October 3, 2009
It has been over a week since my tired and tattered corpse limped into Istanbul. After 4 months, 15 countries and endless partying…. my body was dead! I was in need of a major detox/recharge.
Istanbul has turned out to be the prefect solution. I have spent the last week doing absolutely nothing other then getting a tan and going to the dentist. It’s amazing how just sitting in a place for a week and doing nothing can make such a difference in someone’s mental and physical wellbeing.
A week later and probably a few pounds fatter thanks to the Iskender, I feel 100% again and ready for what lies ahead. The “Summer of Love Tour” has officially come to an end and now it’s time for the next adventure.
I fly to Spain on Monday where I will meet up with my business partner to do the unthinkable and drive from Spain to South Africa! We are doing a scout for our up and coming adventure race “World Cup Trek”. The route will take us down the west coast of Africa for the next 8 weeks. For more info check out our site www.nomadicnation.org
But for now all I can say is, “I am ready!”
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Jimmy under Africa, Europe, Thoughts, Uncategorized, Updates |
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September 13, 2009
I find the word “Goodbye” coming out of my mouth a lot lately. As quickly as I meet new people or start to fall in love with a city or a woman, that word “Goodbye” keeps slipping out of my mouth.
I came to Poland not knowing what to expect. I am %50 polish, but I have no idea who my grandparents were or where in Poland they came from, but I still felt the need to find out for myself and see where my roots are. I can’t say I have learned anything about my past, but I have found another place in the world that feels like home, a place where my roots have taken hold and a place that will for sure be a part of my future! I will take away a lot of things I have learned here in Poland, but yet I feel like I am leaving a part of me behind… and not to mention I am leaving behind my trusty baby blue Fiat ;-(
I am finding it really difficult to say goodbye to my car that I paid $100 for and drove 4500 kilometers over the last 2 months through 8 different countries. I think the reason I am having such a hard time letting go of the car, is the fact that it’s the only real thing I own in this crazy world. Everything I consider “Jimmy’s” is in my bag on my back. I try not to get attached to things because of this every reason, it makes saying goodbye soo much harder.
So for now with a sad look on my face I say Goodbye Poland and with a fake smile… Hello Ukraine! But before I get to comfortable in Ukraine I will have to say Goodbye again and leave for Turkey. I believe that there’s no such thing as a final goodbye, I feel that we will always see each other again. If it’s meant to be, it will happen!
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Jimmy under Europe, Thoughts, Uncategorized, Updates |
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September 4, 2009
It’s been a while since I have wrote anything, actually for that matter this whole trip I have been pretty silent. I guess I’m not sure if that’s because I’m finally just enjoy the moment, and can’t seem to find time to write down all the things that are going on, or maybe because I sometimes I feel no one actually reads this crap!
Ok well I will do my best to catch you up on what’s been going on.
After spending my birthday in Riga Latvia I went north to Tallinn Estonia for a few days. Estonia was my 3rd and final Baltic country to visit. Tallinn is a lovely little city, although the weather seemed to have turned for the worse. It was still august but yet it felt like the dead of winter on my thin Californian skin. I ended up meeting up with my friend Paul that I met 2 years ago in Japan. Unfortunately for me the cold weather proved to be too much for me, so found myself sick with a cold (one that I’m still trying to kick).
I didn’t really do much other then go out at night and stay in during the day when it was cold and pissing down outside. My plan was to go to Finland but I didn’t have enough time due to my Russian visa dates, so I will leave Finland for another trip.
I took the 6 hour night bus from Tallinn to St. Petersburg RUSSIA! The bus trip was pretty easy other then it was filled with drunk Russians! The only major highlight was that I got yelled at by the Russian military guys for trying to go pee during the boarded crossing.
Before I came to Russia I wasn’t sure how I was going to like it. I grew up during the cold war, it always seemed to be Russia vs USA. To me Russia was this big country that was very mysterious, filled with tall women. I’m not sure my opinion has changed that much, other then there are very cute short girls here too. It’s been said Russians are cold people, hard to get to know and hard to read. That is a little bit true but if you take the time to break away some of the ice they are very warm and friendly people. The 2 things they seem to love the most are Cigarettes and Vodka. I feel like I have been smoking 5 packs a day. When walking in the streets its hard to find fresh air. I tend to hold my breath and wait for the clear patch of air. The clubs and bars here are so full of smoke its hard to see. When I went into my first bar I said to my Russian friend “Do they have a smoke machine on?”… nope that’s just good old cigarette smoke. Despite the smoke and the vodka that can power the fiat, this place is awesome! I am now kicking myself for not giving myself more time.
I leave for Moscow on Saturday for only 1 night, then its back to Latvia to pick up the Fiat and my Irish Leprechaun, after that it’s the open road… who knows where, but for sure a stop back in Poland!
Here are some pictures from Estonia.
And here are the ones from St. Petersburg, Russia!
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July 13, 2009
Being in the now is a hard thing to do. Before I would stay 3 or 4 days at a place and I couldn’t wait to leave for the next place. The “now” or the place I currently was, never seemed good enough. The ideas of the future always seemed brighter, always seemed more fun. I feel I have wasted some many good years traveling and some many great places lost because my head was somewhere else. I never really gave the people/place the time they deserved.
It seems now that I have found the key to enjoying it, but with that there comes new challenges. I now find that I don’t want to leave. I am having such a great time in the moment that I wish I could press pause and that the future would just chill out for a second and spare me a few more minutes to just be where I am.
They say some people find themselves while traveling, for me I now almost feel as I have lost myself or maybe I have lost the Jimmy I once thought I knew.
I think we grow up learning/wanting to be different. We build up these walls that say “I’m Irish your Chinese, we are different.” “I am Jewish, you are Muslim.” “I’m fat your skinny” “I’m white your black”. There are thousands of things that you can find that makes you different and that will make you feel like you don’t connect with someone. I try to look at the other side, I try to find the things that aren’t different, the things that make us human. So maybe I have just let go of some of those things that I thought made me who I am and let the wall around me be knocked down.
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July 9, 2009
Poland…. WOW what a place! In the last few days here in Krakow Poland I have witnessed with my own two eyes the true horrors that the human species can inflict upon each other and also the beauty in life. This city has not been all about death, it has actually been the complete opposite. The Polish people have been some of the most friendly, warm and loveable bunch I have ever met. The women here are drop dead gorgeous and they seem to out number the guys 5 to 1. Krakow itself is a beautiful city very much like Prague but filled with nicer people and less tourist. The food is great and the beer gardens are by far my favorite. I’m not sure if the fact that I’m 50% polish is making a difference in my love for this city or maybe it’s just truly is an amazing place.
I have also been spending some time trying to research my family tree. It seems that my dad’s side is %100 polish or at least that’s what we think. I have my grandmother’s birth certificate, which shows that her parents “My great grandparents” were born in Poland. Unfortatally it doesn’t say where they were born so it is making it difficult to find any info. It seems when people came over from Europe to the US via els Island, last names seemed to have been screwed up and the proper spelling and translation was lost. Some of the first bit of advice I got was that maybe they were Jewish, but after deeper research I might now come from a noble background with the surname of “Odrowaz”. The Odrowaz name dates back to the 10th century and comes from the area now known as the Czech Republic. Finding my roots is proving harder then I thought, but I feel I will leave here with some sort of idea… they might not be big deep roots but it something.
Most people don’t leave Krakow without visiting the famous Nazi death camps of Auschwitz. Learning about World War II in a history book is one thing, visiting the concentration camps is another. It truly is hard to express the feeling of being at the camps. It almost makes you lose hope in humanity, and the sad fact is that unspeakable things like what happened here 60 years ago are still happening in parts of the world today, like Sudan! I don’t want to end this on a down note but out of respect for the millions of people that lost their lives.. here are some picture from Auschwitz so you’ll never forget!
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