Adventures Abroad

NYU Junior in Prague for Spring 2013. nowhere to go but everywhere. michelle. ❋

[staygoldponykat]

“I know you read, I see you reading.” No, you don’t know anything. You don’t know when I’m mad. You don’t know how much I love, how hard I hate, how thirsty I get for the dry splash of saltwater against my ankles. You don’t know the times I’ve felt trapped in a life I chose for myself, singing my pen to windowless walls and cold fish dinners.

And that “reading” I do? It’s nothing more than my soul seeking a reason to scratch marks in the earth, sign posts for my eyes to scan and release.

[praguehappenings]

a February weekend in Paris

[staygoldponykat]

Can you count the number of friends you have on one hand? On two hands? One year, on my birthday, a best friend forgot. The next year, on my birthday, a best friend forgot. No belated birthday. No message. The day came and went and there was nothing. Does that matter? Did I look at my friend and say, I thought you were better?

I don’t know how you should protect yourself from the people in the world who let you down. But if your best friend forgets your birthday, or forgets to ask about your father’s health or forgets to ask about your favorite city after a bomb went off, do you cut them out of your life? Do you say, that’s it, pack up your bags, find a new, more perfect friend who never forgets anything and thinks only of you and can give you the love and attention you deserve?

Or do you think of all the times you forgot to ask how your friend was doing when she wasn’t doing so well?  Do you think of all the times you’ve forgotten to ask? Do you think of how often you’d like to be asked? Do you think, actually, maybe you don’t want people to ask because you don’t want to talk about it with 50 friends who all feel like strangers? Do you think of the fallibility of humans and how unforgiving the world can be to the gentlest of souls and all the times when you’ve been sad that the kind word of an understanding friend has made you feel like rain was gently tapping the top of your head as if to say, What’s wrong, my friend? It’s just a little rain.

One year, my best friend forgot my birthday. But the year before that, when my life was all rain and only rain, my best friend held my hand and said, What’s wrong, my friend? It’s just a little rain. And how much do you think turning 18 matters to me?

[theflow-theme-blog]

Michael Markieta, a transportation planner at global engineering and design firm Arup, has spent the past year developing visualisations of flight paths crossing the globe. - BBC

[praguehappenings]

bubbles everywhere!

[praguehappenings]

street art gallery in Istanbul

[praguehappenings]

I was looking at you there and your face looked wrong

memory is a fickle siren's song I didn't understand

[praguehappenings]

flying above the Czech Republic

[aurorainred]

Two or three days ago, the author Iain M Banks was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he released a statement saying that he was giving up writing to spend his remaining months on honeymoon with the girl he’s finally going to marry, and with his friends and family, doing the things he loves and going to the places he loves. And I’d like to ask a simple question here, why?

Because he knows he’s going to die?

Then let me ask this:

Who here doesn’t know they’re going to die?

[praguehappenings]

Isn't it true that you start your life a sweet child, believing in everything under your father's roof? Then comes the day of the Laodiceans, when you know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and with the visage of a gruesome, grieving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life.

On the Road

[praguehappenings]

as goes for being a person

[praguehappenings]

Karluv Most variations

[praguehappenings]

afternoon off for exploration

[praguehappenings]

[photographsonthebrain]

Young people might give up hopes of gainful employment through art or serious writing — without giving up the production or consumption of those things. Holding down uninspiring and ill-paid day-jobs, they would huddle together in select neighborhoods of big cities and devote their evenings and weekends to culture (and laundry, shopping, and cleaning). This doesn’t sound so bad; it sounds in fact like the cozily disappointed existence, streaked with fear of unemployment, of half the people we know.

n 1: Cultural Revolution 

[praguehappenings]

what a difference it makes having kind souls in the world.

[praguehappenings]