Happy Monday! I am, as the post title suggests, currently on route to Vienna. It feels somehow
exciting to know the beginning and the end points of this bus ride while guilelessly
taking in the views in between these European capitals. We must still be in the
Czech Republic but the windows on both sides look out to dense forests that
bring Maine to mind. Funny how one’s associations work. I suppose one purpose
of travel is expanding one’s perspective in order to grow one’s range of
associations with any given sight, sound, sense, feeling, etc.
Since the Fringe ended a week ago,
I’ve been traveling with two friends from college who were also
working/performing at the festival. It was a happy coincidence that all three of
us had some time off from our respective post-grad studies/projects to traipse
about Central Europe together for the first half of September. We began in
Krakow, took a sleeper-train to Prague, and next up is Vienna. Vienna is the
first place in Europe besides London that I’ll soon have seen twice. That was
oddly phrased. Basically while I’ve visited a number of European cities, I’ve
only ever returned to London and, in three hours, Vienna. Although it’s only
been three months since I first visited that beautiful capital, I think this
time will be different since the context of this visit is different. First of
all I have two companions whereas while last time I was staying with a friend,
I mostly saw sights on my own. Vienna was also the first ever place I visited
in Central Europe so my experience of it will likely change after having
visited other parts of Austria, Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. I like
revisitng a place, be it an elementary school classroom or a foreign town,
since it helps to highlight how both you and the lens from which you view the
world have changed. This principal revisit of this year will come in just seven
days time when I return to Serbia. Even more dramatic than Belgrade will be
return-trips to Novi Sad and Niš since most of my gap year was divided between
those smaller cities north and south of Belgrade. My worldview has certainly
changed in the four-year interim, some of which I’ve felt and observed and some
of which returning to a previous place will begin to reveal.
I’ll soon post more on the Fringe.
The view from the bus has changed. Now we're out of the woods,
somewhere else in the in between:
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