Day 57 End of Eight Days on The Road

31 December 2012

I run, I travel. I use my legs a lot.

I collect things both tangible and intangible when I travel:

Post cards.

Toilets. I don't mean the things, but the experience. While there is a toilet in Utrecht where the seat is covered with plastic and you turn it around when you want a new plastic cover altogether to sit on, or a toilet in Amsterdam where the seat turns and as it does, it gets sanitized somewhere where you can't see it but you smell isopropyl alcohol in the air after pressing a button, I think the Japanese toilets are still the best in the world, forget even if I had an accidental facial wash the first time I tried the bidet.

How Christmas trees are decorated -- with gigantic red balls, and even dried lemon slices.
Snow balls.

Sometimes it's ridiculous how much money and time tourists spend buying souvenirs, as if the entire experience and magic of the place can be contained in one ref magnet or snow ball or post card or a picture. Even taking pictures of themselves in front of tourist spot or old church or a historical landmark. And sometimes that's all they do and want and they're fine with it, but failing to stop and breathe in whatever is in front of them, failing to engage in a talk with locals around them. That goes without saying I'm not one of them. I totally am. Especially that we are guided by an itinerary. Daily. As if when they come home to their homes, they'd place the souvenirs in a pedestal or keep them in a safe, only to throw away next time they encounter them when they find the time to clean their closet. It's pathetic how we all are controlled by capitalism, buying these souvenirs.

My point is, what's the point in collecting?


What I really want to say is I gave up, just after acquiring my first piece, from Rome, my snowball collection. First it was expensive (some are as expensive as 45 euros each). Second, it was heavy.

I felt bad, yes, but this could be one small step but a big leap towards the process of detachment from material things. We bring here nothing. We bring with us nothing. #

Gigantic red Christmas balls adorn real Christmas trees on a sidewalk in Salzburg near the Sound of Music gazebo scene.