First Day of the Rest of the Year

2010... Sounds almost magical...It was a beautiful day in London. Sunny clear sky with a slightly crispy air made it a perfect first day of the New Year. Taking a long walk in this beautiful city I could not help but think where my life brought me during the holiday season of the past 12 years...

It all started in 1998. Holiday season was truly special back then. I was just starting my winter break at the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire and together with my friends, also foreign exchange students, was making ambitious plans to discover as much America as possible with as little budget as possible. Excited and very eager to capture North American continent we purchased student monthly passes on Amtrak to discover West Coast of the U.S.A. by train. The beauty of the pass was unlimited rides on Amtrak anywhere west of Minneapolis. It was all we could think about. Suddenly U.S.A. felt like a small country calling on our expedition. Who cared whether we had hotel arrangements during that month! We had means of transportation and it all that mattered... or so we thought:). Our journey started in Minneapolis and went South along Mississippi river through Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, San Antonio and on to Las Vegas, LA, San Francisco, up to Seattle and back to Wisconsin. A real feeling of adventure still catches my breath almost 12 years after...4000 mile journey and we did it! Sleepless nights on the train contemplating what to do on the next stop; sharing a plate of Chinese in an obscure restaurant in TX; dancing a night away and discovering tequila in New Orleans; booking one room for five people at Hilton Universal Studios... we did it all! And it was a feeling of discovery that kept us going.

As you can guess from what I am telling you, Christmas was very special in 1998! Does Carbondale, IL mean anything to you? Well it will now. Carbondale is a small town in Illinois with a population slightly over 25,000. In that very town we celebrated our first American Christmas Eve. Was it spectacular! We had to change trains on our way from Chicago to Memphis exactly in Carbondale and we had to do it on a Christmas Eve. As you can imagine there was nobody after 8 p.m. on that station, except an unlucky manager on duty and few homeless guys hiding from snow and frost and... five of us, foreign exchange students, with a bottle of red sparkling wine toasting to a Merry Christmas... I bet station manager still remembers us if you ask him.:) We did not care that we were freezing, we did not care that we had no proper Christmas dinner... we were just about to discover the United States and it all that mattered. That Christmas Eve will stay with me as one of the most cheerful days for the rest of my life...It was what I now consider a beginning of my discovery...

Another remarkable Christmas was in 2002... I was working in Washington at the time and together with my friends went to National Cathedral for a holiday mass. National Cathedral is a spectacular place. The first stone was laid as early as 1907. Ever since it was constructed it became a spiritual symbol of Washington and inspiring center for everyone. It does not matter what religion you belong to, if any, everyone is welcome there. That was one of the things that struck me during that mass. Really...does it matter where we come from, what our background is, whether we belong to any minority group, what language we speak? We are all humans and should treat each other as equals and respect each other regardless of our believes or life styles. 


After all, diversity and not monotony makes this world go forward... After the mass we walked back home to Dupont Circle and it snowed... It was a beautiful and really pure snow. We sang, played with snow and were simply merry walking down Connecticut Ave...


I hope this post is not too long and I do not sound like Sophia from Golden Girls talking about Sicily in ninety fifty something... :) Come back for more posts if you are up for reading about New Year's Eve on Times Square in New York City or champagne toasting in front of Notre Dame in Paris.


Happy New Year and let it bring only good discoveries in your lives!


*photos broadwayworld.com; visitingdc.com