Hamburg to Paris

I arrived in Hamburg to the company of an old friend from Germany named Vanessa, who has also been a pen pal of mime for years. She has far better English than I, and speaks with an Australian accent so it indeed felt a bit like Australian home in Hamburg.  She made some delicious meals and I got to meet her boyfriend and a slew of her smart, hilarious German friends who made me feel the most welcome. We spent a few super relaxed days wandering Hamburg, complete with Ferry rides, beers on the beach, The world's largest Train set world and tiny world. Seriously, it's like three floors, complete with an airport, planes flying in and out and day turning to night, with the most famous cities in the world and at least a million miniatures. It's a dorks paradise and so worth a visit if you ever stumble through Hamburg.

 I love having people who love there homes show them to me, it comes from such a different place, and Vanessa loves her Hamburg, so she was a perfect guide to have for my few short days there.  In the evening we ate yummy home cooked food, drank wine and talked about the million and one things that had happened sense we last saw each other. Travel time is such a stranger faster thing than stationary time. Russia felt like a million years worth of experience, and before I could blink I was leaving my wonderful Australian/German mum and the lovely crew of Hamburg on a 14 hour overnight bus ride to Paris.

Let me tell you a thing or if you have ever done a number of long overnight buses, all and all they are not bad.  Time moves quickly if you can sleep anywhere like I can and It cost me 9 euros, I could not complain. The company was called minibus, it was clean and decent and had a phone charger, I was golden.  I sped through the night dozing and Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, a book on Buddhism and Wild a nice trifecta of interesting to dabble between.  My goal is to read two books a month, as of this point I had only finished a small collection of Yates, but I finished Wild around 7 in the morning as the sun was coming up on the rolling hills of the french countryside. It was such a good story of travel, for those who have not read it, its an incredible story of a woman getting over death and hiking the ACT. It is more a story about managing and surviving when life is hard, I loved that.  I have been thinking over my travels how much sometimes its just about getting through difficult things, we don't have to do them well, hell we can do them poorly, but as long as we are honest and mindful, we will learn and draw alot from it.

I stumbled into mid day Paris, tired, smelly, but so excited to be re-united with the one the only Emily Freeman.  For those of you who do not know this rock star of a human, she is my sista from another mista, a dear friend, Vermonter and NEYT groupie from days of old.  She is also a wine lover, incredible cook, and silly human being.  She is among those folks I can talk about anything in the world too.  We met with friends of hers in a lovely little french cafe, and what promised to be a chill night, turned into most likely the only french Cafe late night Coolio dance party happening in Paris. Drinking wine and smoking cigarettes on the streets at 2 am, wearing a red clown nose with Gangsters Paradise on repeat for the fourth time that evening, Welcome to Paris ya god damn clown.

St Petersburg and the Clowns to Moscow and away

After the close experience of Maria's Children Summer camp, I embarked to the majestic city of Saint Petersburg, formerly Lenningrad.  This city was rebuilt after WW2 all in the same style, with beautiful facades all lit up at night, large canals to walk along and stunning Roman Orthodox churches, which Russia is famous for.  I joined a large group of clowns all going to clown in the children's wards of hospitals, Lead by the lovely Anya, one of Maria's five daughters, all of whom are very involved with Maria's Children.

 This group was made up of: 15 American students and teachers from a college in Virginia, all doing a humanitarian mini mester abroad, a few other Russian clowns from Maria's Children, a French Canadian clown named Guillaume, a Portuguese clown named Joana (I name these two because the three of us as the rag tag members became quite close).  We all took the overnight to St. Petersburg, and embarked on a five day clown/food/adventure fest. During the day we dressed in our clown garb and went to a hospital a day, usually for around 1 1/12hrs.  They ranged from the parks outside hospitals to wards with children bed ridden, and all we really were doing was playing.  Playing with the kids, there parents and families.  Imagine being a parent and having a child confined to a hospital for weeks, months at a time.  We were the laughter distraction, the clown halftime show, and you can see the beautiful power of a laugh when it is on a kid that has not had many of late.  We would mime, and run around and giggle and hide, be as silly as we could.  Push around kids in wheel chairs, make faces with kids confined to bed, and generally just be a bunch of clowns.  You could hear laughter up and down the halls, from the floors below and above, in halls that generally laughter does not live.

We would leave these places sweaty and happy, astonished on what a gift of a few hours of silliness would be,  and spend our evenings strolling the streets, eating incredible food, most of which was Georgian, and drinking wine and beer.  Georgian food is like Eastern European comfort food, breads filled with egg and cheese, spinach and mushroom pate, and big dishes filled with roasted veggies, potato's and meats, easily some of the best food I have ever eaten.  I also had time to go check out the Hermatige Museum, one of the worlds largest, a collection of 30 Palaces holding Rembrants, Da Vinci's and Michelangelo's, Thousands of years of art, which we wandered for hours.  Despite warnings put out by the American Embassy that we were out during the high violence times of Russian Airforce and Naval celebration days, we met no hostility, and were generally met with open arms. We celebrated at a bar called the New Years Club, were every night at 12 they celebrate Russian style new years, champagne is passed and everyone wears bunny ears.  The time here was still so surrounded by a wave of magic, and as it came to an end there were even more hugs and tears of goodbye.  Anya, Guillaume, Joana and I said goodbye the group and we all headed back to Moscow, where we spent the next couple of days hanging out with Olga (another daughter of Maria) and her boyfriend Martin (a Maria's children volunteer).  They introduced me to new friends and took me to The Garage a peculiar yet awesome modern museum in Moscow.  Following more Georgian food my final night in the city, more lovely goodbyes and waves as I departed For Germany Via Istanbul to visit my friend Vanessa.

That all of this, was encompassed in less than three weeks is mind blowing.  I have always struggled with the concept of time, it's impossible to grasp.  So much of my meditation has been spent helping me enjoying the present moment, and I have never felt more able than now. As I sat on a layover in a cafe in the Istanbul Airport, drinking Turkish coffee and eating Turkish delights, I marveled at how one can not bottle or take an experience with you.  The memories change with time, details leave me but the feelings that I have experienced of different places and people all remain, thank you all for the gifts of a million and one beautiful feelings.