Not too long ago, I decided to start this blog and share travel experiences with whoever wants to read them. It's been a couple of hectic months, since I'm about to finish college and I just returned from a marvelous trip that I'm still processing inside my head. So many memories, people, faces and places, new friends and that feeling of happiness that grows everyday in your soul when you look back at the nice times you had and you tell yourself "Yes, I lived all this. It wasn't a dream, it was real".
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| Walking the streets of Xochimilco, Mexico City with one of my best school friends, Danilo. |
I must say I've always loved to watch films. I like to look closely at scenes and how they are carefully constructed by the professionals of the movie industry. I also like to imagine how my life would be if it was one feature film and which scenes would I choose to portray the important or most significant moments.
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| Tha Alhambra of Granada was that one place I was longing to see. So happy I had the chance to visit it one winter ago with my brother. A view from the San Nicolás viewpoint |
The thing is, we never get to choose these scenes. Most of the times, we are so obsessed with every detail inside the frame, that we forget about the story. And stories are the most important part of life. We base our lives in stories, we tell them everyday, we experience them, we share them.
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| A little bit of shopping turkish-style at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul |
It is the same when you embark on a new adventure. Yes, you can choose your hostels/hotels, choose places to visit. But what you think you're going to find is totally different to what you encounter. In all my travels I've made choices, but I've also let myself be surprised. That's why Mexico City means more to me than just a huge capital: it's a city I discovered on foot with one of my best school friends. That's why Germany is not only the country where my family comes from: it's the place I associate with my sweetest childhood memories and also where I get the energy to keep moving forward. Everytime I return from a visit to my Grandma's town I feel renovated, not because I see new things, but because I love to connect with my inner self and with the people I love the most. That's why Egypt is to me more than just the country of the wonderful Pyramids; it's a place where I have a family that I learned to love in very short time. That's also why Cihangir is not only a beautiful neighbourhood where I stayed while in Istanbul , but it is the place where I met one of the kindest persons I've ever encountered, a turkish journalist called Serkan, with the one I shared so many conversations during my stay.
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| I love Beyoğlu. The wonderful Cihangir (pronounced Geehangish) mosque at sunset. One of my favorite neighbourhoods in Istanbul, with Balat. |
Maybe, what I'm trying to say is that we should let our souls guide us to wherever it is we want to go, and not worry too much about the details in every scene. Only in this way all the monuments, museums, hostels or cities we visit become parts of our lives/experiences/memories and have a different meaning than just "a place I visited".
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| The mighty pyramids. I'm so thankful to the Lescure-Zuleta family for opening their home and lives to me. I miss them so much. |
Today is my 21st birthday. All I wish for my new year of life (besides the usual wishes of family, love, happiness and health) is more curiosity. It is that curiosity that makes me want to wander and explore; ask and get lost, get lost again and start all over. I hope I always stay this curious about the world and its people.
Finally, I would love to share with you the final dialogue of one of my favorite recent films (comment below if you know which german film it is):
Ein kluger Mann antwortete einmal auf die Frage: Wer und was sind wir?
Wir sind die Summe all dessen was vor uns geschah,
all dessen was unter unseren Augen getan wurde,
all dessen was uns angetan wurde.
Wir sind jeder Mensch und jedes Ding, dass im Dasein das unsere beeinflusste, oder von unserem beeinflusst wurde.
Wir sind alles was geschieht nachdem wir nicht mehr sind und was nicht geschäh, wenn wir nicht gekommen wären.
Which translates in english as:
A wise man answered once to the question: Who and what are we?
We are the sum of all of which happened before we came,
of all of which happened in front of us,
of all of which was done to us.
We are every person and every thing that influenced our existence or that was influenced by ours.
We are everything that happens after we are gone and what wouldn't have happened, If we hadn't come...
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| The lovely land of Central Anatolia in Turkey and its wonderful hardworking and kind people taught me so much when I was there in May. |
