A BRIEF intermission: Chasing spring … two months in

Today, May 7, is my two month anniversary of traveling. It is the longest time I have been away from home. The longest time I have been away from family. The longest …

For two months now, I have chased spring. It started in Spain, with the first buds on the trees, the first field of little yellow flowers, and has followed me since then.

Spring is an amazing time of year. It is about birth. About starting new. And, it signifies a lot to me, since this trip is a birth of sorts for me. I have literally taken my entire life’s work, my dreams, my desires, and washed them from my mind and here, have begun to reconstruct the wheel, to re-identify what my dreams and desires could be/are.

A year ago, when I lived in Atlanta, I remember marveling at the city’s sheer gorgeousness with the changing of the season. The pink flowers that would sprout from the winding trees. The bright green grass that would pop up overnight. The light wind that would gently blow during days spent at Piedmont Park, taking in the South’s spring.

I would never in a million years have imagined spending my spring 365 days later in Europe, living in a prolonged (and amazing) spring for nearly two months.

I have followed spring as it spreads across this magnificent continent. I have watched as the landscape has grown from stark and somewhat desolate to rich and full of life. I have treasured the moments where my eyes are greeted to some of the most spectacular and temporary sights I have ever had the pleasure and fortune to see.

I have tried to capture this life on film, but nothing can possibly depict what I have seen accurately. And, I continue to live in spring. Even with the late April (May) showers and the unseasonably cool temperatures hitting Berlin at the moment, it gives me such satisfaction to know once those clouds clear, there will be new flowers, new life, growing before my eyes.

One month ago, I sat outside writing, looking over the Extremadura region of Spain and just breathing in its peace and beauty.

The past month has been very different from my first month traveling. This month was more about me getting into the swing of backpacking and hostels and flip-flops in the showers. It was about me getting used to me, and getting used to other people.

I did a lot of traveling this month. From Monfrague, I headed back to Madrid for a night, then flew to Budapest, took an overnight train to Brasov, Romania, and another train to Cluj-Napoca, and then two busses to Krakow, followed by an overnight train to Prague, and finally a train to Berlin.

Whew.

If this was my first trip eight years ago, I would have a hell of a lot of stamps in my passport.

Yesterday, I was given the opportunity to add another stamp to my passport — Rwanda. I was invited on a press trip to tour the African country. This one is going to take some work on my part to make it happen … and some reallocation of funds and shots. Lots and lots of shots (as in vaccines). We shall see … If it does happen, it is June 3 – 8.

Here’s the Month Three.

Kedves egeszsegere. Noroc. Na zdrowie. Na zdraví. Prost.