate on doing anything else, it's really tough). So if you can do it like Mohammed, that's more points for you, but it's ok if you don't. The main idea is simply that you don't eat as much as you would during the last 16 hours in 1, that kinda defies the point of fasting.

     Today Iftar has become more a time of being with your family and sharing with each other as well as cooking for one another. I wasn't able to do this but it was still possible to sit in the company of good friends and break the fast together.

     From that point on Muslims pray as much as they can/want before going to sleep again or just stying up until it's time to have Suhur around 4:00 AM, the last meal you'll have until the next Sunset.

Note that I say "around 4:00 AM" because they change everyday according to the astronomical position of the earth in relation to the sun and not the handles on the clock.

     On a more personal account, Ramadan was pretty tough but I fasted for nearly all of the 30 days. I was sick for 2 of them (I don't think related to not eating though) and broke the fast. I guess it might be easier to do it when you get to that point of the first day when you just can't stand the hunger, thirst, dehydration and headaches that feel exactly like being on a hangover, if you are Muslim because you don't need to feel stupid when you ask yourself why your putting yourself through it.

     Although after that first day the headaches cease and your body gets used to the rhythm of eating less at fewer times of the day. Working at the hostel and making breakfast in the morning was a bit tough to endure though, specially not being able to lick your fingers when you got jam on them. But on I went fasting and also occasionally going to the mosque, washing up and praying in congregation as well as by myself (I had to get the full experience).

     Ramadan 2012 started on the 20th of July and the last day of fasting was the 20th of August, which was followed by three days of celebration, visiting elders and eating sweets (Bayram). And after all of it I feel quite good, clean, haven't had a drop of alcohol since July and I think I might even have gained 1.5 Kg, as is the result for many who overdue their Iftars a bit. Also going through with it made me a lot more curious and understanding of Islam and Muslims as well as gaining me a lot of points with Muslims who, knowing that I fasted, opened up more easily to me.

     There's so much more I've learned and that I'd like to say, but right now I'm close to Bursa at my friends' place (Daniel, Priscila and Oliver) where I came from Istanbul and in a few hours I should wake up and start hitch-hiking down to Pamukkale, Hierapolis and the ruins of Aphrodisias. It will be about 435 Km and I now have a fellow bearded hippie camping no-cash no-planes couch-surfing buddy from Italy which I'll be hitching part of the way with. I hope to have internet access soon and post some of those adventures here. See you all soon!

Istanbul

Well now, I still have a whole month of catching up to do since I only left you with the account of how I arrived in Turkey and not how I stayed here for so long. I have many other things to write about but I thought it would be unfair not to register this for the sake of my travel adventure and hopefully yours when reading this.
So I arrived in Istanbul with Alex and spent the first night in a public park just outside of Ataturk Airport and the next day we went on looking for couch surfing hosts that could have us for a couple of nights before either of us got back on the road. I was up for finding more lush green parks to squat, although Alex being dirty and tired decided for a hostel. I went along so that maybe I'd be able to use their showers before heading off again.
It was a nice little place called the Harmony Hostel on the main touristic area of Istanbul called Sultanahmet (next to the Blue Mosque) and their terrace had a spectacular view. I decided to stay there for the afternoon, chill and use their free internet and computer. As the day neared it's end and I with no sure host in sight met up with the owner and started talking, telling him my story. In the end of it he simply asked "Do you have place to sleep?" to which I said no and no money to stay in his fine establishment to which he immediately replies "Ok, you stay here for free". Surprised and thankful I did.
Sleeping on a matress in an air-conditioned room in Istanbul Summer heat is a wonderful thing and the next day I proposed to the owner that I repay his kindness by working for him and improving his ratings since I speak a few languages, have worked in a hostel before and most importantly know what it takes to make a good hostel (most important are the guests, who really make the whole athmosphere for fun and having a traveler working there who knows how travelers think). He said OK and had me staying for free, eating for free and getting a modest monthly pay (quite modest, but I was ready to do it for nothing). My job was to hang around the wonderful terrace area and chat around with guests, make breakfast, play music on the computer for ambience and just be generally helpful while enjoying the nice breeze from the Bosphoros. It was a great time! While I was there I met so many interesting people doing all sorts of trips like Chris who biked his way from the Channel Islands on his Jersey to Asia trip (google Jersey to Asia) and got stuck in Istanbul waiting for his passport to come back from the Pakistani High Council in London for his visa. Or David from the Netherlands who travels down to Istanbul nearly every month to spend some time with his Turkish girlfriend (has been to Turkey 14 times in the last year alone). Or Rey from the Mauritius Islands who records a very detailed photo report from erywhere he goes. Not to mention the three Muslim Danish sisters (Khadija, Asma and Mariam) who travel around and keep getting their pictures taken by tourists who are anxious to photograph a woman in a hijab.
All this was really great and laste for a great 2 and a half weeks in Istanbul with lots of fun. Although after that time I had met Elif who I started to couch surf with and was so nice to me treating me with the best of Turkish food and hospitality and introducing met o the greatest dessert in the world... KUNAFEH!

With Elif I had some great times here in Istanbul and slowly lost my fear of cats as well as aquiring a taste for many things like kebaps, çay and many more. Part of me stays here and part of me goes. Tomorrow I leave for Bursa where I meet my friend and old neighbour Priscila along with Daniel and their son Oliver. From there I hitch-hike on to the ruins of Aphrodisias, to Konya, to Capadocia (perhaps even to Batman) and then to old Tarsus and Mersin where I take the ferry to Northern Cyprus.

I’ll keep this one short if you don’t mind ;)

From Prishtina to Istanbul

     So it’s been nearly a month and a half since I posted on the blog, I know and I apologize. Many things have happened since I last wrote my thoughts down and there were times I didn’t have access to a computer and others when I did but had so many other things going on around me that I couldn’t get myself to sit and write. So I’ll try to give you a “quick” summary of everything that went down since my last post in Kosovo.
     Just after posting about the truckers I left in a late afternoon with my German friend Alex Krimm (whose last name was a misspelling by the registry office at the time and actually makes us related) who as a nice looking blue eyed blonde I must admit facilitated in much the day’s hitch-hiking into Serbia. We crossed the border on foot in Merdare and when interviewed by the border patrol we got by with a simple: “These are not the droids you are looking for” (gladly the Force has great power over weak minds and he didn’t bother looking much through my passport to see the 8 huge black Republic of Kosovo border stamps on it and we went about our business). From there we then had to wait for the slow go of truck traffic through the border in hopes that a passing truck might carry us a bit further. While waiting we met another hitch-hiker from Germany, Benjamin, who was making his way South through the same border as us with his rather small backpack. No tent, no cooking gear, just the very basics and a positive mood. Less is more!

After a while waiting we caught a ride til  a village about half-way to Nis where we would get on the Amsterdam-Istanbul truck route, but stopped for the night in this little village. After a 30 minute walk, we found this nice grassy field where we laid down my Quechua 2 Second tent and retired for the night. 

      It was a hot night and we had no water left so I walked out to find a family of 4 who lived next to the field just getting home. After finding that the wife spoke English we started to communicate. I was able to get some water and them very interested in our trip. They were very nice and not only that, after I had gone back to the tent the husband shows up with two bottles of mineral water and a bag with cookies, canned tuna, instant mashed potato mix and more. We felt so great about having experienced such kindness that we wanted to thank them personally and in the morning we stopped by the house before leaving again and were welcomed by grandma with Turkish coffee and her own homemade sugared plums (Delicious!). As the Balkan saying goes “The house belongs to God and the guest”. Speaking to the husband in our half German, half Serbian talk, we found that he was part of the Armed Forces during the war with Kosovo and gave us accounts of some of the things he witnessed including the NATO bombings (one less than a kilometer from his home) and showed us a bit of the city and the Serbian tanks still parked at the barracks in Prokuplje.

     After that he dropped us off at a gas station, bought us a coke and we went on to find a guy who went out of his way to drop us off at a small gas station on the E-80 to Bulgaria. It was not exactly where I wanted to be since small petrol stations are rarely visited by large trucks and it’s hard to get them to stop from the highway. An ideal spot would have been the toll station just a few Km North, but because there were no side roads we were sort of trapped there. Nevertheless we took it easy, asked around the drivers, met some Portuguese and Spanish speakers, played cards and listened to Bob Marley when the sun was too hot, napped, found a den of baby mice, enlisted the help of a gas pumper who was eager to find us a ride and even took the time and ink to make ridiculously huge hitch-hiking signs.But still after many hours we were still there and our patience, with each other, running out (patience with hitch-hiking never runs out because there is never any other option, so you might as well just chill and keep a smile on your face). Finally a Turkish truck stopped and we convinced the driver to take us to Sofia.

His name was Gokçen (or Hassan) and as the truck drivers I have mentioned before, a family man doing his long haul across Europe. He only spoke German and Turkish so we ended up practicing my German and learning some Turkish (Alex felt quite at home). On the road though we both decided to ride with him all the way to Istanbul, which was my plan all along but Sofia was Alex’s stop and would have been a good distance covered in one day. 

 So he did, drove us to Bulgaria where we waited for his truck to go through and also met two Polish hitch-hikers doing the same route on another Turkish truck also waiting for their driver. Hassan drove us all the way to a stop just before reaching Plovdiv where we had a great full Turkish dinner a sat drinking raki until 4:30 in the morning when we all stumbled into his truck to sleep.

Next day, rise and shine at 11 am to continue driving and because of the water drunk with Turkish raki, no hangover! We set off again through the sunflower fields of Bulgaria on and on until the Turkish border of Edirne, where again we waited for Hassan across the border, cooked lunch and oddly enough met the same two Polish hitch-hikers in the same situation as us (the only difference being they were headed to Istanbul to fly to Kenia and then back to Poland. Why? Cheap flights and curiosity after watching The Lion King (which I’ve heard most Kenians don’t even know).

 After a while we met our respective truckers and kept on going. Hassan took considerably longer because the Bulgarian border officers kept wanting him to pay more and more to get through. Border crossings are easy enough for pedestrians and drivers but for truckers they are long, troublesome and depending on the country, quite expensive (bribes).

Still we kept on going through the even more plentiful sunflower fields of Thrace (felt an urge to play Plants versus Zombies) until finally arriving late at night just outside of Istanbul where we all said our goodbyes and got offered a trip to anywhere on the way back to Denmark we would start in 5 days. Me and Alex negotiated the confusing streets and walked along the Marmaris for a few hours until finally we found a bakery and soon after a park where we camped for the night behind some trees. We did have to move when the sprinklers turned on at which point I went to sleep against a tree and Alex found a cozy spot on a bench.

Left Kosovo on July 2 and arrived in Istanbul on July 4. I am still in Istanbul.

Truckers: Misunderstood Travelers

   Veemer, originally a brand of auto motors, is what my sisters would nickname these usually quiet, sometimes dirty and crude guys that whistled to women on the street. The term generally meant for those who don't say much more than "Hey beautiful!" to a passing woman in a dress such as construction workers, mechanics and many times truckers.
   Although seen as rude and sometimes even creepy, these silent travelers are generally just people like you and me who have a job to do and don't usually have a lot of time for reading, socializing or getting together for a pic-nic at the park. Most are family men, fathers, grandfathers, travelers who have been to many different places and are curious about the world out there. Their jobs take them to far away roads and unheard of rest stops, except they have no time to enjoy these locations for they are always on the job and almost every time have no one to share their thoughts with, voice their concerns or express their dreams and wishes. Many stop on weekends, but they cannot do much more than sleep inside their lonely and enclosed work environment, so really you never feel like you've left work. Some of us are able to work extra hours in a day in order to have another off, if truckers drive more hours than their daily quota (the truck's computer registers it) they can get incredibly high fines for over-exhausting themselves. Most truckers just wanted to have a good job and be able to travel, much like most of us and yet nobody is around to hear their stories.
   As a hitch-hiker I've met many of them, of all shapes and sizes and different backgrounds and different motivations. They have a reason to be silent, but even more of a reason to pick-up these other lonely wanderers of the road-side with their little city signs and hopeful expressions. It's a chance for them to socialize and have a little taste of traveling (which is exchanging experiences). Truckers are always the best rides if going long distance since they can use the company and usually drive through many countries, this is common knowledge for hitch-hikers. They are generous and I've never met a driver who didn't stop to buy me a can of energy drink or a snack or share a meal with this new companion. In a sense it seems natural that these two always pair up for long or short lengths of road, the trucker and the hitch-hiker.
   Yesterday while hitching to Prizren and back I made the acquaintance of Rafit, an ethnic Albanian Kosovar who drives his truck up and down the Balkans three times a week and has only one to spend with his wife and daughters at home in Pristina. Rafit has been all over Europe, he has 6 children and 8 grandchildren at the age of 52 (it's common for Albanians to have big families). While telling me stories of his travels and his country he also shares his experiences picking up many different hitch-hikers on his routes (mostly Polish). Many of his children live in the U.K. now, except for his two younger daughters who work in Kosovo OSCE, along with his wife. He reminded me of the first trucker I met. Even though a former trucker, Orli Schemes is a Brazilian who has so many stories and wise advice, he is a man I have come to admire even more after meeting other drivers.
   I also met Fatmir, who bought me and my friend Alex a meal while going to Prizren. Even though he spoke nearly no English, we were able to work out a series of short conversations, exchanged numbers and e-mails and even took pictures with him in from of his Man brand truck he bought in Frankfurt. A very proud and friendly guy who just wanted to be a good host to his short-term visitors.
   The truth is that these gentle lonely wanderers are just misunderstood travelers of the roadways who sometimes have a chance to meet their truckless counterparts on the occasional gas station or roadside. We hitch-hikers are already big fans, but next time you meet one, have some respect and give him a break, he's been driving the whole day. If he gives you the "hey beautiful!" as you walk past, give him a smile... that's all he really wants.

On and on

            My trip has led me here and there without any specific route in my mind. All I knew is that I wanted to go to those places nobody knew much about or that someone had briefly mentioned in a story or short conversation. In many ways I have, from exploring every little corner of the Veneto in Northeastern Italy to living four months in the Balkans (mostly Kosovo) to hiking through forgotten caves and trenches in Südtirol to seeing camels in the middle of Austria to scavenging through an abandoned five star hotel in Macedonia to rowing a rubber raft through the Venetian canals to having coffee with complete strangers in Albania to sleeping with the homeless (politely invited). I’ve always gone to places trying not to backtrack too much and always compelled by a sudden curiosity to see what’s out there and try to understand it for myself instead of seeing it through the eyes of others. To understand it more than the casual tourist passerby that visits it, takes a few mental pictures and thousands of digital ones. If I were to compare it in those terms alone I’ve taken millions of mental pictures which are full of memory, sound, smell, taste and heart and considering my love for photography I’ve taken so much less of the kind you look at (the mental ones are not meant to be looked at, but transported back to and experienced again and again through memory). If I thinking about it halfheartedly I think I’ve taken a few tens of thousands of photographs, of which there might be a thousand worth showing and maybe less than a hundred from which any true feeling might be captured.
            Roughly, I’ve been to Northern Germany, London, North France, Switzerland, South France, Ligurian Italy, Lazio Italy, Triveneto Italy (it’s different everywhere you go), Austrian Tyrol, Bavarian Germany, Upper Austria, East Germany, Südtirol, Vienna (a different planet), Veneto Italy, Central Italy, Southern Italy, Albania, Macedonia, Eastern Kosovo, Northern Mitrovica, Western Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Southern Bosnia, Croatian coast, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Vienna… I write to you from the last where I delight in spending long afternoons by the Danube and entertaining evening with good new friends everyday. It is one of the few if not only larger city where I feel comfortably at home in cause for the most part everything is very efficient and from my perspective, free. Many of the places I just mentioned might not mean anything to you, they might also mean a lot but you’ll get to know them (through my mind at least)… I’ll make a big map of this actually (to-do list).
            So where am I going from here?
            South, towards Turkey and everything on the way there (it’s always been the direction my mind has always pointed to and it’s a more concrete plan than I usually have anyway).
            A few days ago someone offered me a bike, another offered me a bike luggage carrier, I found a helmet and slowly this idea of cycling down the Danube River to the Black Sea was brewing in my head. My brain brewery busy at the same time with the idea of meeting up again with Sara and go wandering and camping about. All the fermentation got cut short while I was transcribing this and read a job offer to me for an English speaking Summer camp in Ankara, Turkey, starting on June 11^th (which is a great opportunity in fact). Which would be a driving force, speeding up my trip South a bit, but also means goodbye to at least one of the other very attractive possibilities. So as much as the first two options speak a lot more to my heart and mind than something as grown up as a job offer, it might be the little push I need to move on with the journey, maybe it’s the right time. Arriving sooner in that part of the world also means I’ll have a whole new culture and people to dissect and other new concerns and conflicts to try to grasp. I’d also be able to meet my loyal friend and photo-journalist who is not far away, covering a certain conflict in a country whose leader receives those very harsh letters of concern from the U.N. while massacres are being carried out. That sort of letter little harmless friendly faced dudes like Kofi are able to send out to stop it. It would also men I could keep my promise to soon after come and visit Paula in Israel and maybe go live with the Bedouins in the deserts of Jordan… the brewing process begins again with more ingredients. Got some fine ales up in here, fine indeed.

Anyway, there’s still an interview before I know anything for sure. I hope they don’t notice I haven’t shaved today!

A Fresh New Entry

            So now I’m sitting here again writing a fresh new entry to this journal that lay dormant for so long. Time and time again have a tried writing down my thoughts so as to reflect on them later or show my nephews and nieces when their older or just to get news back to those who care simply because it feels a lot less repetitive than telling the whole thing again. I guess that’s one of the only reasons I still use Facebook, although itty bitty status updates hardly ever have what it takes to convey a feeling hard to explain in a very large journal entry alone (no matter how many nifty new features they come up with). Anyway, time and time again have I also lost my writings. Once all on a travel notebook Kiti gave me before leaving Brazil, (I remember how curious I felt to read hers) which I forgot inside a phone booth at Berlin’s Schönefeld Airport trying to call Luma in London and ask if she can pick me up somewhere when I arrived.
             If you’ve ever known me a bit longer you’d also know of my nearly chronic forgetfulness concerning items such as towels, notebooks, tooth brushes and so on. If ever you’ve found something in your flat or car that you had never seen before or didn’t recognize, there’s a good chance it belonged to me once.

            In other attempts to compile my thoughts I had once recorded my own voice to preserve my ideas, which would have been brilliant had I not erased the files by mistake when trying to make more room for pictures (which would have made no difference considering the size of a RAW file and that of a minute voice recording). In creative desperation, I’ve written on the backs of pizza boxes (6 in total) which got thrown away by Matteo or Diana in Venice. Even after many people said “Make it online, like a blog. That way you won’t lose it!” I still didn’t because I never felt inspired to write anything sitting in front of a screen. I mean it’s really counter productive, just ask anyone who has ever had to start writing an important report, book or term paper (I remember Elisa sitting for long periods of time in front of her computer waiting anxiously for her fingers to write the first line in the chapter of her TCC)… That damn screen doesn’t help, it’s all the more pressure from that little insisting ever blinking line at the top of the page waiting for a typed word to be surrendered, like a penguin does when a fish is dangled in front of it, it’s almost as if you could hear that annoying little thing say “MINE” in a Disney-Pixar seagull fashion.

            Although I must admit that at Ana Carla’s good natured journalistic request (it’s most impossible to reject something Ana asks you so innocent and politely, that’s why I’m confident of success in her chosen profession) I gave in and made this blog with one single entry of a song Bilbo sang before he set off on his journey.
            The funny thing that just dawned on me is that I’m talking about all this computer and online stuff while I’m actually just sitting on the floor in Maria’s flat in Vienna scribbling hastily on any piece of paper I can find while listening to the Across The Universe soundtrack (valeu Rafa!) which usually gets me in a reflective mood. I’m just trying not to think how boring it will be to transcribe all of this to the blog later. I’ll be laughing at myself when I type this part (and right now, I am).

            Going back to registering thoughts, I made a single entry of The Road Goes Ever On And On thinking of greater things to come and appear on this blog, which they did (they just never made it into writing before) up to the point when a few days ago my Couch Surfing friend Mila echoed something I had heard a lot. It’s about all these people who every once in a while see the things I post on Facebook and imagine how I got from one place to a completely different other the next time I update a status or post a picture and how all my fellow would be travelers would love to hear the stories, ideas and tips (which I’d love to sit down and share personally, but I can see how that’s not too easy). So half dutiful and half just wanting to put my thoughts down as a healthy exercise (as once my dark brother had rather darkly on his blog) and half so that I can be completely honest with you, my friends and maybe followers (Cassio’s words come to mind “You’re fucking Jesus!”). And yes, you did see three halves to that argument, it’s just that space and time work differently in my mind. Math on the other hand doesn’t (at all).
            So I guess I should try to explain some of my reasons, objectives, strategies, plans, yes? Well this trip used to have a plan and so did this life for that matter (even a vague notion of plans and strategies). The truth is that I set out to travel as a pause to life as I knew it, but slowly and suddenly at the same time, the two things have blurred together in a sense that today, life as I know it (or have come to know) cannot exist without travelling. Life is in fact the trip no matter how physically inert you are. Therefore, in my eyes travelling is the only way of living, which of course doesn’t mean you have to be moving all the time, it simply implies that your mind must. You just have to choose if your body will follow suit and chase after it. I did.

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

Bilbo Baggins