I missed a bus on this trip. Woke up after two hours sleep proud that I would make it. I took the right bus in the wrong direction. Cost me 25euro. Count your losses. I didn't sleep last night. My plane left at 11am (I thought it was ten) and so to save myself from sleeping through it, I packed my things in a pitch black room full of 20 bunkbeds and headed out through the streets of Barcelona a little before 6 am. Apparently there are three airports in Barcelona. I played rock paper scissor and ended up at the right one. Fell asleep on the floor of the airport because I didn't know there were seats a stone's throw away. I can't remember my password, so I haven't been able to check my account balance this entire trip. For certain I have 50euros in my pocket. It's russian roulette every time I use an ATM. I haven't slept on the street this entire trip. In Nice a hostel was full, so two girls snuck me into their room and let me sleep for a few hours before my train left at 5am. I've eaten the best food of my life on this trip. I've eaten some of the worst as well. I've taken to eating cucumbers and tomatoes the way most people eat apples, and I make a mean baguette with meat and cheese. I haven't booked hostels more than a day in advance. Mostly I show up and sometimes they have room. When they don't I wander. Sometimes I come back. It doesn't take a smart person to travel. I've lost a few things and missed brushing my teeth a few days, but I'm surviving just fine. In fact, I'm alive here. I'm on a tight budget so I only pay for museums that I can't live without. I almost went back to Picasso and paid again. There is enough to do if you're curious. It isn't necessary to see all the sights and pack your days with lists and things to check off. It's holiday and some days it's okay to go to the beach instead. My camera ran out of batteries three times. I'm not buying anymore, so there won't be more pictures. But I won't forget this trip. I won't forget the prostitutes on La Rambla and I won't forget the cathedrals in Salzberg. Travelling isn't for the few. It isn't something that lucky people get to do. It's just a choice, or for some, it's more of a pull and less of a choice. But it isn't impossible. If you want to go somewhere, go. If it sounds impossible it's because you're not hearing me right. Every job gives time off. If you have enough money for food, you have enough to save up for travelling. I'm getting closer to the end of this and I wish so many of you could have been in so many of these places. There is still time. If you're reading this, you know me. You know I'm not always put together and I don't usually think ahead. If I can do it, you can do it.

This trip is all over me. Sand from Valencia in my pockets, and my skin still warm from Barcelona. I'm trying to think about how I'll do it next, for how long, with what excuse. Conversations at four in the morning about why I believe what I believe have a different taste when the air is balmy and the bass is pumping in the background. I have new questions and hardly answers; but I have hope. Going alone isn't lonely when there are other people overflowing with the same sehnsucht. They see the word on me and ask what it means. As I'm explaining it-almost the opposite of deja vu; this longing for something that can not really be reached, but you know where in the distance it lies and have tasted it before, and are moved toward it with the soul-they sometimes close their eyes and smile. They nod and they understand because they have it too. My mind is chocolate melting into creases of other people's experiences and questions. I'm not confused, only newly curious,

I´m back in Barcelona for my last few days. I ventured down the coast about five hours to Valencia with Kym, an australian girl I met at a hostel. Turns about the biggest beach party (a national party in fact) was taking place the last night we were there. In my life I have never seen anything quite like Valencia´s beach party. We left with a group from the hostel at 17h30 and stopped at the Mercadona for sangria and cheap food and whatever else we liked. Then we headed to the beach where there were thousands upon thousands of people pouring in for the fiesta. We set up camp and the guys built a huge fire. 10 km of beach covered with people and a huge stage where there were dancers and great music. It was surreal really. As the sun went down it was just silhouettes against soft golden light and the ocean. At midnight we all ran to the water, jumped seven waves, and wished. Everyone was happy. People were dancing, and cooking, and eating and just sitting and talking. But so many of them. Corn roasting on coals and sausages and ice cream stands and coolers full of ice cold overpriced (but still cheaper than anything I´ve ever seen) cervezas. We laughed and danced and I got back to the hostel in time to pack my things and close my eyes and catch my bus back to Barcelona. Tomorrow I might go back to the Picasso museum. There is too much I want to absorb while I´m here. I think I could live here.

la strada e vida

I´m taking time to think about home now. Sometimes I am lonely, and I don´t like to think about home. Right now I am alone and happy and so I am allowed to think about the babies that have been born and the friends who are working and sunning and living. I´m allowed to wish Brian was here and I´m allowed to think about my little Lynky all growing up and ready to turn 16, because I don´t need anything. I can miss what´s changed without needing it, and I can wonder about what work and life will be like when I come home, I´m ready to live slower. Nap in the afternoon and say no when I need time. This is time that I need. I need it because it makes me grow. It grows me and stretches me like salt water taffy. I am worn thin and my soles hurt but my soul is soaring. Freedom remembers and takes life with it. Freedom is not abandon. I am free in this and I will be free when I come back. Back stronger and hands a bit more steady. There is so much I haven´t seen. There are so many stories I haven´t heard. I wish for all my friends something new and difficult. I wish for challenges and the strength to meet them head on. Home is closer than it was yesterday. It gets closer by the day and I will be freer when I return.

There are other cities that are more beautiful, manicured gardens, palaces, etc. But Barcelona has a pulse that I could fall asleep to at all hours of morning and one that I could wake to, run to, dance to. I could live in this city, with my veranda doors open all the time. I don´t mind waking up to friendly strangers and hanging my laundry out the windows. Cafe con leche y azucar por favor. Tapas y mojitos and this is a good life. I went to the museo de picasso and fell in love. My world is upside down and inside out now. Kees Van Dongen had an exhibit there as well. You can´t see so much and not change. It starts to melt itself into your skin and bones. Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila, Parque Guil. Gaudi has my heart too. I am pulled in a thousand directions here. My heart wants all of it. I want to speak Spanish only and study the curves of these back streets. They are all back streets here. All music and young and easy going ebb and flow. The beaches are beautiful. The people are beautiful. My skin is tingling from the heat; my mouth from the food; my heart from the beat of it all.

I took a vacation from this vacation today on the beach.
It felt good to leave the backpack at the hostel
and go to the beach. I didn't want to see any sights
and I didn't want to eat expensive French food. I just
wanted to fall asleep on the manmade beach in Nice.
I didn't even burn. It was upper 80's and my skin
is like a crocodile's at this point. Tomorrow
I have to figure out how to get to Barcelona the cheapest
way. Pray that it's less than 40 euros. Did I mention
this hostel is AMAZING? It is. And it was good to have
a couple of girls to hang out with last night and today.
Funny how things are provided as I need them. I'm tired
and achey and it's time to go to sleep. Goodnight.

Someone was praying for me last night. I know because just before every train was delayed and I was in the sketchiest parts of Italy, I met two Canadian girls who just happened to be leaving Florence for Nice... to stay in the same hostel in France. The three of us kept each other awake and stumbled onto and off of trains where people were packed like sardines in little sleeping cars. We got here safe at noon (a twelve hour trip!) and walked up and up and up a huge hill until we found our paradise of a hostel. I almost cried and kissed the ground after the last place I stayed. Here there is a cathedral turned bar cafe, and we were greeted with peach iced tea and free internet and clean showers, and what more could a girl want in the world?!? I'm staying tonight, and maybe tomorrow, and then it is off to Barcelona, the cheapest way possible. We shall see what happens.

I met Suki in my Hostel last night. I say hostel, but it was actually an unfinished warehouse room in the back of a hotel up three flights of stais. 8 bare beds in the square room, and clean sheets, which was nice. A man in the train station gave me his card and told me £20 a night for a dorm style room. It really was a bed and nothing else. Detached from the hotel so no a/c, no breakfast, one shower in the one bathroom. Anyway, Suki and Taya came in around 7pm, both beautiful European women with lovely accents, sunburned faces and perfect sun dresses. They seemed happy with the find being so cheap, dropped off their stuff and headed out. In the morning Taya was gone and Suki and I went to the Uffizi together. We spent the morning looking at art, art and more art. Boticelli, Carvaggio, Raffaello, until our heads were spinning. She bought some meat and I pulled out my bread and cheese that I have been living on, and we had a proper picnic in the Rail Station. We talked about her job settling border disputes, and her family in Ireland, and we talked about my book, and about almost getting married. She headed off for Milan and I waited in a queu for about an hour until I purchased my cheapest ticket to Nice, France. It leaves at midnight tonight and there are four transfer trains. I will get there at 10 in the morning. So the rest of my day has been wandering, sitting. Napping. Praying. Eating cheese and bread. Feeling sick. Finding this wonderful little internet hookup and posting the latest.

Im packed and ready to head to Florence.
I bumped into a backpacker who was sleeping
one bunk bed away from me this morning at
breakfast. Hes from Canada and my, the world
gets smaller and bigger and stretched out
when you travel. I am thinking about home alot
lately. All of the babies and family.
Cant say Im lonely though. A woman alone
in Europe isnt such a bad idea.

I was talked into coming to Italy instead of going to Hungary and Czech Republic. I dont know how I am going to force myself to leave Venice. I wandered and wandered over bridges through tiny cobblestone streets. I got lost in Murano after watching a glass blower in his factory. I slept in the sun on a dock and met a futbol team from Argentina. Fresh mozzarella and tomatoes with baguette. Gelato when I got tired and hot. Its old and perfect here and the water is blue and green. Lots of people dont speak English. I like that. There are too many churches that have to be seen in Europe. Old and rich with art and icons. Cover your shoulders and catch an organ concerto if you have the time. Wine and cheese and chocolate are a stones throw away. More soon.

I left Vienna and lost my breath as the train pushed further into the Austrian countryside. This country is overflowing with sunbeams on hills and proud trees and perfect old farm houses on the vast lands. I'm in Salzberg, where the Sound of Music was filled, and I swear there is sugar in the water, in the air. Plans have changed and after exploring the countryside today, I will take a night train to Venice. So now Budapest or Prague this time, but Venice and Florence before Barcelona. This journey has provoked my sickness. I am full up of needing to travel. Everywhere new that I go I find out about everywhere else I need to go. It won't end for me. I will be plagued with this itch for life. The hills are singing to me and I have to answer. I'll check in when I get to Italy. Lots of love.

Vienna is filled with more beautiful things than can be written about or painted. We walked through the city eating strawberries and stopping to look at old restaurants with gardens and vineyards for growing their own herbs and making their own wine. There is a rose garden here with every scent, colour, and size of the species. I wandered through while the sun was setting on an old cathedral through the trees. Friends were easy to drink wine with and sit outside with at the Museum Quartiers, while music poured out of surrounding pubs and cafes. Tomorrow will be exploring and meeting up with new friends and Friday will be Salzburg and the Alps. Vienna is the city of music, and the water here is sweet.

The wedding was beautiful. Zuzanna Wyrzykowska to Manuel Hubschmann on Friday at 4pm. The service was in English, broken apart by translations into German and Polish. The reception was held in a hall with peacock stained glass windows, candles, flowers and traditional polish china. The food was more than even I could handle. Cold meats and smoked salmon and salads. Zurek soup with egg and white sausage, pork salmon, beef stroganoff, wild mushroom soup. Wine throughout and dancing too. Cakes and cake and cappucinno and wine. It was cozy and elegant and Zuzia's brother often translated games and instructions in all three languages for the guests. I danced until the music stopped and slept well that night, knowing that something beautiful and lasting took place that day. I could have danced all night.

Flew into Poland on Tuesday. I was out in the country in Ireland, so I didn't have email to figure out where I should go when I landed. I sat and thought about what I should do, and when I finally thought to walk to a hotel and use the internet, a couple of friends from America showed up. Life happens like that sometimes. We took a train into Krakow and explored the city for a while. We went out at night and made friends with an American who worked as an agent for Black Water in Baghdad. He stayed on with us for our adventures and met up with us again the next night. Wednesday we took a train into Auschwitz. Walking into a death camp is not something that can be properly explained or forgotten. This morning we took the train back to Warsaw, and it's good to see so many familiar faces. So many castles and churches and mountains and fields are making my head spin. I like this traveling thing.