Chillaxation

The weather in here is going crazy.

When I woke up at 6 am today (unemployed people cannot say 'no' to tutoring, even when it starts at 8 am on the other side of town), it was already raining. Decided to reactivate my rain boots, which I promised myself not to wear after constantly having them on for a couple of days in the row back in Roskilde, and happily set off to the center, glad that I wouldn't get wet.

2 hours into the day and it became so hot, I could barely stand to walk (pun intended ;) ). 

I had a flash of 'I should just take them off and walk barefoot', but as I was going to hand in my documents at uni,* I decided against walking into the board's room with shoes in my hands and badly painted toenails out in the open. After uni went to see T, an Indian friend whom I interviewed today, and later had lunch with A, who was pretending to be finishing her thesis at the library. By the time I got to Rue de Paris (a chain restaurant with crepes), I was boiling inside my pretty purple shoes. I took them off the moment I sat down and never put them back on. 

While I was crossing the street in one of the main points of the city, and gathering looks from my fellow pedestrians, as well as some of the drivers (everything from beaming smiles, through ridicule, to utter surprise), I suddenly found myself asking myself a question in my head: "Would you have done that a year ago, before you started travelling the way you do?" And the answer was "Most certainly not!"

And so I smiled to myself and gladiy welcomed this relaxed state of mind that visits you whenever you realise you don't give a darn what anybody thinks, 'cause you're doing your own thing (yes, even if it's walking with your rain boots on your hands, instead of your feet).

.      .       .        .       .      .

Originally, it didn't even cross my mind to write about it. However, have spent the last couple of hours going through some travel blogs and just finished reading a post about the advantages and disadvantages of a year long trip one Polish couple embarked on some time ago. The first thing they say is:

"Above all, we've gained something we might call a piece of mind. It's hard to explain. We stress less about things, there's more patience in us, more optimism."

("Przede wszystkim zyskaliśmy coś co można chyba nazwać spokojem ducha. Trudno to wytłumaczyć. Mniej się wszystkim przejmujemy, więcej w nas cierpliwości, więcej optymizmu."

To read more, for Polish speakers, click here.)

It was so fitting to what I felt today that I needed to comment on it as well. 

Their words express my exact thoughts.

 

I have noticed that I stress a lot less, I do not pay so much attention to (irrelevant) things, it's gotten easier to just let go, forgive and forget, not worry when it's not necessary (which is most of the time, I assure you).

Although it's quite easy to point the results of the change that has happened (is hapenning?), it really is hard to explain the way feelings and the mind have altered. 

 

The only way I can put it for now - travelling has given me the skill of chillaxation.

Anyone out there got a similar experience?

*For more information, read tomorrow's post :)