By this I do not mean that every chump flying back home after a week at Antalya or Canary Islands is going to return to his office next Monday with a halo of enlightenment around his persona, unless this halo can be thought to consist of acquired-through-pain knowledge on airport limitations on allowed amounts of checked-in spirits, peeling skin and stories of haggling with the natives in Finnish, of bad service in restaurants and of diarrhea.
When you travel around, you assume the role of an observer (whether you choose to observe the bottom of a liquor bottle or something else). Indulging in this observatory behavior you start accumulating a crust of sorts that slowly penetrates into your head, if left untouched. People on short holidays and business trips tend to wash this crust away quickly upon returning to their place of residence, unless they overdose and make their stay in an ebola-ridden shantytown in the middle of a war zone or something, in which case the experience can sink in like a knife to the back. When you stay away for long enough, experiencing all sorts of things, you start to realize that it isn't just kids, whose personalities are shaped by the shit they must go through while growing up: an old dog can learn new tricks and acquire all-new phobias, too!
It's like a smoker's cough or that sexy voice whisky can allegedly give you over time.
Now, I've been on this particular journey for a while now. Things have been seeping in, and as I recently had a wee holiday in Japan from New Zealand, it could be said that I was engaged in a double-barreled observatory mode. Now that I'm back in Christchurch, thinking back on it, it feels like I'm watching someone through a keyhole fully well realizing that space has been warped, and it is myself that I am watching. The Watchman is watching the Watchman: I'd make a bloody excellent vigilante Justice Inducer.
Ooh, I'm going to save that name for later use. Justice Inducer. Fuck yea. :)
Anyway, traveling around like this, it really helps you to start seeing your own life in a whole bunch of contexts, the roadmap of your life, as blurry as it is -- for I am not that kind of vigilante -- suddenly forking like crazy, paths that before seemed ridiculous to even consider suddenly becoming quite plausible, even desirable.
There's a lot of text to be written on that topic, for sure.
I might do it later. It might even turn out to be interesting reading.
But now: weather.
I've so far had two umbrellas torn to pieces by the random gusts of wind here. It pours rain completely randomly; one minute there's no cloud in the sky and the temperature climbs quickly close to 15 degrees. Then, not five minutes later, it gets dark all of sudden, temperature plummets down to 2 degrees and the rain starts. I've seen it even rain upwards, like the water suddenly decided that it hadn't been such a good idea to rain down on a place like this after all.
With the rather sizable body of water 5km away from me (Pacific) the weather changes so quickly that it's absolutely no use, trying to prepare for one type, you will always end up either soaked or sweaty.
This rainbow, it vanished in seconds. It almost looked like it was being torn apart, like my umbrellas. I don't think that's supposed to be possible.
Cold weather means more meat is needed. I like these stone grill restaurants, where you can cook your own meat at your table. Quite cheap too, compared to Finland.
This advertisement at a bus stop makes me smile every time I walk by it. "Kids grow up, adopt a dog." Funnily enough, it's paid for by the Greyhounds as Pets association. Well, I agree with them 100%.
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