Hey followers! I've been so caught up in catching up with all my Canadian friends that I forgot about everyone else around the world! I'm sorry, you all still have a place in my heart.
So yeah, I'm back in Canada with all of my limbs still intact. That's about all I have to say about that!
To make this post more interesting, I'm going to introduce you to some of the people I met along my adventures, and a couple stories to illustrate how tiny the world really is. I won't use any names and I'll leave out specific details if they don't want to be recognized in some random Canadian chick's ramblings to the internet. Either way, I hope you enjoy hearing about these people as much as I did meeting them!
In Brussels, I met a deaf Italian who was biking around most of Europe. He'd been gone for 8 months when I met him, and he still had about 9 months to go. He showed me pictures of his adventures so far - having already travelled up the west side of Europe - and where he was going next. This whole conversation took eight times as long as it normally would have, since I had to use my non-existent sign language, which I found out was pointless anyways because he didn't know English! What was the point in spelling things out to him in a language he didn't understand? Despite all this, we had an excellent time pointing at things, acting stuff out, and just waving our arms insanely. He was a great sport and obviously enjoyed the experience as well. At one point, someone else in our hostel walked into the kitchen where we were jumping around and gave us the weirdest look, turned dramatically, and walked out. It was good fun!
When I first arrived in Gent I was trying to figure out the tram system and how to buy a ticket when my highly tuned ears picked up a melody I knew: a couple speaking Finnish! It was so strange, but I felt more connected to them than the other groups of native English speakers also on the platform. None of us could figure out how the ticket machine worked, and without explanation I went up to them and spoke in Finnish. They seemed to reply out of habit at first, then realised what was going on. I had an excellent conversation with them on the tram that finally arrived and we helped each other find our respective stops on the tram. I had really missed speaking Finnish, so I welcomed the practice!
I met a woman in Gent who played cello professionally and had played at many Grammy ceremonies. It was funny how we talked about how cool it must have been, but she complained that it was terribly boring sitting in the orchestra pit for so long, without being able to take a break or even go to the bathroom! It sounded excruciating when she described it, and I will be appreciating those in the orchestra pit much more now.
When I was in Brussels for the third time I met a man who had been travelling for about two months with a backpack smaller than the one I use for school. He had a few pairs of underwear, three pairs of socks, an extra shirt, a towel, and the clothes on his back. Two months previously, he'd awoken one morning and decided he didn't enjoy his life. He left a note on his kitchen counter and abandoned his wife and two kids. He'd apparently left her most of the money he had, and was simply travelling and going to find himself a job. I had been impressed with his bare-minimum packing skills, but abandoning your family is low. He was definitely the most selfish person I'd ever met in my life, and I avoided him for the rest of the time I stayed there.
A Canadian girl that I met in Gent told us a story about a girl she met in Germany. They got on really well, became quite good friends, and began travelling around Germany together. They'd been together for about a week when the American girl was showing my Canadian friend pictures from her trip to the Netherlands. There's a big sign thing that says "I Amsterdam" in, well, Amsterdam, and lots of people take selfies and photos in front of the sign. So the two girls were looking through their pictures when in the back of one of the American girl's photos, you see my Canadian friend. There she was, just a few feet away, taking a selfie in the background of this other girl's selfie. They of course freaked out, double checked the dates and times, and it really was her. The two photos were taken two weeks before they met in Germany, but what are the chances??? That story blew my mind until I was on the sidelines of a more impressive story...
In Brussels, I was hanging out with a group of girls for a short time, and two of the girls got to talking. They were both from the same state, and it turned out they both grew up in the same town, until one girl moved away when she was in grade one or something. They kept quizzing each other when they figured out they were actually long-lost best friends. They'd lived across the street from each other for most of their childhoods, went to the same classes, and were inseparable until the one girl moved away. This was before Facebook and everything, so they never saw each other again until they met in Brussels. Being with them when they realised was one of the coolest moments of the trip for me, as they jumped up and hugged and later caught up on ten years that they'd lost. When I left they were planning the rest of their trips together.
I met an Italian in Ireland who had recently graduated and received a law degree - or some Italian equivalent. He'd worked at a law firm for six months, decided he didn't like it anymore, and quit his high-paying job to follow his life-long dream: to drive trains. I'm not even kidding. The passion with which he described his new job as Conductor's Assistant was something I had never seen before. He'd been told his whole life that he could "amount to more," that he was "smarter than that" and "all his talent would be wasted driving trains." He'd hated every second of law school, but he had gone through with it because his family and friends pressured him into it. He told me something along the lines of this, which I decided to quote with the curses in because it just made it sound better: "it took me 25 years to realise that it's my f---ing life, and I can do whatever the hell I want with it. If I want to drive trains then by God I'm going to be the best f---ing conductor the world has ever seen. Or I'll be a terrible one. It doesn't matter, because it's my damn life." I'm not sure why, but his story really hit me more than any other "finding your passion stories." The hatred with which he described working in law contrasted with his elation of working with trains had quite an impact on me. I won't get into all of my personal junk, but I can relate to this man, and I'm sure some of you reading this can as well. I won't go as far as to say that this man "changed my life," but he certainly changed my view of my future.
I've fallen in love with a dozen amazing people and dozens of amazing places. I laughed until I cried and I cried until I laughed. I had places exceed my expectations and experiences fail miserably in front of me. I've been lost for pretty well 77 straight days, and I'm not expecting to find my way any time soon. In this vast disorientation I learned that the only person who can save me is myself. I am the only person I can always count on. I can only be as strong as I want to be, as brave as I choose to be, and as afraid as I let myself be. I can't ditch myself somewhere, I can't break up with myself, and I can't forget about myself for a while and later have to write an awkward re-connection message over Facebook. I need to become the person I want to live with for the rest of my life, because I can become whatever I choose.
I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
Claire out >>>>>>
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