After the trip....

so, i just finished my 3 week tour of central europe.  actually, there was a pretty fair amount of discussion if i was touring eastern or western europe.   i decided that like my politics (hahaha) that i was in the middle and thus went with central europe.

what can i say?   well, in the most basic terms it was by far the best trip i have taken in my life to date.   but, that sorta feels like a child's favorite toy...it is always the most recent one, right?  

well, i feel that this trip was the best in terms of really allowing me to experience peoples, sights, sounds, ideas, cultures that were completely new to me.  but, i should say that i was amazed at how similar people really are in living....but is that really a shocker?    for the first time in my life, i was the "foreigner" or person who didn't speak the language.   it was very humbling; a very powerful lense to which i hope that i will look at issues of life as i move forward.

i know there is so much in my mind that is racing about what i saw and experienced.  i hope that as i continue to write here that i will work in what i learned on the trip.   and, i think i learned probably the most about myself...but that should be the way shouldn't it?

so briefly, what did i learn?

- a hello, a thank-you, a smile and shitload of humility goes a LONG way.
- you really can travel 3 weeks with 1 gym-bag of clothes.
- nobody but american tourists wear baseball hats in europe.
- the history of europe is so vast and intertwined
- a whole generation of people have been born since the fall of communism in europe
- a significant amount of reminders throughout europe about what can happen when evil people are allowed to spread their ideas.
- women wear fantastic shoes everywhere, even when pedaling their bikes.
- mcdonald's look like trendy cafes in europe but i never went into any business i would have seen in america.
- you can easily "unplug" from the internet for days at a time.  no texts, no calls, no headaches.   still nice to have internet/wifi at times though.
- european cellphones work going through tunnels.   and, they use them all the time.

i guess that is enough for now.  i just wanted to get back to writing a little bit, i mean typing.  i was actually writing in europe in a journal and damn my handwriting is horrible.

-later