Counting down...
.
90 hours remain.
It was a dream and it was beautiful while it lasted. The trouble with waking up from some of them is that you don't quite know whether you are awake, or whether you are awake in the dream. I don't quite know either.
I remember a friend telling me once (or maybe he wrote it in his blog sometime) about how vacations had been turning points in my life!!! I had laughed. But then, I got thinking about it, and its strange coz they have been. Even this one. There are some basic creeds that constitute the essence of the person. And then, sometimes, they get shaken. And the person becomes a different one altogether. Or they are re-affirmed and then they become you. Rarely, though, over the course of a vacation has both happened to me. I am never sure if change is for the better, but its probably not for the worse. So, I guess I will owe this one a lot too...
**************
Finland: Beautiful, absolutely dazzling. Of course, it is my first trip outside India and hence, I have nothing to compare it with. But it was amazing. For one, it induced my blog out of the somnolence with three posts, I think, in remarkably quick succession. Then happened to me a bit of coincidence that bordered on the insane. Then, life settled into more regular patterns, and I stopped blogging again :P
So over the two months, cafeterias, lunches, cooking, kayaking, drowning, traveling and making new friends, I had quite a bit of fun. And I learnt a lot. Lessons that this time, I think, I wont forget!!!
People came and went. It was the season for departures when I arrived. Thorben, Marcus, teresita, Sara, Xavi, Constance, Marina, Carol, the whole lot who were there during my first month gradually took the flights back to their home towns. Milica, Vlasta flitted by. Short durations of a month each. They all left indelible impressions, and a much better and clearer understanding into people. Its the one thing I really appreciated about most of them. They are what they are, no twists, subtleties or anything like that. And I will miss them. Not in person perhaps, but in essence. And the fact that we were all people who did not really need each other resulted in a sort of closeness that comes naturally from not having to weigh words, not having to wonder whether or not to say something, not bothering about being judged. I haven't been closer to tears in a long time as when Xavi left, but i think it was probably induced by all the people around!!! Karthik left yesterday. And I am next on Tuesday.
But like the sun that doesn't quite leave the sky nowadays, I think there s a bit of Helsinki in me that will stay forever, and I will be the better for it. There will also perhaps be a little bit of me there, that I shall go back to see sometime; atop the Olympic stadium, in the night on Suomenlinna, in the kayak club, in Nuuksio, in TML, in Sello, in Kannelmaki.
I think I have almost become immune to changes, to people leaving, to people having to leave and all that. It doesn't affect me at all anymore.
I was at the airport to see Karthik off yesterday, and we had some good times, even if he didn't “run his fingers through my hair!!!!” I got there before him over an hour before, and spent my time in the arrivals lounge, watching people come in, and almost enact the first few clips of “Love, Actually”. It was heart warming, especially one where this lady stepped out of the gates with her daughter, and there was this man waiting with a tiny black poodle. Almost as though rehearsed, man and lady went straight for each other, and child and dog for each other!!! In some strange way, it was almost comforting to see them embrace!!!
Nonetheless, my life is overshadowed by worry. I am going to be carrying excess baggage back home :( this is what happens when you end up with five pairs of footwear. And I have to buy a few kilos of chocolates and all. And there are amazing sales on!!!
Sigh, i wish I could just stay here only for a little while longer at least, till I got bored. It would be the perfect fairytale. But then they don't happen. Ask Zidane.
90 hours remain.
It was a dream and it was beautiful while it lasted. The trouble with waking up from some of them is that you don't quite know whether you are awake, or whether you are awake in the dream. I don't quite know either.
I remember a friend telling me once (or maybe he wrote it in his blog sometime) about how vacations had been turning points in my life!!! I had laughed. But then, I got thinking about it, and its strange coz they have been. Even this one. There are some basic creeds that constitute the essence of the person. And then, sometimes, they get shaken. And the person becomes a different one altogether. Or they are re-affirmed and then they become you. Rarely, though, over the course of a vacation has both happened to me. I am never sure if change is for the better, but its probably not for the worse. So, I guess I will owe this one a lot too...
**************
Finland: Beautiful, absolutely dazzling. Of course, it is my first trip outside India and hence, I have nothing to compare it with. But it was amazing. For one, it induced my blog out of the somnolence with three posts, I think, in remarkably quick succession. Then happened to me a bit of coincidence that bordered on the insane. Then, life settled into more regular patterns, and I stopped blogging again :P
So over the two months, cafeterias, lunches, cooking, kayaking, drowning, traveling and making new friends, I had quite a bit of fun. And I learnt a lot. Lessons that this time, I think, I wont forget!!!
People came and went. It was the season for departures when I arrived. Thorben, Marcus, teresita, Sara, Xavi, Constance, Marina, Carol, the whole lot who were there during my first month gradually took the flights back to their home towns. Milica, Vlasta flitted by. Short durations of a month each. They all left indelible impressions, and a much better and clearer understanding into people. Its the one thing I really appreciated about most of them. They are what they are, no twists, subtleties or anything like that. And I will miss them. Not in person perhaps, but in essence. And the fact that we were all people who did not really need each other resulted in a sort of closeness that comes naturally from not having to weigh words, not having to wonder whether or not to say something, not bothering about being judged. I haven't been closer to tears in a long time as when Xavi left, but i think it was probably induced by all the people around!!! Karthik left yesterday. And I am next on Tuesday.
But like the sun that doesn't quite leave the sky nowadays, I think there s a bit of Helsinki in me that will stay forever, and I will be the better for it. There will also perhaps be a little bit of me there, that I shall go back to see sometime; atop the Olympic stadium, in the night on Suomenlinna, in the kayak club, in Nuuksio, in TML, in Sello, in Kannelmaki.
I think I have almost become immune to changes, to people leaving, to people having to leave and all that. It doesn't affect me at all anymore.
I was at the airport to see Karthik off yesterday, and we had some good times, even if he didn't “run his fingers through my hair!!!!” I got there before him over an hour before, and spent my time in the arrivals lounge, watching people come in, and almost enact the first few clips of “Love, Actually”. It was heart warming, especially one where this lady stepped out of the gates with her daughter, and there was this man waiting with a tiny black poodle. Almost as though rehearsed, man and lady went straight for each other, and child and dog for each other!!! In some strange way, it was almost comforting to see them embrace!!!
Nonetheless, my life is overshadowed by worry. I am going to be carrying excess baggage back home :( this is what happens when you end up with five pairs of footwear. And I have to buy a few kilos of chocolates and all. And there are amazing sales on!!!
Sigh, i wish I could just stay here only for a little while longer at least, till I got bored. It would be the perfect fairytale. But then they don't happen. Ask Zidane.
posted by Lancelot @ 4:25 PM
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