Varnashrama: student, householder, pilgrim, renouncer: it seems I’m in the pilgrimage phase, which could be a function of traveling the mandala, letting layer after layer unfold. I think my pilgrimage began last year when I accepted an invitation to come to Jerusalem. Everything was very raw then and I was halfway between sight and no sight. I reckoned that if I didn’t go, I would have more trouble later on in doing “big” travel, which is: negotiating airports, mainly. It was travel such as I had never experienced it before, and I can recommend it to everyone, because you get to see parts of an airport, of the mechanism behind the logistics you wouldn’t see otherwise. No fears about air travel then. Availability is another matter. Clearly, now that we’re past peak oil, air travel will be a thing of the past for many during the next decade. If I can travel by train I will: within Europe that takes time, but it can be done, and if I had time, I could travel overland to Japan even. That will be the future: more rivers to cross, more mountains to climb, travel in pilgrimage mode.
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I was thinking of your recent posts, not sure how this is connected to it (if connected at all)..
This is mindboggling stuff I think, I was specially the concept of delegation made me think of your blog..
Travel by train is quite doable and enjoybale. Spain, Portugal, France, Romania, Poland - I’ve all done it by train from Holland. Meeting all kinds of interesting things and persons along the way.
Buying tickets and figuring out the train tables and routes can at times be challenging though.
I remember one night we wanted to leave for Bukarest from Brasov, taking the night train at 3 am, thinking it’d be easy to get a ticket at 1 am. At 1 am the station was overcrowded and the romanians didn’t use a stand in line method to get a ticket. Important lessons were learned, I am a have become a little less naive.
This reminds me of a little dutch book by Hella Haasse I have yet to read; Transit.
I love going to Berlin by train and seeing that you can take the train to Moscow from there. There used to be a direct train to Moscow from Hoek van Holland!
@joost: delegation?