one of those moments

Describing this could be compared to translating perfect expression in english to your mother's tongue, or even more difficult: from japanese/chinese to some indo-european language. It's just hard, but you should be able to understand 'cause of your experience. If you lack this experience, you should look forward to it!

This was one of the best moments in my life. Happened on Christmas. There I was in my room doing something. Suddenly it struck me like a lightning. It shaked my whole body & I entered 'nirvana'. Since I'm not still in this state but affected by it, I can't say it was real nirvana, but that's the closest thing which I 'know' about.

The time stopped. Or it flew away and it didn't matter. My whole mind was suddenly clear. All of my thoughts where silenced, my brain wasn't aware of what I see or hear. As my thougts started to flow away, my body&mind started to fill with happiness and love! It was growing outside of my physical body and started to touch my universe. There were no worries. My tasks dissapeared. My pain, everything that boddered me, little things (like chocolate) that could make me happy,... all of that lost their significance. Only thing which I felt was love & happiness filling me and all around me. So happy I was for this moment. It makes you feel good for being alive.

After few minutes I sat on my bad and enjoyed the benefits of this experience. I didn't care for anything else in the world. Except for love & her. In my room, there was a gift. A nice book wrapped in a nice paper. I even liked the paper 'cause she put it around the book. More beautiful part of the gift wasn't the book itself (although I liked it), but the note which was written inside of the paper. The note which put me in ecstasy. I could feel she understood the concept of love and I felt loved. The note says:
"* TO ME YOU ARE A WORK OF ART"

200807 Stockholm

From 20080708 Stockholm (pre-CE)

My trip to Iceland began in Stockholm. There I spent few days with some of my friends.
As the journey began, we encountered some problems. Dim had a air-pump for air-mattress which was broken when his bag arrived at the baggare reclaim. Then we noticed that Ema didn't get her bag at all. When we got to the hostel, Mislav discovered that his bottle of alcohol in the bag was broken, making some clothes wet&stinky. Few days later Ema's bag came to the hostel with the similiar problem. Even before that, Bero lost his booze from duty free in Zagreb. It was taken away from him at transit zone in Copenhagen.

our hostel

Our hostel was pretty cool, very cheap , with kitchen, just what we needed. We talked until late in the night. Drinking was forbidden, but cameras didn't catch us.

Supermarket can be pretty cheap so food expenses weren't an issue.

Around the city we encountered many cultural events. There were few exhibitions in the open. Jazz was playing near the fountains, nice to hear. We really enjoyed a lot walking around the city and experiencing its culture. Guys from the group noticed many beautifull mothers walking around with children. I think that group was actually the most beautifull women we encountered in Stockholm.

...if you'd like to minimse communication in the pub?!?!

One night collegues from BEST Stockholm invited us to the party in student dorm. There weren't Swedes at the party at all, mainly Erasmus students from EU. On one occassion I suggested some guy to be a gentlman and offer his seat for a girl. The suggestion was denied with reply: "In Sweden we threat women as equal. Therefore I don't offer my seat to a girl, since I want to seat here as well as she does. And we are equal." It was very interesting point & I was hoping to hear some reply from the girls, but there wasn't any. During the night we drank alcohol & played some games, like 'I have never-ever'. My conclusion is that games like 'never-ever' & 'bottle of truth' end up pretty soon with themes about sex. This particular session was dominated by Santiago and his many advanterus in various places.

In the hostel I met Japanese guy who was sleeping in the room with us. He didn't feel like joining us on parties & sightseeing but was interesting into talking with me. What was interesting is that he spoke some words of Croatian. The reason he stated was that he wanted to surprise one of his friends from Japan. He's traveling around Scandinavia, doesn't have money (hm..., he picked really cheap region to travel), his mother is giving him financial support. Croatian was a bit easier to learn since he studied Russian in Moscow for years. On the picture, you can find his bags locked. We were not to be trusted, I suppouse.

One thing not to miss is definetly visiting archipelago. We concluded that we should buy a house on day somewhere on that land. It was so picteresque.
Spending some time on the grass in Djurgarden can be nice as well. Not always. Some bird shitted on Dim. Upon leaving the hostel he broke full bottle of beer.

Summer 2008

This summer was again full of traveling. At the beginning of summer I didn't feel like passing exams so I was hanging out with my friends.

In July we visited Iceland. The nature was breath-taking, something very unique. Highlight of the trip was swimming in the hot river around midnight. On the way there, we spend few days in Stockholm. Immediately we decided to come back, some promissed to even continue their studies there :)

After that I went on the seaside to island Pasman & spend some nice time with new friends. Again enjoying the beautiful sea.

In August I visited Ukraine for a voluntary camp. 3 weeks there were really memorable, it was hard to leave all that and return home. Most of the time I was in the villages experiencing real Ukrainian culture. That's something really interesting, moving away from the cities on the trip.

Following posts will tell my advantures & some info about countries I've visited.

lunar eclipse

It's tonight (in my country).
Nice link about the event:
NASA - Total Lunar Eclipse
Check your timezones and visibility (where the map of the world is).

Go to bad earlier, if you need, or party until then!
Enjoy this global event

20080101 Taize @Geneva

gallery:

...pictures of the city ...people I've meet

I spent New Year in Geneva on Taize meeting. Many thousand young Christians from all over Europe (and some other parts) gather to pray together, sing, discuss, meet,...

Traveling in the bus wasn't something memorable. It was 0k when we stopped in Ljubljana, there was a concert of Oliver Dragojevic on the square. After 16 hours we arrived to school, main organising spot for our country. I decided to participate in the working group. There was an empty place in the morning cleaning team. They said we would be accommodated in the center if we work in the working team. The truth is that I was accommodated in France, but it was nice.

So, just in the beginning I left my bus I went alone to my parish. It was like that during whole event. I was always alone but never alone. Never belonging to a team, so everybody was my team. It was positive thing for getting to know more people.

In the parish I meet some nice Croatian group. They were all from a group of young followers of Franjo Asiski. And they welcomed me immediately when they figured I was alone. Cool! Hope some of them 'll be good friends in the future, I really like them.

5 of us were sleeping in France. Everyday we had a meeting at 22h in the Parish when they drove us to our home. In the evening we talked. In the morning we had some nice cheese and other stuff.

As I said, I had to clean everyday. So again I was leaving my group and heading towards Palexpo. My cleaning team were Polish & Croatian people with 2 leaders from Germany & Italy.


One day I went with "Polish cleaning team" to the city for the tour. Most of the day I spent with them. In the evening we returned to Palexpo to get some food with the others.


As for the praying... usually it was really nice. We sang some Taize songs which sound really cool! The nicest feeling is in the evening on Palexpo in the big hall, when everybody gathers for the praying and for the singing. You can really relax or participate in this celebration of peace.

After morning praying we had discussion groups. I participated only once 'cause that day I didn't have to go cleaning. And that day we didn't discuss :) We gathered, read some letter from Cochabamba. And nothing was happening. Our animator was silent, everybody was silent. Personally I wasn't inspired that much by the letter. So I suggested that we try something else, play some games perhaps. So we had 1 minute session of laughter yoga :) Nice opportunity for me to practice it. And played few more games. Then we ate and went for the regional meetings.

Our hosts were living in France. Man spoke English so I know more about him then on his wife who didn't speak English that well. He was a nuclear scientist working in the big lab with elementary particles. His parents were strong atheists and some children it seems. He discovered Jesus by reading a bible while he was 15 and with 25 he was baptises. His wife & he were really nice to us. We didn't communicate much in total but it was nice atmosphere.

New Year party was extremely unusual. It began in the parish, we were praying and singing. When midnight came we congratulated each other. Then went to some school, walking on the street with torches. There weren't many fireworks and shooting. Nations were presenting themselves in the school. There was some food & non-alcohol drinks to consume, which I did. I was talking to people, just starting to warm up and suddenly some important guy announced the end of a party. It was 2 o'clock!!! Amazing. All the Croats there came gathered in the circle and started singing. After 10 minutes the announcment guy got a bit nervous and it all finally ended. We went home. Believe it or not. What a party. Well, in the paper they said it would finish at 2 o'clock, but I didn't find it that serious.



Need to say that praying there is much more fun. You can get peace if you want, there is Silence room. Also you can pray with the others, a big group of young enthusiastic people. It brings a completely new motivation to be religious. Surrounded by many young nice people. Feels good. Gives hope for better tomorrow.

I'm waiting for pictures from Croatian friends. And my hope is to meet them more so I could really call them friends.

20071212 Jam in Serbia

Participated on event with few hundred people from my student organisation. It was nice to see friends whom I met while traveling around. The event in total was ok but I don't feel the whole satisfaction. I see there many people and they seem to have much fun. For me many moments weren't that funny so I felt stupid sometimes 'cause I wasn't having fun like the others.

Still, there were some very good moments. On the first place friends whom I met before and made friends with some new people who seem really nice. And the other thing was visiting pub "Svrati bato" in the city of Donji Milanovac. There we drank nice vine and ate some fish through the whole afternoon. The city itself is full of mammuts. Suppose that there were some mammut's bones?

About fun...The solution is of course in me. I need to search in my mind those moments when I was able to be whatever I wanted. Sometimes it was during a really hard period but I managed to feel good & do crazy stuff. Need to concentrate more on myself