TOSCANY... my love

I didn't foresee this one. The plan was to attend Vito's wedding in Salerno, and then head North Italy to my Number 1 in Travel Wishes List: FLORENCE. The rest would go as it would come. And so it went, in June 2011.

What I didn't expect was to be striked by Italy's beauty in natural and cultural heritage in every city... Yes, I should have known better from History classes and common sense.

Rome had already surprised me in 2007 and hey! - we all have heard of the wonders of Venice or Florence or even Pisa... But little did I know when I thought that apart from Milan's fashion and some other historical cities like Genova... there weren't that many other ex-libris in The Boot.

Well I was really wrong. I got that impression already when I was asking around about what cities I should visit around Florence...

When I left Lisbon the plan was to do Salerno - some town close to it with Marcela and Riquita - Florence, Siena, San Gimignano and Cinque Terre.

The weather made me change plans and I ended up doing the following path:

- SALERNO, or to be more precise: Battiplaglia for the wedding. It was great to see Vito happy. He's an example to me. Salerno, in the end, was left without a proper visit.

- The plan to go to Pompei with the girls was ruined by the train schedules (and the unfriendly ticket-sellers :) ) and became a half-a-day trip to NAPOLI, in my eyes unworthy of a tourist visit, at least if payed on purpose.

- That train trip led to us to meet Arthur though. And that made me meet the beautiful CAPRI. The romantic Island definitely has its enchantments: a lot of quality of living is hidden amongst the houses that proudly scroll down the mountains while the luxury of the shops exhibits how expensive and posh it is to stay there... The trip around the island is worth it because of the "Blue Cave", where the under-cave ocean meets the most intensive cristal blue as the sunlight enters the massive hanging rocks from underneath... Unforgettable!

- From the Island, Napoli train brought me to the most expected FLORENCE. I had been wanting to go there since I missed it in 2007 due to fever... I expected a lot, I knew I would meet the origins of humanistic thought and arts. I knew I would stand in front of the major paintings that I studied for 6 months in Madrid... but I couldn't believe when I actually found myself in front of those masterpieces: Boticcelli's "The Birth of Venus" and "Spring"; the ancient realism of Masaccio's, Lippi's and Masolino's frescos depicting St. Peter's life at Capella Brancacci; the Duomo is a-ma-zing especially on the outside... But I was surprised with the concentration of architectural beauty, massive buildings that leave you out of breath... at every corner.

STOP...

This was all I managed to write close after return. I also remember Luana with whom I shared a 6 people-room in Firenze - a Brazilian medical intern that I want to go back in touch with, who knows to share "El Camino de Santiago"... For now I shall add to my own Italian Impressionism that:

- LUCA left a mark on me for the welcoming of the owner of the guest house that I took 1 "lost" hour to find; the gentleness of the restaurant girls who had me eat gnocchi and a glass of wine toped with a typical warm drink and cookies... in a perfectly romantic yet alone outside evening dinner. The wall that surrounds the city leaves a unique space for walking and gave me the guts to ride a bike on my own: indeed so simple, I just need to let go! Finally the view from the tree-decorated top of one of the towers also touched my senses as so-like grown-up and kids carried on with their lives in the midst of the brown city right below my feet.

- The TOSCANY natural landscape, its green mountains bottomed by shy-flowing rivers, the calmness of the wooden houses... all of it and more would have been strange to me if only I hadn't taken the wrong train from Luca to Pizza. When 1h30 later I finally realized it (as all my travelling was a bit improvised and went as it came), I had the luck to be allowed into a return train while it moved in departure already... where I traveled alone with the humble driver and the windy opened windows with its flowing curtains making a spectacle inside the cabine! I FELT SO FREE as I put my head out to the Toscany sun! I felt so happy for getting lost and being blessed with such sights and sense of adventure!! (happy for feeling lost just as last week I was happy for falling down when playing basketball... I think I'm missing the adventure I didn't live as a child :) ).

A lot more of marvellous Toscany is left to see: for example, its lemon fields I was told in the meantime. It's for sure a place to come back to. Who knows San Gimignano?

- From PISA I only expected a picture. You do get half-marvelled half déjà-vu feeling from being in front of the only monumental area, but I still thought it was worth it for the delight of my touristic journey. But what made Pizza a definitely good bet was "my no such thing as a" coincidence... meeting Sonja in the Jazz Concert by the river. It all started because I wanted some art: I was craving for music or some sort of collective happening even as I saw political demonstrations for the national voting that was about to happen in June. 10 minutes after installing myself in a 6 people bedroom, I left to speak to tourism office and learned what I would do after. I decided to attend that supposedly political.party supporting concert. And as Sonja subtly joined me in the table while we ate the food that Italians often offer with your drink - and repeated!!, the next 7 hours went by flying and the harmonic voice of the old jazz-lady, the lights in the canal and the passing youth in that cosy Pizza night... became a breakfast to say goodbye the next morning. Sonja is an easy-going philosopher from Frankfurt, with whom I found so fast so many things in common! I miss her, I'll soon go back to being in touch.

- SIENA, oh Siena! Siena was the most surprising place, and although Firenze as explained overwhelms you insistingly, Siena unexpected as it is... strikes you even more. It ended up being my favourite site in Toscany. Its central leaning Piaza del Campo that is showered by sun until late and is rulled by the municipal building... relaxes me; its up and down medieval rocky roads, all leading to this central oracle where horses run in July (a pitty I didn't witness it this time)... inspire me; the city overseeing arch that you reach through one of dozens of "hiden" wonders of architecture dazzles me (and also gives me vertigo); the circular giant vitral, which if I remember well lies among statues in the caves of the central church... makes all my aesthetical senses ring; and the diversity of the City Cathedral made me meditate at the INFINITE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF THOSE WALLS AND CEILING, the wonders of the constant music, the surprising "frescos" of the Ancient Library Room, and the details of the "starled sky", overlooking popes, and handy-crafted wood embelishing the walls... Oh my God, all of that made me dream, sit there for around 2 hours and even sleep over a SUBLIME "perfectness" feeling... that no historical memory of oppression or massive dogma would ever make me overlook.

- ROME was a nice one-day return where I allowed myself just to walk and feel the city. It's grandious, that's for sure, and the cheap accommodation next to central train-station resulted quite handy. So has the roaming on my mobile as I could give my granny a phone-call just next to an image a St. John Paul the II right at the Vatican, as the celebration of his sanctification was displayed in all of St. Peter's Piazza walls. I knew that as in 2007 ('06?) it would make her happy, and I'm far from having given back all she has done for me since I was born. Eating the "Posioned Apple-like ice-cream", buying Limoncelo (great discovery by the way), watching street artists and watching a Russian Culture fantastic show in plain Piazza Navona, being walked "home" by the charming 19 year-old argentinian with whom I ended up throwing the "hope coins" into the touristic Fontana di Trevi... these are some of the memories I won't leave from short 2011 Rome.

Again traveling alone did its tricks: I do live well by myself, I do meet people, I do finally feel healthy "Saudades", I do get to know the spots, I do get adventurous, I do try new stuff like sleeping in shared rooms (from whom I end up meeting no-one as I enter such late night all the time), holding my all-purposes bag between my limbs, I do stutter at the beautiful of nature and man construction... not lacking the possibility to share it with a co-traveller.
Don't I have friends and family to travel with? "Porsupuesto!" But indeed my availability to renew myself, stand for hours in front of paintings if I want, change plans, be touched by unexpected details but not notice or just pass by major ex-libris, my openess to get to know the places as I feel like... is incomparable.
And then there's the shared travelling. I love it too. There's space for all.

My Maia, my fate

WITH MAIA AROUND THE WORLD

I'm writing from Reykjavik, in Iceland, right as my dear Maia packs her bag to leave this cold graceful island with me.

With Maia it's forever like this, ever natural, ever sister-like.

It had been 4 years since we had met and I know you know what I mean when I say that really no time has passed: just stories, knowledge, maturing, relationships, trips, discoveries, experiences... all of that adding up to our closeness and mutual admiration... And which we easily share around subsequent home-cooked meals prepared by her with the most important ingredient: tenderness, love (tal y como con Tita - "Como agua para chocolate").

MAIA is hence not part of this blog's memory, but she for sure deserves a significant paragraph of this bible of trip registers. This "Mexican-looking" ;) small girl from the Basc Country is the best result of all my so said "lonely" trips I've been doing since I was 15 years old.

Maia and I happened something like my last night in long-gone Paris, back when "la grand canicule" (? - as she just put it) happened: the warmest summer, 2003.

Hours of night talk resulted in a timeless spaceless friendship, that has joined us in Lisbon, Donosti/San Sebastian, Ondarroa, Helsinki and now Reikjavik.

Maia is the example for me of an accomplished thinker, still living to the fullest ¡t her life, femininity and artistry, always going beyond the surface of peoples and their "arts", always finding the smallest reason to laugh, always strong-willed and defending justice; traveling, studying and singing her way through life in spite of all the learnings that she simply wouldn't let bitter her, not ever!

Maia, here's one of our hugs!

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Can't believe it's been more than one year since I last shared thoughts here. No doubt about it: it reflects the speed in which I've been living. Well the new year's resolution, I've been anticipating it for 2 months now - it's quite hard on me as it counters my forever pattern: running from "home" by over-scheduling, being a workaholic, resting on what I'm successful at and not leaving space for resting or simply "being"...

I share it here as this year I decided I need to make it public: something needs to change and I'm not sure I'll be able to inforce it on my own. Year after year I reach the "too tired", the "too far from living, from my health, from sleep, from boyfriend, from friends".... And being in love, loving tremendously what I do at Jason... can't be and excuse. It's in me.

That having been said, 2012, even with rising responsibility, must be the WORK-LIFE BALANCE finding year.

REYKJAVIK AND THE CHRISTMAS FEELING

Reykjavik was short in time and full in sharing. It is little and, all covered in white, what astonished me the most is the short time of light in Winter, the rain-dear soup in round opened bread at "Svarta... Caffee", the hot hot tubs, the Blue Lagoon, the dried lava that changed the landscape, how easy you are in -3 degrees if only you wear the proper clothes; the permanent whiteness of everything snow touches, and the home-like cafeterias where Iceland proudly exhibits the happiness and good life-quality of its people.

Even more: the Christmas feeling expressed in lights and decoration which miss no window, no building, no bridge, no airplane.

I now understand when Johan says he gets no Christmas feeling in Lisbon: truthfully the female chorus singing in the street while the smoke from street-cooked sweets embraces you and red christmas lights create the scenario, only further completed by lightly falling snow while you're in your cosy clothes... that's indeed a Christmas setting.

The most ZEN moment(s)?... For sure bathing in 40 degrees celsius waters in external spa pools while it snows and winds in your shy uncovered head, definitely the mysterious look of the hot smoking water while you indulge in the pleasure and relaxation of feeling no body weight and no cold against the open sky in plain ICEland.

Curious findings about this place?... So much natality!; in an Island bigger than Great Britain live 300.000 people; the surnames here are substituted by the father's name to which they add "son" or "daughter"; they're totally not environmentally-conscious: they waste energy, they waste water, they have no consciousness of the limitedness of the resources: privileges (and blindness) of who has the blessing of having enough to waste.

Taking it easy... Next to see upon return: well geysers, volcanos, auroras borealis... All that I had managed not to expect too much but still had the illusion of being in the presence of. It definitelly suited us better as it was: calm for me, Maia and Gunnar.

Let go. Let God.

A while has gone since my visit to India (Sept. 18th to Oct. 2nd + 3 days in London).
With a clear conscience in my head that I haven't exactly met the goals I dared to publicize here beforehand, I prefer to report my travel for itself and not by comparison to expectations.
It's a good thing to let go of frameworks when they no longer fit your reality or your purposes; on the contrary, 'pre-concepts' may make you linger in a sense of frustration if you hang on to them for too long.

Well, that's probably one of the biggest learnings from my second visit to The Incredible:
Accept what comes.
Living the most out of an experience doesn't necessarily have to mean over-scheduling, running from one place to the other, meeting the most people or visiting the most places, finding a deep significance in everything, or even feeling that your deeper purpose is met and put into practice at every minute of the trip you planned with so much love and money.
Let go. Let God.
As long as you are open to the signs and available to act upon them, what comes is exactly what you need the most at that moment.

Well, there were many plans for my trip.
But my biggest mission was to be with my mentor. As my mentor needed me by her bed, reading to her or just giving medication, as I wanted to visit her in the hospital, as her needs and my need just for her presence were what mattered the most ; as she was operated while I was there ; my stay happened around her operation and recovery.

I did have the chance to travel, to do my yoga retreat, but I knew my priorities. I did have the chance to travel around town at least...
But two attempts were enough to realize that I am no longer the brave all-resisting Raquel from 1,5 year ago. I didn't bear the feeling of chaos, pollution, noise, complication, negotiation, cheating, being lost in slums, being stuck in traffic...
I didn't bear them psychologically or physically. I didn't bear nor did I want to bear. I literally rejected all the urban surroundings that I lived with for almost a year before.
Some aspects may have contributed for it: I was in an emotional state which was not as stable + My mind knew I was there temporarily, as a tourist, so it didn't find the need to actually adapt, to find excuses or bright sides to crude realities + I didn't have companions there, friends as before + I got there with a cold caught at the airplane that evolved into some sort of growing respiratory allergy.

What was my "Indian experience" this time then?
I read quite a lot, I rested more then ever, I slept whenever my body asked me, I was inspired by my Mentor even as She slept, I went deeper into Indian culture (as in a 2nd time I could ask questions after having stoped to think from afar), I lived life with them again, ever closer to my Indian family...
As my soul made me relax rather than go out, stay in rather then adventure, delay rather then try it out... As it insisted on having me just "be" and chill... After struggling, feeling like I was wasting such an expensive trip and thinking of the ridiculous of not visiting new places, living new experiences... After struggling, I finally let go: if that's what I was wanting, that's what was meant then.
And then I realized for how long I hadn't allowed myself that: that rest, that naturality, that spontaneous happening, that feeling of home...
And living that was more precious than having added more landscapes, meditations our colourful pictures to my portfolio.

That probably says it all: I TOOK NO PICTURES but of the home, to remember it. That's the house that I have ever felt more at home in.

Mr. U is no longer (here) and I missed him there. Sivnandan is a light in the house, the new-born.
I did find me a new family, and the feeling of blessing that both me and Mrs. U feel for having met and having each other overcomes any connection.

I feel like in a movie or a book when I say it, but it's a fact: I found my mentor, my inspiration in life. She inspires me even as she sleeps. Her simple presence fills me with joy and sense of priviledge and learning.

Having said that, of course I'll return. And again, "every now and then" won't do it. Hopefully in less than 2 years. What's money or 2 weeks of vacation to feel at home?*

* A post-scriptum is imperative though: after this "reality-check", I understood that while that corner of Palace Road is an island of "home-feeling", Bangalore and India are not. This time I reinforced my certainty that I wouldn't chose to live there again. That I prefer to visit, go to help, go to travel, go to fill my heart up, go to be challenged, disturbed, marvelled, what-so-EVER - NOT to live.
* P.S. 2 - In the end I went to London to be with my Mariana. Fast and lazy again, but great to reconnect to my sister, more and more sister.

Count-down for yet another Indian experience

Well, I decided to do a short post here because again I'm in count-down to visit India.

I am actually visiting my mentor.

This trip makes sense to me in so many ways in this moment of my life, and the only reason I am doing the half-public exercise of writing down my expectations is so I can cross-check them with the outcomes, which I believe will as usual overcome those.

Also because the expectations are realistic, and that's probably why I dare to state them... Or aren't they: am I being optimistic even in my realism?

1. Be with my mentor, really be with her, listen to her wisdom, be there for what she needs, share our thoughts on philosophy, spirituality, sociology and "emotionality";
2. Be with myself and rediscover the inner peace that that place once instigated in me;
3. Find strength, self-preservation strategies and compromises with myself in order to keep the balance in this moment of my life;
4. Work on an exciting idea that I had in August 4th, 2010;
5. Try again some yoga hoping that the habit sticks to me;
6. Do Isha's Bhava Spandana retreat, another if this one is not possible and/or hopefully some travelling;
7. Rediscovering Bangalore with the Indian friends that stayed back;
8. Meet the new member in Ubhayaker Bijur family;
9. Have the time to actually get to know Archisman;
10. Do some reading and some diary writing, and hopefuly some reporting here in the blog too.

Cute Girl Has a Catchy Dance

Guess who that one reminds me of? If only my parents read my blog... :P Do you?

The "cute girl": A true happy free soul influencer!

Apparently the story goes that they taught the little girl that dance, then she went to dance it having no idea that the others would join her... but that changed nothing: she kept happily doing her thing... and the clip came out.

Guys, let's all go for it!!!

I met Sweden in Sevilla

SWEDEN

Well I started Summer in Sweden and for the first 2 days I actually thought that, not only Could I live there, as I Wanted to.

So much perfectness!... - naturally speaking and civilization-wise...

Everything is thought for you which makes it easier to enjoy life.

Even if you do it with your own hands - be it painting the house or fixing the fence (which is their custom), the system, the tools, the common knowledge... is ready for that too.

Life-quality is incomparable to any I have witnessed before: I mentioned here before the freshness of the water and the air... But then there's the fact that you ride a bike to and from work, that you arrive at 4 or 5 pm from your job, do no unpaid extra-hours, still manage to have a full life outside work; that the simplest and cheapest supermarket is to the level of a gourmet here in Portugal, that they have the habit of eating early dinner and still go for [what we call here] "hygienic walk" along never ending beautiful -tree-paths and lakes... Furthermore, every car trip seems like a succession of paintings as the roads are paths which were stolen from forests.

... But then the weekend went by and the so common rain came to bless the Summer... and then for a moment it stopped feeling like vacation. Can you believe in some places in Sweden they get something like 3 weeks of sun per year?

I enjoyed getting to know Johan's family better, trying to understand Chess better... Taking it easy and resting...

And I can't forget the yet again amazing Sauna and Lake experience in Tolg with John's family... And this time my first experience of taking a bath in a peer, and taking the soap out of me in pure night, in cold lake water, to the light of stars and a set 1 am sun. UAU!

I loved watching a Speedway contest in Vetlanda. Apparently that small city where Anna, Olle, Karin and Mikael live has one of the World top teams in this sport.

It was fun Bowling with the family, other family get-togethers, going to that Island with Johan (what was the name again?), watching them cook candy, watching Granpa dance in National Day celebrations, trying to fish with Kent...

But we did want some better weather for more barbequeing, more fishing, more lake-bathing, more biking, more walking-around, more country-side activities...

So in the end, yes, I'd like to try living in Sweden because it is becoming such a big reference for me in what regards life-quality, in anything that doesn't depend from "Saint Peter".

Although I have to confess I know I would struggle with the little Sun and the certain rain... But I would especially miss the sun - I feel more and more my connection to it, my dependence of it.

THE SUN IS WHAT I HAVE CLOSEST TO THE FIGURE OF A GOD

SEVILLA

Then in July, the chance came to go back to Sevillha, where me and Johan met exactly 5 years ago (we disagree on whether it was the 31st of July night or the 1st of August 2005 morning that we met - the last is my version). There the Sun is definitely not missing.

The door in this picture used to be the entrance to Don Quijote, the Spanish school that is ultimately responsible for us being together. Yes, 'coz it was them who put us in the same apartment... Well and the rest is just details... :P

Anyway, Marta and Bruno were spending their sabbatical moth there doing Flamenco training, and it was a great opportunity to re-visit that city full of salero...

We loved it, Johan could almost picture himself living there... But with so much heat (we think it reached 50 dregrees during the day!!)... and no beach... Ufff! And how do you even have the energy to move around in such a warm environment? Plus there's no horizon as I'm getting used to again... : the Atlantic Ocean... And it's VERY touristic.

In the end, it's a nice town to visit every couple of years - exactly - as a tourist. It has a great spirit, it breathes Flamenco which I like more and more - the guitar, the singing, the dancing... there's something really transeunic about it... I realized this time (watching a breathtaking performance in Casa de la Memoria) that it probably is because it is so intense and that the music so often resembles the ORIGINAL SOUND, the tantric, the budhist, the hinduist "AUM" - or "OM", as trend tends to call it.

Of course it carries me to a level of vibration that is unexplainable...

But again: nothing to repeat too much so that it doesn't lose the uniqueness I still feel when I experience Flamenco.

Ready for more travelling? Yes! Preparing the next one. :)

Alentejo_Travelling my own Country

Ir para fora cá dentro.
That's how the Portuguese expression goes for when you travel inside your own country. And if my memory recalls well that became an idiomatic expression after a national tourism TV add some 10 years ago (or so I think - - how long does it statistically take to integrate a slogan in a language?).

PORTUGAL. My country. And exactly the one I learned to appreciate the lesser. I am ashamed of that, of not taking interest for it, of always looking at the less brighter side when it comes to Portugal:
- Melancholic; - Nostalgic; - Pessimistic ... and many inevitably negative "-ic-ending" words.
Ashamed of always looking at it exactly in the way I criticize "the Portuguese" for.

Well I feel I'm for the first time really willing to know the country I've always felt like mine only in one third - along with CAPE VERDE and BRAZIL.
This is after having come from India (in which I found so many worse - not even comparable - conditions)... And after that Johan came. And now I have a Swede to introduce my large home to, great loving company for tourism!

So this time we went to High Alentejo, interior Portugal.
Our base was Portel, a small village in the district of Évora, which is litteraly the centre of a star when it comes to road access.
This is a quiet place where people stare at you (and still keep looking when you've given in and taken your eyes away... :) ) 'coz everyone knows each other and you're not from there. And they're curious: that's simply it. A simple place.
It is amazingly silent all day long, hardly any cars, small white-painted houses ('coz the sun heat is so strong in the summer), real darkness at night; cows, sheeps, goats... just near by; breakfast with home-made cookies . . . And here cold is cold, homes have an inheritance of hunting prizes hanging form the walls, bread is "alentejano" and comes in special colourful coton bags, and you greet everyone in the street. A van passes by in the morning issuing the sound of folk music and offering home delivery of bathrobs, pijamas and other housewear. Somewhere in the village pigs scream, chickens run, horses grass (so silent it is that you can feel Portel's heart-beat if you simply keep quiet). Plus the view from the castle is amazing, a mixture of plain greens, and you almost feel the smell of olives and grapes.

We ate well and fat, and in the meantime we visited the biggest artificial lake in Europe - Alqueva Dam, ate at Amieira Marina, drove to Reguengos de Monsaraz hoping to buy wine only to find a beautiful modern-shaped church, and enjoyed a great wintery sunny day where the sun insisted on touching the waters beautifully.
On Sunday, Valentine's Day, time for the ditrict capital: Évora. The place for lunch was tough to find but in the end "Almedina" surprised us with a cosy family environment. We had time for a stop at Arraiolos as the car this weekend seemed to drive itself while I didn't dare or felt like harming the calmness with any speed higher than 80Km/h.
We liked the pace in Évora and the fact that the centre of the city is inside ancient walls: it makes finding your ways a bit of an adventure, and being inside the walls have something of mysterious and tale-like. We finally bought the so-expected Alentejano wine, and after long walks, some sight-seing and visiting Roman Temple at dawn, we drove back to Lisbon with a feeling of calm, rest and peaceful-mindedness.

Johan ended the day pleasantly surprising me with great spontaneous generosity when we met our building's night guard (a man from Cape Verde who has switched nights for days for 10 years now) and offered him one of the bottles we had brought from Alentejo. A nice man of few words, Mr. Zé Manel.

LONDON - Biggest Party on Earth

D LONDON EXPERIENCE

Life keeps treating me well.

I travelled earlier than I thought I would again, and to a place that hadn't seen me since adolescence.

Last time I was in London I was around 16 years old. 10 years later I remembered King's Cross Station, next to which I lived for 2 weeks, Millennium Bridge next to which I studied English, the view of Trafalgar Square from the National Gallery, the flowers in Notting Hill's Portobello Market, Mind the Gap and not much else.

From 1995 I remembered even lesser: there was the driving on the right hand-side, Hard-Rock Cafe and its expensive branded black sweat-shirt that I wore for a whole year after that, my long showers my trip companions complained of, Harrod's and my aunt saying to Jimmy: "(No, don't come in) - I'm not apropriated". :D

The turn of a decade was something else. I saw it with Raquel eyes and taken by the sweetest hand, and the warmest hug.

MARIANA. My forever trip companion, my forever big sis'.

Mariana is a Brazilian Londoner whom another one of those big non-coincidences brought to me in India.

We lived heaven and hell in that sub-continent of which I miss only some few people, some natural beauties, some exotic tastes and some laid-back experiences... and cherish the overall experience of.

In LONDON it was all about enjoying.

I left from a week stay there with the clear feeling that that's THE PLACE WHERE YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE.

The closest I experienced of that (but for sure far away and in a fully different perspective) was Thailand: Bangkok... and the marvelous Islands - place of wonders, place to get lost if that's what you're looking for...

'Nyway...

Mariana took me in a journey through not only some ex-libris of that gigantic glamorous organized city... but also through some untold secrets only true Londoners can share.

What I loved the most was for sure the diversity of people, the true melting pot London is, the extremes in looks and way of living that people can allow themselves to express there with no awkwardness feeling. That city has a place for all sorts and looks down on no one - but that's because you almost have it hard to find locals, British people - so much is the colourfulness!

In this context I have to mention Camden Town and its weekend fair, experience with which Mariana gifted the beggining of our journey together in Her Majesty's kingdom capital.

That place sells anything you may imagine and gets together punks, fifty's, rastas, posh people, brazilian "cochinhas", S&M material, motor-bike seats, piercings, lights, statues and drums..........all about fashion ... what results is an amazing experience to your senses in an authentic journey through times and options that takes place inside ancient horse stables.

Then there was "the Pub Culture" as Mariana would put it after an Indian comment.

I'm not much of a "go out for a drink" sort of girl, hence pubs apparently shouldn't be the place for me. Nevertheless, under Mariana's arm, I was guided through cozy, historical, fish & chips serving, old-school, out of the rain, beer producing, British only, dancing crazy, standing in circle, no non-alcohol beverages, checking out, with fireplace, nice . . . English PUBS which I really ended up enjoying.

Walking downtown through luxuriant streets, pin-pointing the tourist spots, was only bettered as an England experience by one full day of rain when we not anymore cared about how soaked we were and simply walked around with our feet and shoes flooded. So much fun!

Seeing a musical from 30 meters up far from the scene and adoring it. Finding a jazz concert hidden behind a mysterious door. Eating barbequed burgers in -1 degrees Celsius to come in to a bar where almost all had their Mac Book Pro, where DJ's came an hour later to play Chill-House and a door opened at 8pm to give way to another secret: an early night electronic disco. There I danced my brains out with hardly anyone on the dance floor just because I felt like it and no-one really cared. At 12h30 me and Mariana had finished my last night with a deserved Indian meal - one of the countable cultural features that we are really fond of in the country that was our home for almost a year.

But the perfect experience was that of seeing one of the greatest fireworks on earth from just across the river, right in front of London Eye. "The biggest House party on Earth" (as in House music) was well worth the 4 and a half hour wait freezing in happiness, dance, friendship and expectation.

I just loved it. Check this out.

Mariana, luv u!!!!

You shall not say "it ain't possible"

About the purposefulness of Life

This means to be as much of a thesis as a declaration of my feeling of me.

I FEEL THAT LIFE IS PURPOSEFUL, THAT IN NO WAY COULD IT BE BETTER EVER, THAT IT IS ALWAYS AS IT HAS TO BE IN THAT PRECISE MOMENT OF YOUR TIME AND SPACE.

By purposeful I mean not that there's an end waiting and calling from a far away lost future, that finding that out and the means to reach it is what we should pursue; but other that we should be faithful in the Now, in the relevance of this moment for our Path - even if we're not sure where It is leading us or even where we would like It to take us.

I feel and know that Life is purposeful now, that there's no such thing as a coincidence, and I say this not only because of my readings which do help me to keep the spirit and most of all find the right words for it (e.g.: Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield and The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle here mentioned before), but mostly because I´VE BEEN HAVING THIS UNEXPLAINABLE BUT HIGHLY MOTIVATING FEELING OF SINCHRONICITY FOR MANY YEARS NOW.

Life has been proving to me time after time that things don't happen by some random reason, your life and mine and the world aren't rulled by change but by a superior collective and inter (actually: "inner")-connected matrix and conscience that makes every minute meaningful and every decision determinant.

In my long arguments about this over the years, the most common OBJECTION I hear is that what I am saying is that I believe in destiny, "right"? So what space does that leave for free-will, I am asked.

The other one was how could I then explain so much disgrace in the world if there is actually this wheel of major purpose underlying all that is done of this place we share with all nature.

Well, I must say the first point was a problem to me for a while when I thought that non-coincidence might not be reconcilable with the denial of a full predestination, a master-plan designated for you irrespective of your power of will or conscience, basically a decision prior to your own acts and mental dispositions covering your whole existence - I don't believe in that.

• ... then the word "believe" comes in. This word seems to allow doubt in too as it leaves space for factual proving of the opposite... if only research could ever collect spiritual data! (BELIEF IS WHAT KEEPS MANY GOING SO IT MAY BE A BLISS AS IT MAY BE AN IGNORANCE-VEIL.) Dogmas and book-based religions often tried to turn faith matters into sets of rules for followers: the only thing they managed was to empty the creeds of its meaningful power of making people reach and think beyond their own ego's. Now they promote ego's, leading to catastrophic fanatic disconnected ways of being in the world, to people living in fear and spreading monstruous feelings.

It was difficult to keep my thesis also when I still labelled happenings as good and bad seen from a micro perspective and thus found no possible bigger reason for so many records of human suffer in history. I am not saying I have it all sorted out, say the least that massive massacres and other unforgivable human-planned events or natural catastrophes were justified or are now justifiable but YES that I believe there is a macro-structure, a macro-world evolution that somehow could use those "tortuous lines" to write its story, teach its lessons, lead its way.

But there are 2 certainties I have now:

- 1 is that SINCHRONICITY (OR NON-COINCIDENCE) IS A MATTER BEYOND OUR CONCEPTUAL MIND-FRAMES OF TIME AND SPACE (Katherine helped me solve this cross-road I was at, thanks so much for dissolving the conceptual knot, Kat), this "conspiracy" works way beyond the limited variables we use to measure and catalogue our rational experience, it's another sort of matrix (the unexplicable connectedness that makes you find your soul-mate, "randomly" meet just the person you needed or get a phone-call from the person that had just crossed your mind). This matrix links all existence into one big purposeful evolution & connection-oriented world, and it influences small scale events as the ones described as it determines the meaningful ways in which each person's life evolves and the way they link to one another in highly relevant "productive" ways. WE'RE ALL A CONTRIBUTING PART OF THIS COLLECTIVE CONSCIENCE THAT HAS BEEN EVOLVING WITH THE WORLD, that's just for a start how relevant each one of us is.

- THE OTHER CERTAINTY I HAVE IS OF THE TRUTH OF THIS, IT'S AN INNER POSITIVENESS, AN INSIGHT I FEEL OF THE TRUTH, so you can say it's a mere belief but I have just about all the proofs in my daily life of this that I used to call "my star"... And for the sake of this testemony and my happy life, I need to go no further.

You may be asking: but what do you gain from that? what does that add to your life? why are you even mentioning that? "i don't feel that. i have no idea. actually, i don't even care."

What all this makes to me is to believe profoundly in THE POWER OF NOW, OF THIS NARROW YET FULL OF POTENTIAL PLACE WHERE THE COUNTABLE AND THE UNCONTABLE VARIABLES REUNITE IN YOUR HANDS. It makes me be aware of signs, of non-coincidences, of messages hiden in that much more subtle realm that lies between the lines of the happenings in my days.

It makes me feel joyful and trustfull and CONFIDENT THAT I AM WHERE I HAVE TO BE - and not because I aim there, hereby living with an anxious heart on the future, on that expectation, suffering with antecipation; or otherwise hanging to the past, re-living situations that are impossible to change and grieving in non-action and self-pity or self-punishment or acusation.

It makes me active, alert and trustful in me and all humans, all of us who have potential to go beyond our conditioning, our labelling and our collectively repeated behaviours - to reach out to a higher consciousness of ourselves and all that of living and non-living that surrounds us.

And it makes me feel no longer in fight inside. I feel peacened, I feel no fear as to what may come as I am sure of its relevance in my way. Most of the times I do actually manage to live my words and not worry, just be happy. And I do actually get glimpses of sublime moments as I purposedly stop or at least manage to slow down the pace of my mind (our mind often just produces rubish that leads to no positive attitude or disposition but to time-bound hanging to something other then your present reality). THESE MOMENTS OF CONNECTEDNESS (medidative states some currents would call it) ARE SOME OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL YOU CAN GET IN LIFE: THAT'S WHEN YOU'RE MOST CONSCIOUS AND YOU CAN DETECT AND PRODUCE TRUE BEAUTY.

Am I talking about enlightenment? An approach to it maybe at this level that is realizable by any human being. I speak of nothing extraordinary, but only of withdrawing yourself from the viscious cycles of thought, prejudice and unconscious behaviours and live your presence, live and indulge in your SELF.

You'll never be any more fuller in your true self than you are right now, so leave it not for later - when maybe on an outer level you'll be richer or may have accumulated some more of someTHING: wealth, body fitness, belongings, clothes, job position, social status, you name it - but you'll be no more full inside. You're just about everything you may wish for on a spiritual level already: just access that inside you and clean yourself from outerly-build worries, demands, pressures, release yourself from the dependency on pain and the "stories" upon which you insist on creating your identity. LIVE FULLY. It's really your choice.

What does this conscience make me? I FEEL GRATEFUL EVERY SINGLE DAY OF MY LIFE.

Swedish colours of my Happiness

SWEDEN. New destination: new feelings, new thoughts, new perspectives on life too.

Second time I step foot in this "God's own country". The reason: my dear Johan. And what a great reason! ... and the country doesn't stay back.

To contrast (probably the most extremely possible) with my most recent international experience [India], in Sweden:

- the air and tap water are the freshest;

- the forests (mostly with pines) and lakes are at every corner; all the urbanism and infra-structure that covers no more than 30% of the territory were themselves stolen from forest;

- recycling is institutionalized and their general behaviour as to anything that matters environment is in a generalized manner very responsible;

- everyone seems to speak English;

- everything, in every corner that you may take a peak at trying to find the fault that proves the rule... everywhere all things seem to be exactly in their place, neaty and organized as only in a very planned, efficient and thought for society as this one;

- people have individual space, vital space for themselves in the interior and exterior spaces;

- swedes do actually go out for walks and runs and ride their bicycles on a regular basis;

- the houses are the best I´ve seen when it comes to combining aesthetics and practical sense - I can say MY DREAM HOUSE IS DEFINITELLY A MIX OF THE MANY I´VE BEEN SEING IN SWEDEN.

- they have a very practical and efficient sense in all their activities.

... For some reason Scandinavia is considered the peak of Civility (the opposite of what I felt in India). I had the luck to visit Finland 3 years ago too. The life quality and the life style here are definitelly above average.

By both life quality and style I mean literal quality, not quantity, not unpurposeful wealth, not unestimated acumulation of belongings, not excess of consumerism, not only - in one word - money.

I see more CONSCIOUSNESS in people as individuals belonging to colectivities.

If this is good for the environment, peace on the streets, silence on the alleys, conviviality in public spaces, even for people's health habits... it's not so much so for their sense of tightedness, of control by the macro-structure, and their passiveness and resigned contentment as they are rocked by a soft and all-mighty condescendent paternal government.

Can't be perfect if the highest rate of suicidal attempts and successes is registered here, 50% of married couples end up divorcing and it's raining and grey, close or bellow 0 degrees celsius and there are below 6 hours of light... something like: 9,5 months per year (no wonder the depression).

IT´S BEEN LOOKING PRETTY PERFECT TO ME THOUGH (lucky I came in Summer ;) ). And these details... these features... are not what I wanted to focus on anyway.

I wanna paint the colors of my happiness here. Check out what I've been up to in the past 3 weeks:

- Early dinner barbeques outdoors, walks after dinner through neighbour small forests - always beautiful lakes and sunsets in our path

• the best one? Friday, when me, Johan and Pontus took a boat and navigated and fished through a lake that brought us to a lost castle in a far away foresty island. Johan had fished a fish, the meat was in the bag, salad's ready and bathing suits on. We had put on a fire just on the steps of the lake as the rain came: we persisted, took clothes off to feel the rain and blew the fire hoping to keep it burning. As the sun came down and the 2 full rainbows had gone it was past 21h30 in a beautiful rose-purple sky just behind the mountains we faced. We ate, my feet on the water and a feeling of wildness in the soul. Later I even got to sing out loud - free and sound as I like, still in my bikinis, wandering around the castle amidst the vegetation and the echoing on its walls - this was when Johan found small strawberries: the tastiest concentrated flavour! The night ended with a lot of playing with the fire (no, I heard of no one wetting their beds later :P ) and an engine that didn't want to work as Johan rowed back home in an almost pitch dark lake (me, no worries, I was roled in a towel and trusted that it would go fine - so it did).

- visits to family in the most varied villages: always beautiful though: mamma Anna, cousin Linda, pappa Kent, granny & granpa, Adam, Sara, etc.

• one to remember? sunbathing in a fluctuating peer outside Kent's future house in Ulricehamn, eating salad and watermelon with Johan and sis' Sara and meditating standing on a warm lake rock.

- always great food: really tasty to my senses. Not to forget the variety of groceries in the supermarkets... and their proud summer delicacies: fresh potatoes and strawberries. Not so rare to me but still an infinite pleasure among Johan's family, especially accompanied with gravy and ice-cream (respectively :P ).

• unforgettable? FIKA with Johan, Karin, Mikael, Mina, granny, granpa, 2 uncles, 1 aunt and 3 cousins around grandparents' table, with tea, coffee, kakor (cookies) and kaka (cakes) prepared by granny.

- sports activities: from basketball in Växjö to fishing in Skirö to jogging in Vetlanda, from riding horse to jumping in elastic mattress to power yoga with Sarah and muscle personal coaching with Johan.

• one of the nicest? walking in forest paths with Anna, Johan's mother, in a sunny early evening, here in there reaching the shining lake, here and there catching tasty mushrooms, here and there identifying birds and trees.

- I´m learning Svenska :D yay! apparently a fast learner. not an easy language at all though.

- I took part in traditional Midsommar festival, dancing with children around the traditional flower pole and eating traditional dishes among family.

- And the most suprising probaly: the first 2 weeks welcomed me with a shining warm sun that gave me a brown envy-worth tan. So sun-bathing in courtyard, lake peers, lake-sides, varandas, gardens, and still sometimes adding cold swims in far-sighted lakes... that has been something! There's even a beach served by the second biggest lake in Sweden, in Jönköping, with young people hanging around in the back gardens - great!

In the meantime, I've been being very warmly integrated among Johan's family, especially Anna, Karin, Sara, Kent and Johan of course - TAK FÖR ALLT guys!!!! :) I am taking care of my love... and looking for my next job opportunity. Pray for me!

Travellers' perspectives on India

I've been hearing all sorts of things about India:

- from people who visited the country as tourists for 15 days (or from someone who knows someone who did)

- from those who did actually manage to make it through a longer and/or less conventional stay

- and finally from those who have been watching the Brazilian soap-opera on India that is now being broadcasted on a main-stream channel in Portugal (but these don't deserve that many more words in the context of this comment).

And as about no "vacation spot", I hear the most contrasting feelings and contradicting opinions about the INCREDIBLE INDIA. But not necessarily categorized as above: people vary, so do the reports.

The truth is that mentioning that you lived there, and the country itself, usually leaves no one indifferent.

The ones who haven't visited India, they usually have it either as:

- their dream destiny

- or think they could never take it, that they wouldn't be able to bear the crude reality of the country.

But many many among the ones that did get to do such an exotic trip: many of these western travellers (some friends among them), they simply didn't like it.

Some even gave up out of shock in the middle of the journey if they had longer stays previewed; the others say they will never go back or if so only in 50 or 60 years. This is mostly because they saw so much garbage lying all over or just about thousands of skinny living people or wrapped up dead bodies being burned in Varanasi, or simply because they were subject to the worse smells, bugs and tummy problems ever!

What I don't always get to tell them is that I think no profound shift can be foreseen for India if a dramatic change of mentalities doesn't take place among Indians.

The ones in between were shocked with some things and delighted with others and in the end "rather liked it". Most of these will confirm to if you ask: they did the same old journey between 5 star hotels in Rajasthan, Delhi and of course: Agra, and got cheated some dozens of times in what later they just laugh about and label as a cute cultural feature.

Others are fans, fanatics, true appreciators of India.

They love what the country has to offer in vast and diversified experiences, namely the cultural, spiritual and the aesthetical/ artistic.

They are also looking for a sense of "seing the world", of finally getting a glimpse of true exoticism (these were definitely some of my drives).

But there is also some sadistic idea that you will broaden your views and value life more by contacting with human misery (by pure coincidence in a far distant country where you have the comfort to think that you don't have the power to do much about it).

Anyway... the ones who love(d) the Indian experience, they talk of its colors, of its smells, of its tastes, of its peculiar habits and rituals, of its wonderfully diverse environments and ancestral heritage: natural, architectural, artistic, religious, spiritual, etcaetera.

Afterall I haven't heard of a country with more revisiting, or with longer stays of travellers. For many India is the experience of a lifetime (it was for me). That's because it is such a distinct and challenging country for western globalized views, plus it offers and relatively harmoniously embraces and welcomes such DIVERSITY inside!

But India is not for anyone, that's for sure.

Not everyone can let go of their comfort zone but most of all their mind frame and human principles to cope with what you face in that country - especially if you get deeper into the HOW's and WHY's.

After 10 months, I didn't want to anymore.

For a "firangee" (* foreigner in Hindi) who was a resident in India for some time, the feelings are mixed as this blog testifies.

But I know none that would want to actually live there again, as I hardly know any Indian who wouldn't like to leave his country.

Going Within: Spirituality Vs. The Spirit in India

I spoke a lot here about what I felt of the spirit of India; I never got to mention its spirituality.

This is a place that breathes spirituality, although, as everywhere, you can find genuine as well as pseudo/ simply social-ritualistic or even commercialized practices and faiths.

'Guru' is a word that has fallen in disuse in the West as we tend to associate it with this fake trend in the matters of the spirit, but in India it is a very strong concept and a denomination attributed to all the living or past masters.

Indeed, the guru-pampara tradition is still a reality in India as it was in the West since the Greek. This is the master-disciple approach to education, where the knowledge is passed directly between two individuals, rather than without customization from one distant speaker to a mass of individuals.

This applies to any art form, as it applies to the Brahman Priests who are believed to have attained enlightenment, to be closer to God / the Truth as they became knowledgeable of the intricacies of texts as the Upanishads, the Baghvad Gita, the Ramayana, the Mahabaratha..., that tell the story of Hindu Philosophy. These are people who are holders of a greater power than most of us commons, and their simple presence or blessing in a given moment, place or function is believed to be auspicious to the people involved.

Actually all classical art forms, especially performing arts but even plastic arts, are inevitably connected in a deep inescapable way with Indian philosophy, so for example when watching a classical dance recital, you won't miss the depiction of a legendary Hindu scene, as you won't be able to escape a transe state if you totally give in to the sound produced by voices, instruments and bodies that the performers learned to command in a sublime way after years and years of disciplined training in Hindustani or Carnatic music that has always a meditative side to it.

And why are there more enlightened people in India? After all, didn't Budha get enlightened in Bodh Gaya? Aren't there so many others? Once someone explained me why: the only and simple reason is, first, that India is a millennary civilization where the spiritual path is assumed as an essencial part of every individual's life since the Vedas; and than that, unlike in the West, people who chose the yogic path have always and are still today seen with high regard and invited to explore it in any way found conducive - unlike in the West, where anyone going within or showing signs of connection to any dimension other than the materialistic pragmatic side of life was seen as herectic, prossecuted as witch, excomungated and burned in fires.

Well India, irrespective of its profound challeges when it comes to the stage of development of many human rights , is as you hear people say: a spiritual place, a place where anyone who wants to explore the potential of the human spirit will definitely find their ways (be it truely autentic ways or new-age pseudo-yoga programmes: there's something for every taste).

I had the privilege to meet some very special people who opened my windows of oportunity to practices, philosophies and currents as promising and inspiring as Hinduism, Budhism, Reiki, Aura/ Bioplasmic energies, Astrology, Palm reading, Cristals, Self-hipnosis / Subconscious Programming, Creative Visualization / Attraction Law, Guasha, Movement Meditation, Chakras, Power Yoga, NOW, among other much harder to to put into words forms of accessing or manipulating our Higher Power and the Ultimate Energy.

But for sure what touched me and transformed me the most was the SCIENCE OF YOGA.

I haven't found until today a more developed science for general well-being. Everything that I have seen since or had run accross before seems to have its roots in this apparently ever-existing way of living.

Yoga sees human evolution in well-being from three angles:

- The BODY - for which they created the Asanas, the "exercise"-alike (only apparent) practice that is genereally associated with the word Yoga in the West; and also Ayurvedic Medicine for help and facilitation of treatment in malfunction.

- The MIND - for whose peacening they developed an important set of breathing-techniques, that make you re-learn such a vital but usual overlooked process of life and finally feel more balanced on a daily basis.

- And the SPIRIT - for which access they found a very powerful tool called Meditation.

But even in Yoga, there are many currents, but they are usually associated or combine sorts like: Hata Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, Vipasana, Prana Yama, among others.

I relate very much to the holistic approach of Yogic Science to life, leaving no dimesion of people's existence out. And I afirm with no hesitation that a regular properly learnt and coached practice definitely takes you higher, frees you from mundane strains and helps you live happier, healthier and more aligned.

Just be sure not to follow fake gurus or associations who do business with religion (test your identification with your guts), and please don't take just any temple rituals as profound manifestations.

Don't take me wrong, there are many true believers among Indian people of course, people who live the philosophy and practice the principles. But unfortunately many many others play the spiritual role just as they are expected to (the same engine keeps them stuck to a more general out-of-date ancestral meaningless apathic pattern of living, where they relate only superficially to one's life, to others and to God). Many religious individuals perform their daily rituals mostly by obligation and habit, without really living the concepts or investing the moments with genuine connection with their God; or even having a faith bigger than fear of idols, society or difference.

... Not to speak of the religious intolerance that mines the country from within although they have lived for centuries in an apparently harmonious conviviality, in a diversity melting-pot with the frame of democracy... but which goes against what is (not always preached but) for sure profoundly imbebed in the true essence of any religion practiced with fervour in that country where 80% are Hindus, 12% Muslims, and around 2-4% Budhists, Christians and Jains, plus smaller shares of any cult you may think of.

And this is out of a mass of 1 billion Indians... imagine how representative and influencial it would be to any creed comunities in the world if these faith-practicioners would give a cohesive example of peaceful co-existence, true dialogue and a mutual understanding that in the end... we're all talking about the same, we're all aiming the same, which luckily is infinite and accessible to all.

GOD IS TOO BIG TO FIT INTO ONE RELIGION.

(writing already from Portugal)

Memories from my final Big Trip in India

I shared with Mariana my last long trip in India.
This one brought me first to the South, for the 3rd time to a state that definitelly feels like you're out of India: Goa - in a stay that from 2 nights ended up in 8 (just what we needed!). Then back again to the so different North: Delhi and Agra. In the North-East, two new very worth visiting spots: Varanasi, the berth of the India's spirituality, and Bodhgaya, the berth of Siddhartha as the Budha. Finally the central Mumbai, which I now saw with different eyes.

This was a phase when my tireness of being treated as lesser than anyone deserves and undergoing undignifying situations was getting to the maximum. My delusion total at points.

1. The boy with a Hotel Management Degree working in one of the poor Indian Railway Cafeterias, alleging a communication weakness (I think he was gay and thus he didn't stay long in hotel chains run by Indian 'business-MEN'). I wrote him a recommendation comment in the suggestion book and me and Mariana will definitelly write him a recommendation letter for a proper hotel job whenever he asks us to. He was polite and effective as almost no one we found in this country: that's what clientelle is looking for though hardly any enterprise seems to have realized it here.
   
2. The burning ghats in Varanasi, where over 150 dead bodies arrive per day.


3. What everyone called 'misconduct': when part of the railway was bombed in what was said to be common 'local terrorism', very close to Gaya where I expected a train to go back to Varanasi. This led to a series of misinformation, 3 hour waiting, and a train trip that should have taken 5 relatively comfortable hours and ended up in 12 quite disputed hours. Result: the whole day was destroyed, but of course we arrived safely.


4. Walking the steps of Lord Budha in Varanasi and Bodhgaya, namely around the Bodhi tree where he got enlightened.


5. Realising the theatre that adults and children do to beg, transfigurating themselves, doing special dreadful agony-like voices. often lying.


6. The best Lassi in India, sweet, thick, eatable with spoon, dry fruits inside: in an Agra roof-top restaurant having the Taj Mahal silhouette as a neighbour.


7. The undescribable Spiritual Disneyland of India in a main metropole, which name I won't mention for the sake of respect and discretion. Included: motion toys and giant screens depicting the life of the Swamiji.


8. The fact that, in the mundane India, even the people that seem to go out of the ordinary and give you a sense of relieve and hope as they stand out from a generally lame majority... in the end all of them deceive the expectations you had thought them to surpass.


9. The Budhist temples in North-Varanasi and in Bodh Gaya. Simple truthful philosophy, beautiful practices, powerful mantras, inspiring places, colourful temples. ---- Feeling everyday more spiritual, although I'm a mere beginner even as a seeker.


10. Almost being hit on the ear by one of thousands of red liquids being spit from an Indian's mouth out of a train. Being forced to hear noices from the inside of men's bodies all the time (burping, gobing, spiting, etc - !!!!!).


11. The riders of cycle-rickshaws in Northern India whose feet don't reach the pedals.


12. VARANASI AIRPORT, flying to MUMBAI (!): NO ONE AT ANY POINT ASKED US FOR OUR PASSPORT!!!!! NO COMMENTS. I had to go and identify our luggage in the hangar on its way to the airplane after checking it in.


13. Lies everywhere! Being cheated. But still naïf sometimes. Feeling irreversibly fed up with the country and the way it works.


14. Silent Noice party in Neptune Point, end of Palolem Beach, South Goa. Great party with head-phones, three frequencies playing different DJ's and a great setting watching the beach from the rocks.


15. The Good Life in Palolem, Goa, and the things I tried there.


16. The full-moon night in Palolem beach, when its light made the sand white and reflected in waters that rose to my feet, sitting on a beach swing.


17. Learning with Mariana that treating them bad, that's the only way it works for foreigners. No more minding being rude, even laughing unrespectfully in the face of no-minded people.


18. Feelings like compassion and respect just vanish from you after a while of living and travelling this country because you've been deceived so many times. In the streets they don't have the minimum principles.


19. Indians in its gross mattering majority are sadly totally resigned.


20. Incredible levels of challenge: risk and lack of higiene one after the other.


21. Nauseating and despicable behaviour of common men. Submissive and apathic behaviour of women.


22. They don't touch food and drink containers with their mouth, including water bottles and glasses.


23. They paint their children's eyes in black from when they are months-old.


24. Babies don't cry. Children don't complain. They have suffered too much before.
    
    
25. The ceremonial side of Varanasi, the belief and the mystical side of the Ganga. Seing them meditating, bathing and drinking out of those bacterial waters that apparently get no one sick. Seing it by 5.30 am... and still the foggy amazing sunrise!


26. Indian Hotel number: 30 or so? Have seen a lot, believe me!


27. Seing Mumbai with different eyes as you get a view to the bay from Renato's apartment.


28. A Bollywood-like wedding on a private beach at Intercontinental Hotel in South Goa, in which we ended up by chance. Dozens of cooks, dozens of masks, stage, lighting and a sky filming-camera: a lot of dancing in a Carnival-like atmosphere. And that must have been only one night among the ceremonies that usually last for days.


29. There are definitelly 2 INDIAS.


30. The reinforcement of an eternal friendship with Mariana Aflalo Lopes, original from Santos, SP, Brazil, but one of my girls, a woman from the world, and a woman from the heart.