While exploring Zürich on Tuesday, I wandered into a bookstore (as I do in pretty much every city that I visit), and, in gazing through the English section, I picked up a copy of Eat Pray Love. I could not put it down. Now, I had read Eat Pray Love a couple of years ago, but I was GLUED to it now as I read about Elizabeth Gilbert´s experiences in Rome, Lucca, Florence, Naples, etc...(listen to how she describes Naples: "...wild, raucous, noisy, dirty, balls out...a tripped-out, dangerous, and cheerful nuthouse. My friend Wade came to Naples in the 1970s and was mugged...in a museum." Balls out. Why didn´t I think of that?), and I supposed resonated with her decision to drop regular life and be in Europe, in a way I couldn´t have two years ago. I spent a good 20 minutes trying to convince myself that buying a brand-new book, one I´d already read even, in Switzerland of all places, was a really bad idea. And so I put it back. I walked around the bookstore. "Liz, you should just keep allowing the hostel book exchanges to surprise you with things you may never have read otherwise. Liz, you´re seriously running out of money. Liz, your backpack is seriously HEAVY." The voice of should was already defeated though, and Elizabeth Gilbert and Elizabeth Mitchell have been having a grand time together these past few days.
As I noted previously, I took a day completely "off" on Wednesday, and did absolutely nothing touristy at all. Though I have taken many portions of days off, and I have also spent a number of days sitting still on trains for many hours (which, though involving sitting still, isn´t necessarily relaxing), I believe this was the first complete-and-utter day off (assisted, I might add, by having a lovely apartment and comfy couch in/on which to crash: spending a day lying in bed is less appealing in a dorm, and is impossible in Italian dorms, where the vast majority of hostels have a lockout period of anywhere from 2-8 hours). So. I walked to a nearby farmer´s market, went for a jog, read my new book, wrote in my blog, composed emails, cooked dinner. I´ll add humbly here, that even after over two months of travelling, of time away from work and regular life, I still pretty much suck at "time off". I started the day by making a to-do list (in my defense, this is a helpful strategy for my over-active brain, as when I write things down I stop thinking quite so much), and still, when I was reading, I was thinking of the emails I wanted to send, and when I was writing in my blog, I was wondering if I "should" just be "relaxing" while calculating at what time I should start cooking dinner....
...Travelling in this manner has allowed me to live life very fully, while also examining many aspects of my life in this very deliberate fashion, extraneous factors stripped away, honing in on the basics. Like being able to sit in Zürich and read a book without thinking of the list of relaxing things I should also be doing. Last July, when this trip started to feel very real and also pretty scary, and spending 3 months away felt like a ridicuously long amount of time, and I feared I wouldn´t "last" or that I would be insanely lonely (and so on), I tried desperately to keep myself in the present: a) live July now Liz, rather than living your travelling while you´re still in Waterloo and b) once you actually are travelling, you also only need to live each moment at a time - you don´t have to "do" 3 months at once. This felt all theoretical then, but hey, turns out it´s actually true, and it´s gotten me through many a tricky moment, when my brain starts to project myself into the future. Staying present. And then, there I was in Zürich, yes, rocking the three months of travelling thing, but trying to blog and compose emails and read and cook dinner, and relax, damn it, all at the exact same time.
Presence. It keeps coming back to that, doesn´t it? Awareness is important too I guess, but I think I have a healthy dose of that. :) But I´m still working on the other. When I lamented to my dear friend Deb recently that I feared I wouldn´t have my life all figured out by the time I was to return home, her reply was, "Please don´t. I would be so intimidated - I´m not sure we could still be friends." Right. We´re all on this journey, aren´t we?
I´ve found myself in Munich, Germany, and have enjoyed casually exploring the city by foot last night and today. Despite the grandeur of the architecture (this is the capital of Bavaria, afterall), the city doesn´t seem to take itself too seriously, and I´m quite pleased about this. For example, they are so proud of their beer culture that even internet cafes and hair salons offer "Happy Hour" each day. It´s been a beautifully sunny day, and I ate my lunch in the huge "English Gardens", watching swans nose-dive and listening to the sounds of the nearby accordion player. The churches are gorgeous, the streets are lively and full of people, and there is lots of green space, despite the city´s large size (1.25 million). My hostel, which leaves a lot to be desired in terms of the dorms and bathrooms, scored serious points this morning with its unlimited free breakfast, which included museli and milk, yogurt, hard-boiled eggs, toast with a variety of spreads, crusty rolls, cheese, meat, coffee, and juice. The last time a hostel offered me free breakfast was in Rome, where I received 2 white buns and really bad vending machine coffee. No joke. Also, my bank account is quite pleased about this whole being in Germany thing. It had actually woken me up during a couple of my last days in Switzerland, uttering things like, "Uhhhh, Liz, you and me, we really need to get out of here".
Despite the fact that I´ve missed Oktoberfest (I must admit that I´m a bit relieved about this, or, at least relieved to not be staying at a hostel during Oktoberfest), I think I´m going to head to a traditional beer hall tonight, just to take in some local culture. And, last night I bought meat for the first time in over a month (with the exception of fish): Munich´s famous "Weisswurst" (white sausage) mit brezel. My tummy wasn´t thrilled with me, but I must admit it was quite delicious. Not sure if I can do the pork knuckles tonight though.
And, just because I´m loving reading Eat Pray Love for the second time, I´ll end with a quote that made me smile, describing Gilbert´s first night in Italy:
"I climbed the stairs to my apartment, lay down on my new bed and turned off the light. I waited to start crying or worrying, since that´s what usually happened to me with the lights off, but I actually felt okay. I felt fine. I felt the early symptoms of contentment. My weary body asked my weary mind: `Was this all you needed then?´ There was no response. I was already fast asleep."
xo
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