Feeling of becoming an amalgamation of experiences…

During my travelling in the last couple of weeks I collected some stories and observations
about our changing world, which I would like to share with you in the form of
thoughts /insights.

·         An Afghan taxi driver in Wolfsburg, who was listening to Persian music and speaking Russian to me. Fantastic!

·         A taxi driver who was born in the former Eastern Germany sharing with me his travelling plans and telling me that every day he celebrates his freedom to travel anywhere he wants. The Wall does not exist anymore… Yet, we still have to do a lot to erase it from the minds of people and for sure not to build any new barriers in our physical and mental world.

·         Connecting to friends and family via Skype, e-mail, mobile no matter in what part of the world Life brings me. Having my dear people close and near to me. Even though some say it is an illusion and the distance does not become smaller, but if in our hearts we feel closely connected than we are already half way to each other.

·         Ability to buy similar things in many countries. I am not a big fan of it, but it surely gives you a feeling of familiarity. Another illusion? Or is it something that gives us a feeling of a commonly shared reality and hence makes us closer to each other, as we begin to define world through the same concepts?

·         Booking tickets and hotels for a short trip to see my friends in foreign country within half an hour, without leaving my home, online… Do you take it for granted? J Well, think that some 10-15 years ago we couldn’t do it…

·         Meeting my friends after not seeing them for 13 years and feeling so much at home with each other, as we have never parted… Was amazing!

·         Watching films with one my best friends online, living in two different countries. It is nice! Even if it is an illusion of being close, but after all we did spent quality time together and this is what counts!

·         Filling my MP3 player with music in English, French, Danish, Greek, Spanish, Russian, German, Ukrainian, Arabic, Farsi, Hindi, Polish and Armenian… There is still room for expansion! J

·         Working in a virtual team and having a feeling that my colleagues are near.

·         Reading books written by authors from different corners of this world. This is so great. I wish I could read them all in originals. Languages certainly open doors to understanding cultural backgrounds…

·         Realizing that I have education from three different countries. Yes, for that I had to go on holidays J

·         Celebrating holidays which are not part of my ethnic history and enjoying them.

·         Realizing for an uncountable time over and over again that there is much more that connects us all, no matter of our origins, affiliations, etc. rather than separates us.

·         Feeling at home everywhere I go.

·         Sharing stories with a person who comes from a different country than me about Central Asia and knowing exactly what we are talking about!

·         Realizing that no matter how great the modern technology is, which enables us to communicate through the distance, there is nothing better than sitting across the table with another human being, drinking wine, sharing stories, laughing together, looking in the eyes, feeling the warmth of hands… Magic…

·         Feeling that I am becoming an amalgamation of my (international and intercultural) experiences… and feeling so good about it…

Yet another bus story...

I suppose public transportation can really be a source of enlightenment... Who knows?

Imagine a situation... Rush hours in the evening... A bus is full of people... On one of the stops two charming elderly ladies in their late 80s enter the bus. Some people get up to give them their seats. They are coming back from a dinner and actively discussing  nice time they spent together with other ladies...

I look at them with admiration, because not in many countries elderly people can enjoy such an active and fulfilling life like here in Europe... They caught my attention and I contuniue musing about them, imagining how they looked like when they were the same age as I am now and how will I look when I get in my 80s...

The attention of the ladies however, caught two Asian girls (most likely exchange students at the local University), who were sitting across the aisle... And the following dialogue in German takes place:

Lady A: I think It's so difficult to read Asian faces, you never know if they are happy or not.
Lady B: Yes, I do agree with you and it is also very difficult to tell how old they are...

All this is being said relatively loud, for naturally my dear ladies cannot hear that well and it is loud on the bus. The Asian girls hear the whole conversation and start giggling in their own language, for they understand everything which was said. I can see  from their reaction that they are totally amused... I smile too and contunue to muse... My thoughts, this time make me travel in time to a similar situation on the train in Scandinavia. I was reading a book written in Cyrillic alphabet. In front of me there were two women in their 40s and we were facing each other, so they could see my book:

Conversation in Danish:
Lady A to Lady B: What kind of language is this?!
Lady B: I have no idea...
Me (smilingto both of them) and replying in Danish: "It's Russian"...

...It brings me yet to another train situation in Italy, when one of my closest friends and I  were travelling from Assisi back to Rome one October evening. Since we do not share the same linguistic background we spoke English. We got seats by the table where 4 people can be seated facing each other. In front of us was a group of loud youngsters who were making fun of us. I understood that something was going on, yet since I do not speak Italian I couldn't know all the details. I asked my friend, who spoke absolutely impecable Italian for he studied in worked in Rome for some years back then and he promised to tell me all about it once we got off the train. All he could wisper to me was that the youth were thinking that we are Albanians and somehow this was an amusing fact for them and they were discussing us...

The train was totally full, there was no single free place. On one of the station just after Assisi an elderly lady came in and my friend, being a true gentleman, got up and gave her his seat. The lady started to thank him heartedly in Italian. After she finished prasing him, he said one short sentence in Italian without a slightest foreign accent: "Where I was raised, it is very normal to give a seat to a lady"... It suddenly became very silent across the table and the youngsters haven't pronounced a single word all the way to Rome...

Curtain down...

...Oh! Assumptions, Assumptions! What do you do to us?! How many evil jokes you play on us humans?! How many times you lead us astray and let us live an illusion?..