published in 2014 on my tumblr
I have just installed a countdown app on my phone. And while I generally hold long countdowns to be masochistically frustrating, I am so burnt out that I am literally counting the days to my vacation and my week of freedom. So, according to my new app, there are 108 days (and 11 hours and 48 minutes) left till the kick-off of the Sziget festival. It will be my fifth time going and the third year in a row when I have an all-week pass – a week of enjoying carefree freedom without alarm clocks, appointments, schedules, deadlines and demands. A week of good music, happy people, sounds, colors, sun and slush puppies.
Also today, I had one of them genius idea lightbulbs light up over my head. Will check the finances to see if I can slap another week of vacation on top of the festival. I had originally intended to visit either Malta or Ireland this year. But some daydreaming reminescence made me think I might go back to my wayfaring roots.
The first time I ever went on a holiday completely on my own was in 2007. Until that point, it had always been a family enterprise. That meant plans, schedules, accomodating various habits and ways of traveling and seeing things. It meant maps and arguments over maps, it meant tickets and debates about the number and type of tickets. My first trips abroad without all that jazz were job-related and took me first to Amsterdam and then to Barcelona – two cities with a special place in my heart. Time was too short then for more than some rushed checking off a must-see checklist, but it certainly awoke my appetite for more.
So, in 2007 I was holding my solo plane tickets to Amsterdam – I felt I needed to get to know that place better. I exited the airport and breathed in deeply. I took my time figuring out how to get to the city with the pleasant half-conscious thought buzzing in the back of my mind that I didn’t have a set time to be anywhere. I got off at the central train station and walked ten minutes to get to my hotel, without the idea fully sinking in that I was there and it was happening. I dropped off my luggage and went for a walk before check-in. I grabbed a bottle of Coke and a can of Pringles and set off in a random direction.
I found a quiet street, with those lovely houses you see on postcards from Amsterdam, with flowers in all windows and houseboats swaying gently in the canal (sorry, gracht). I sat down in the shade under a tree, leaned my back on it, stretched my legs and opened the Pringles and the Coke. I munched in silence and just marvelled at the fact that I was alive, that I was there, alone with my thoughts, the sun filtering through foliage and a beautiful landscape.
And I was almost overwhelmed at the thought that I had an entire week all to myself; that I could go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, as slow or as fast as I felt; that there were no schedules, no regulations, no rules, no expectations and no reports to be provided to anyone. Often I walked around with no map until I felt like returning to my hotel. One day I decided I wanted to go to the seaside and I went to the station and got on the first train taking me there. On another day I decided a trip is in order, so I went to Utrecht to see it for some hours. Twice I spent half an afternoon in a bookshop. A couple of times I went to have dinner in a nice restaurant in the company of a good book.
As much as I desire companionship sometimes, I am mostly a solitary creature. Me affording to quietly enjoy the beauty of the world is pretty close to my definition of happiness. So… I just might attempt to recapture that sense of awe and wonder where it all started. This summer.
