Since my gma has not been doing well, I want to use this space to share with her some of my trip and month so far. Even though we are so far away from each other and she is not doing well. She is with me on this journee.
I am very thankful that I was able to talk to her today though it makes me very emotional. She is not well and I am land masses away from her but this is not about me.
Hi Gma.
I just want to share this with you. So Journee, crazy right? I know I mentioned my divorce when I saw you. Dad/your son’s passing and now your own hospitalization. First off, I love you. Second, I got to feel you a little two weekends ago.
I just randomly competed in a competition at Hilton Hawaiian Village and I didn’t want to stay there with the Ililkai right next door. So I stayed at the Ilikai instead. My view actually overlooked beachside and was on pops side, that is where we scattered dad’s ashes.
Before I go farther, yes, I danced hula in a competition 🙂. Yes 😋, I started to take hula in the past year as all of this was happening. But in my defense, I was only divorced at the time and trying to find something for myself not for others. I was pretty adamant that I didn’t and wouldn’t perform since the kumu was known to not make people perform so she wouldn’t make us. Kumu invited me to, so I said yes. I tried on those old performance pair of jeans learned from theatre. They still fit but I did practice a lot and even did some of the smaller performances as part of my mental and physical warm-up and memory building. You know me.
Although I am glad I did it because I am obviously old to be starting up new hobbies and a little crazy. But you already knew that part. I did it again because, like I said, I wanted to do something for myself and performance was always for me when I started doing it in the beginning. A way for me to give something to others, with the hope that at least one person would feel something in that moment that will allow them to be somewhere else for themselves when they might need it. Or feel something that I contributed to, when I stopped doing it, it was mostly because I felt like I accomplished that outward goal.
I wonder now if I should think more of what that inner goal is for me.
I heard the news gma, I hope it means that a part of you is clearly at peace now and another part of you is okay that I bring a your presence with me on this journee.
But for the physical, a hui hou, gma. I love you and am glad you were able to finally rest. And join gpa, dad and those we recently said goodbye to also.
So I am leaving Prague today, we are taking a train! Next stop Vienna. I am going to take in a Mozart concert and a guided food tour. In addition, it is where Viktor Frankl is from and he is someone I like as the writer of Man’s Search for Meaning. I am going to go to his museum after the foodie tour.
Why do I like him? He endured and asked questions in a way that stayed with me. Instead of what is the meaning of life he flipped to, what is life asking of me?
I used to wonder why I was made, mostly because I didn’t believe there was a reason I existed which I even tested. But in hindsight it is because I wasn’t made to feel like I should exist. Something was wrong with me and I wasn’t good.
Someone I took a workshop from asked as one of our house rules that we put moralizing outside of the group’s time. What he meant was that we shouldn’t assume good or bad in what people were sharing. We should treat the information without that lens. It was freeing to me because I didn’t realize how that was the activity of judgment. Sorry, rabbit hole. Viktor Frankl and seeing something of his possibly even his gravesite. Definitely a must for me.
I also think what is life asking of me is a much harder question to answer.
Hi Gma,
In Vienna now, you passed the day before I got here. 🖤
I am doing this blog giving a day-to-day recap and then thinking about also doing a country by country takeaway. Not to mention a random things ….
So far, Vienna is my favorite, it feels like a place that I could be forever in wonder. I liked Prague for similar reasons but Vienna feels alive. I feel awake here. It could be the melange (viennese coffee). Not 💯 sure but I felt it before I drank any coffee here 😅.
I am sitting in a café right now and this is my view.
In the past couple of years of travel, this place makes me feel like moving. I sleep better here (super tired at the right time of the day) and I wake up and want to walk around and do something. Very not me.
I don’t know what it is but words I think of here are dazzling and inspired.
Hi Gma.
In Budapest now. Trains for Travel, you would hate them, tbh, this place isn’t made for people that pack a lot of luggage or aren’t able to lug and lift their own luggage. Up into the train, out of the train in the luggage bins, you name it. I should have known this after Thailand. Oh man, that just hit me, you, dad, and my ex were all on that train I am thinking of. Divorce and Death took the people that I had in my more recent chapters of my life more than others, just in the past two years. Divorce was a choice but there were choices around all of them and loss that I still grieve. Yours being unbelievably recent.
But something I learned here thanks to the ladies, reserved tickets are a must. People who don’t have reserved can sit in any empties but if someone comes with a reservation on that seat you have to get off the seat.
But this view, I am thinking it is worth it.
Budapest was my FOMO place. I went to do laundry as soon as I got there. There was a place within walking distance. Right next to the Launderette was the Glass House Memorial Museum. This place was important and the operational base for Swiss diplomat, Carl Lutz. Saving tens of thousands of Jewish people from deportation during World War II. Such a random find and it made me actively look everywhere for random signs and plaques. And they were everywhere.
Hi Gma.
Heading home … very slowly.
Thursday
Woke up at 4 a.m.
30 min drive to airport
3 hours at airport
30-40 min delay getting on flight
1 hr and 35 min flight
(1 hr 45 min layover)
MISSED FLIGHT!!
24 hour to next flight as rebook
Had to rebook my last leg to HI because this screwed me up.
11 hr 50 min flight
5 hr 20 min layover to get bag, go through customs from international, go back to terminal, check in for departure.
5 hrs 34 mins flight
Grand total: 52 hrs, 34 mins without deplaning and getting luggage 🥴
Got home and a week later feeling like a normal person again.
I love you grandma.
Monica~
