strange, strange book

vernon god little is one of the strangest books I have ever read. it's about a 15 year old boy who is accused of shooting 17 kids at his high school. so instead he decides to run away to mexico, and we get to follow his story...



now, what's so special about this book... first of all, it's got a lot of foul language. as a review of the book says: "Every page, yes, without exaggeration, every page has a free sprinkling of the f— word..."
now this made me doubtful if I wanted to finish reading the book; the first 50 pages was really a challenge. however, I decided to continue reading, because it had won the man booker prize for fiction in 2003, so somehow it had to be good, right?

well, partly... it was an interesting book, although very difficult to get through. at first. the last 150 pages (the book is ~280 pages) I read through it without stopping. where? at the airport, in the waiting hall, *after* receiving my luggage. I just couldn't stop reading.

language was always a barrier, but it got interesting to hear the story about the boy as he progresses on his trip and where it leads him. and it does get better up until the end. not sure if I recommend it though, unless you're really into reading it.

to top it up, here's a fact from the wiki page: Out of 4,000 Britons polled, 35% who started reading this book did not finish it.

an important quotation

I went to a deepening today, and we're studying a short book called the tabernacle of unity. it contains two letters in response to questions asked to Baha'u'llah by a zoroastrian, plus a couple of other tablets. the second letter is a further elaboration of the first letter (which in itself contains many important notes and passages), and one of the quotations that appeared at least three times in the first half of it was this one:

"Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements."

I think it's quite an interesting quotation, and one that suggests some very important things: for example that we should keep updated with the social, political and economical situation in the world; to know what's going on, what people need and want. it's a great challenge, but I think a very good thing to try to live by. it promotes reading, studying, discussing with people about the situation in the world, and only in that way can it be possible to learn more.


in other news, we had some tasty water melon there. absolutely delicious!

to read the tabernacle of unity, click here.

so the story begins...

(this is about the first day of pilgrimage)

we got up, had our breakfast, and went to terrace 19. just like the day before, we couldn't enter the terraces, so we took the way around, which resulted in this pic:


just to know where we're heading...

get down to the pilgrim reception center to register, and we're given a program and some papers and booklets with information. the first program point was a short walk to the office of public information, where we were shown a short video about pilgrimage.
before coming, a friend of mine had told me that I'd be seeing a guy named ian here, who I was supposed to have met a few years earlier in a youth conference. unfortunately, I could for my life not remember how he looked like, but to my luck there was a picture of him (together with 3 girls, hmmm... ;)) in the presentation and as soon as I saw it I said to myself "ah! that's ian!". definitely saved me there!

after the short presentation we went back to the reception center and had a lunch. to our great surprise, two more friends walk in, with invitations to their wedding. hadn't seen her for two years, and him - first time :)

so lunch finished, and it was time to officially start the pilgrimage. we walked up to the gardens outside the Shrine of the Báb for the recitation of the Tablets of Visitation for Baha'u'llah and the Báb and the one for 'Abdu'l-Bahá. when this was done, we circumambulated the Shrine, and then had to wait for a while until they cleaned up and prepared the Shrines for us to go say our prayers there for the first time. to try and get ready for it, I went and sat on the stairs in the gardens.

as I said before, I felt that I hadn't prepared enough for my pilgrimage. and I really felt it as I got there. I had a hard time grasping that I was really there, and why I was there... when the Shrine was opened, I felt an irresistible urge to go in, so I went and prepared myself (washed my hands and face, and left my stuff in the pilgrim house) and then went in.

to this day, I still don't know which prayer was the first one I said in there, all I remember is the feeling I had. all in all, it was one of the most sincere and honest prayer sessions I had, a very special one, that really helped me get into the "pilgrimage mood".

after the prayers and dinner it was time for the first talk for pilgrims. these talks are usually held by members of the Universal House of Justice, the supreme legislative organ of the Faith, or by members of the International Teaching Centre in the evenings. however, on the first day we had the blessing and privilege of having Dr. Alí-Muhammad Varqá, the last of the Hands of the Cause living to welcome us and remind us again what a special bounty and honor it is to be received as a pilgrim in the Holy Land. it was a lovely speech to hear, and very heartwarming.

the talk ended at around 8 or so, and we decided to take a walk down the terraces, my brother and our friendly staff member. going down at night meant that there was the opportunity to take some artistic pictures without having to worry about anything else. this resulted in some quite nice pictures, such as these:

      
(for more pictures, click here)

we walked all the way down the terraces, off to hamegenim (a street way off of any resemblance of civilization ;)) to drop our friend off, and then took a cab back home. good day!

halftime

yes, I'm up... argentina having possession, but not getting too far with it right now. the us scored from a penalty, and haven't had much since that... crespo equalised three minutes after. argentina have had a couple more good chances, among others a shot by veron deflected onto the bar. we'll see how the second half goes... 2 more goals perhaps?

update: at 4.10 am I shout out loud as crespo scores his second after wonderful buildup by messi and riquelme. two more goals added to the total by aimar and tevez, and the game ends 4-1. the commentators seemed slightly biased to me, and kept on praising the us performance, whereas argentina was never really put under any pressure, and even less so in the second half. vintage performance, looking good for the future.

how far can you get in an hour?

haile gebrselassie just ran 21285m in an hour on track... and also set a new world record for 20km, 56.55.60 to get that far.

slightly better than me... ;)

cooking!

with pilgrimage, going home to my parents over the weekend (and bringing food back!), and eating out with friends, it's been so long I don't even remember when the last time was that I cooked. today I finally made some chicken filet (yummy!) for myself...

things have been busy, but I'll try and post about pilgrimage and such soon. hopefully will be able to write about the first day later today. but now, food!

veron, zanetti, cambiasso...

I can't be any happier:


so lovely to see them... argentina's first game is on thursday night, I'm so excited to see them :)


in other news, our game today wasn't good... we lost 3-1, even though we got off to a good start (I scored a quite nice goal after ~3-4 minutes). 2-1 in halftime, despite quite many chances for us. and then they scored a lucky goal (the goalie slipped) a few minutes into the second half and we didn't manage to recover. I blew the chance of the century when I had empty net and was going to steer a misdirected shot. lifted my foot a bit too high and the ball just slipped under :(
now we're resting over the summer, next game is some time in august I think... time to pick up the pace again.

"you're crazy!"

that's what my friends say to me when I tell them I got up at 5.45 today to play football. what's worse is that I'm getting up at 5 tomorrow to play again...

how it went? I scored three goals (two headers, one with my right foot), and after 10-1 the ref stopped the game (those are the rules). not too bad, and it was lovely weather as well, so nothing to complain about :)

firstborn sons with higher IQ?

a norwegian study claims that firstborn sons have higher IQ than their younger brothers. they have discovered a difference of about 2.3 points:

"A study that used military draft records for more than 240,000 Norwegian men found that firstborns had an edge of 2.3 IQ points on their next oldest brothers, who in turn beat brothers born third by 1.1 points on average."

naturally, I refuse to believe that's true ;) so when a mail was sent out here at work asking for two brothers that wanted to refute or confirm the theory, I was quick to reply. we'll see how it goes!

too good to be true

(sorry, this is a strictly football-only post)

copa america starts soon, and argentina has brought pretty much all their best players. and it's looking good. really good. here's the announced starting line-up:

GK: Abbondanzieri (Getafe-ESP);
DF: Zanetti (Inter-ITA), Ayala (Villarreal-ESP), Milito (Zaragoza-ESP), Heinze (Manchester United-ENG);
MF: Verón (Estudiantes), Mascherano (Liverpool-ENG), Cambiasso (Inter-ITA);
AMF: Riquelme (Villarreal-ESP);
FW: Messi (FC Barcelona-ESP); Crespo (Inter-ITA)
(source)

it's too good to be true... almost all my favorite players in the same line-up, I can't really say that I'm missing anyone. and keep in mind that players such as tevez, diego milito, lucho gonzalez and aimar are on the bench... check the entire squad.

gonna be a bit tired these two upcoming weeks as I'll definitely get up at night to watch the games. at least argentina's =D

custom search engine

google lets you create your own search engine, which searches only sites you specify. I created one for my site, just to see how it works. (there's already one up in the navbar, so this one is kinda redundant.) it's an interesting feature to have for other sites.

go to http://google.com/coop/cse/ and create your own :)

this is kinda funny

if you haven't heard about the show extreme make over: home edition, check it out here. basically what they do is take someone in dire need of a new crib, send the family on vacation, and fix a brand new house in a week. it's a cool idea.

the funny part? they were going to have this show in sweden, but experienced a problem: the tax on the new house would be so high that the people there wouldn't be able to afford living there. now that's funny and sad at the same time...

I just did a britney!

albeit without any tears or paparazzi, and I didn't do it myself, but I just shaved my head:


and no, that's not dirt over my lips, it's a goatee :)

BBQ!

we just had a lovely barbeque here... the food was absolutely super delicious. haven't eaten this much and this good stuff in a long time... here are a few pics:

sana in action:


some chicken on my plate:


and the whole thing:

what do you like?

two great areas of discussion are taste in music and books. there are many sites that can help you discover what you might like based on what you say you do like.

here's a good site that gives good music. musicovery.com plays music based on mood, genre and age. check it out.

pandora.com is unfortunately only available to US citizens, but is a great tool that helps you create "radio channels" based on music taste, and you can say which you like and not. after a while it actually gets really accurate and helps you discover new music that you didn't know about.

amazon related product search searches amazon's "Customers who bought this item also bought" based on a title you specify and then creates a web of connected items. you can search on more than just books - music, dvds, software and more are also available. the only problem is that after a while it gets too plotty and messy as too many items get connected to each other, and it's difficult to find anything. but it's a good idea, and the flash is quite cool as well, to see things pop up all the time.

something to think about...

"The beginning of magnanimity is when man expendeth his wealth on himself, on his family and on the poor among his brethren in his Faith."

Bahá'u'lláh

had to look up magnanimous: courageously noble in mind and heart.

gonna think about it for a while and see what I can come up with...

ice cream at work!

my boss goes on vacation starting next week, so to celebrate the end of the spring season and start of summer (sorta...), we all (or at least those of us who were still there) had some ice cream. it was so delicious I had way too much. took a picture and sent it to the rest of the group. can't put it up here though, but I can assure you it was tasty and that we enjoyed it a lot :)

no more football!

or at least no organized version of it... yesterday was the last football training that I coached, and the day before was the last one I played. even though these last few ones with the kids I've played as well, since we were so few.

I have a feeling that there might be some football coming up during these weeks as well, hooking up with friends and playing here and there, but odds are that there might be more volleyball and basketball instead. we'll see... at least hopefully less injuries :)

edit/update: here's a little piece of chocolate and paper I got. it's funny, because it's expressen, the competitor of aftonbladet. and the chocolate is just tasty :)

this is so incredibly cool

a report on the morning show had this guy playing music on a flute made out of a carrot, and so I just had to google a bit here and there this morning. and here's what I found: the vienna vegetable orchestra! Worldwide one of a kind, the Vegetable Orchestra performs on instruments made of fresh vegetables. The utilization of various ever refined vegetable instruments creates a musically and aesthetically unique sound universe.

it's just so amazingly cool and beautiful, it can't be described, but has to be experienced:

how amazing isn't that?

workout schedule

so football is taking a 4 week summer break, and we've been ordered to keep up a bit by ourselves during this time. this is after the fitness test that we had. turns out the average of our team was 12.35 on 3 km (I did it in 11.40), which I suppose is quite okay.

so to maintain (or improve?) our fitness levels, we were given "individual training programmes". in these four weeks, I'm going to do these options at least 6 times (I'm free to choose whichever whenever I want):

1. "speed game", 35-45 minutes. constantly changing speed. relatively low base speed with repeated bursts. I choose myself when and how the speed changes, switch between short and longer speed bursts.
   
2. interval, about 30 minutes. 5 minutes of jogging, and then 20 minutes of intervals, 80% of my maximum. 40 seconds of running, then jogging for 20 seconds, and repeat. jog down for the last 5 minutes.
3. long distance. 30-45 minutes of jogging, about 60-70% intensity.

not sure which one I'll choose... I kinda liked my own schedule of sprints of 2*(6*50), 5 km and another 6*50, I hope it's ok if I choose to do that one.

the pearl of sweden

"The beautiful city of Stockholm welcomes you" is the lovely introduction to this new site, pearlofsweden.com. and stockholm truly is the pearl of sweden.


one of the most beautiful cities in the summer with its islands and water, stockholm is definitely worth visiting. the site is a helpful tool, both for tourists and others, so be sure to check it out. now.

this is not funny...

... or perhaps a little bit. was at a seminar yesterday, and this is how my nametag turned out:



I'm surprised to say the least, since I registered by e-mail. I've seen borno and I've seen safari before, but never together in one nametag. not sure what to think of it...

2000!

I just noticed that I have passed 2000 visitors on my blog!

yay! thank you all for reading, I hope it gives you something :)

I have visitors from all continents of the world, obviously mostly from europe/us, but I have a few from some african countries, and also a couple from south america. whoever is on hawaii, puerto rico or the canary islands reading this blog should really go out to the beach instead ;)

here's the map (which you, together with the statistics, can see down to the right):

the interesting (?) life of a developer

as it draws into summertime, things usually calm down a bit. people are on vacation, and there generally isn't much of an idea to start any new development project. usually summer is the time for bug fixes, and last week was such a week.

one of the bugs we looked into I have mentioned previously. after solving one bug on monday, we started looking into this one on tuesday. it took us about half a day to figure out how and why it happened, and then we tried to work on a solution.

after about a day of working we gave up on that one as it would be way too complex to solve with our first thought, and tried another solution. that one didn't work either, even though we got quite far. so on friday, the solution that we ended up with consisted of changing a >= (greater than or equal to) to =, and moving a piece of code a couple of rows down.

feels good to work on that for four days...

slow weekend

had a slow and lazy weekend, where I ended up not doing much at all. we had basketball on saturday (messed up my fingers - now I have 3 with slightly reduced functionality; and my shoulder seems to be a bit dysfunctional too) and after that I just went to my parents and did basically nothing for two days. watched a lot of tv, didn't read anything, and just enjoyed being back home :)

back home on sunday evening, watched some football and talked to a friend for almost 3.5h on the phone... good thing I didn't call ;)

some moral aspects on climate change

I promised a while ago to write my take and thoughts on climate change, and so I will try to do that...

at the houseparty last weekend I was asked what it would take me to start believing that humans were in fact mainly responsible for climate change. I don't remember having a good answer then, but I have one now: when there is ample evidence for it. as long as there are professors at acknowledged universities (university of bermuda does not count!) claiming it's simply not true, rather than politicians and alarmists/activitists, I will believe them. scientific facts show that other planets, e.g. neptune and mars, are getting warmer with natural causes (we're not affecting those planets now, are we?) and patterns very similar to the earth. world climate report is a very interesting blog dealing with many issues in this regard.

I think one of my main concerns is that this whole climate debate has turned into a witch hunt, where anyone the least sceptic is basically declared a heretic. it slightly reminds of a few centuries back when the church vehemently refused to accept the theory of the non-flatness of the earth. even though there were only approximately two people (galilee and copernicus) believing the earth was round, they turned out to be right.
the consequences, as I've written before, are that many developing countries are not being able or allowed to develop, since they are being forced to be experimenting with renewable sources of energy, which are often more expensive and less efficient. sure, they might be cleaner, but is it worth it?
here's a bit more on climate change and the moral aspects of it.

now, I'm not saying that the minority is always right or that we shouldn't be doing anything at all about the effects of climate change and completely ignore it. the climate *is* changing, people just can't agree on whether we have anything to do with the big picture or not. here's an interesting video about it:

the point he's making is simply very similar to pascal's wager. do we want to risk doing nothing at all to see what happens in the end? how morally justifiable is that really?

I kinda don't agree with his second video though, as it gets too much on the side that claims anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change is true:

there have been proven cases of human-caused climate change which have led to collapses in society, societies that were in their peak and prime. easter islands, the maya are two historical examples, and there are plenty more. and these are societies and civilizations that lasted for more than 1000 years, which is far more than what our current civilization has been around. (I'm reading a book about it now, and will review it later.) and if nothing is done or considered, we do face the risk of sealing our own fate, regardless of the major climate changes happening in the world.
it's never responsible to let out pollution so that it makes people feel ill and hurts the environment, and it's never acceptable to use less efficient means just because it's easier or cheaper, we have to always consider the consequences of all our actions.

as for climate change, what I think is needed is unbiased research by scientists without any political agenda involved. as of right now there are too many biased people involved who want to skew the facts so that it fits with their plans and programs. that will naturally prove very costly in the long run.

it's an interesting concept...

... voluntarily making yourself feel like crap.

you know you're gonna waste a lot of money. you know you'll feel sick. you know you'll wake up next day with a headache. you know you might do/say things you'll regret later on. and yet people do it...

I'm glad I don't drink.

today is an historical day! almost...

it was quite cold and windy today, so at football practice I decided to put on a sweater, for the first time in more than 10 years. however, after warming up for about 5 minutes, I got warm enough and took it off. so, almost, but not quite there...

I didn't play all that well today, had one chip that was really sweet, but other than that I was too stressed and couldn't quite perform as I wanted to. ah well, there will be more chances. at least I'm getting a good workout.

ran 3 km on 11.40, that's quite good.

it all started at the airport...

... and somehow continued all the way.

we got up saturday morning to get going, and after quite an uneventful trip we arrived to tel aviv airport. last time I was there, 2 years ago, I barely got out of the plane before I heard the words "sir, can you please step aside". naturally, due to how I looked, they wanted to make sure I was not dangerous. got asked why I was there, etc. and then I also got stopped as I had gotten my luggage and was on my way out to the arrival hall. this was in addition to the passport control.

naturally, I expected something similar this time. however, that did not really happen... didn't get stopped or anything outside the airplane, passport control went smoothly, and after the luggage was picked up and we were on our way out, the only thing that happened was this slightly strange conversation:
- security girl (checking my passport): where are you born?
- me: sweden
- security girl: israel?
- me: no, sweden
- security girl (returning my passport): okay

and then we just walked out. I was expecting a whole lot more. it took us about 30 minutes from arrival until we had our luggage and were out at the entrance hall. needless to say I was surprised.

since we were out at ~15.30, and couldn't get into haifa until 21, there was some time to kill at the airport. to my great surprise, a crazy friend showed up at around that time, to keep us company. we had talked about meeting up at the airport, but due to sabbath, there were no trains coming, so we sorta blew the idea off. luckily, she got a ride with a friend who was coming to pick someone else up :)

so as we're sitting there, talking, chatting, having fun, etc, we see a couple of other half-lost people walking around, and figure out that they must also be Baha'is. talk to a few, ask where they're from and such, and suddenly the greatest coincidence ever happens. I had heard from a dutch friend who's currently in india that one of her friends who'd been serving with her there for a while was going to be in the same pilgrim group as us. she told me her name, but I had sorta forgotten about it and didn't really think I'd see her, especially not on the first day.
so what happens? this girl walks by, we ask if she's a Baha'i, we introduce ourselves, and I guess you can realize who she is... so after the usual "wow, what a surprise, how are you?" etc, she suddenly says "I have a letter here, does anyone of you happen to be borna?"
she presents me with this letter from my two friends in india that she's been carrying around with her for almost 3 months, brought to more than 10 countries (she recounted them), and now finally found the recipient for it. a great surprise to say the least. I was asked to "hide in the closet" when I was going to open and read the letter, so naturally I couldn't open it there, neither retell what was in there... :)

so at around 21.30 we got to our hotel, checked in, and took it a bit easy. we went out to check out if there were any restaurants open, found a sandwich place and had some delicious sandwiches. took a walk down to the top of the terraces, couldn't be let in since we had no pilgrimage badges, so just stood out there, took a few pictures, and talked to the security guard up there. it was a nice chat, but eventually it was time to go back to bed and get ready for the next day, the first day of pilgrimage.


- - - - -

that's the first day, and pilgrimage hasn't even started... I hope you found it interesting to read, and I'll try to keep the rest coming in steadily. now I'm off to bed!

"the trouble with the super rich"

that's the topic of this article on the nation. it's a very interesting article, and reminds me of this quotation from 'Abdu'l-Baha, the Son of the Founder of the Baha'i Faith:

"Certainly, some being enormously rich and others lamentably poor, an organization is necessary to control and improve this state of affairs. It is important to limit riches, as it is also of importance to limit poverty. Either extreme is not good. To be seated in the mean is most desirable. If it be right for a capitalist to possess a large fortune, it is equally just that his workman should have a sufficient means of existence.

A financier with colossal wealth should not exist whilst near him is a poor man in dire necessity. When we see poverty allowed to reach a condition of starvation it is a sure sign that somewhere we shall find tyranny."

this by no means however implies that everyone should be having exactly the same amount of money regardless of what they do. there must be a correlation between job/education and income, however not to the extreme difference of degree that exists today.

pictures, pictures, pictures!

I finally went through the pictures and uploaded them all. they're up on facebook, but you can find them here as well:

The Arc	Shrine of the Báb	Bahji
Monument Gardens	Terraces	People, part 1
People, part 2	Flowers	Artistic pictures
Burst shots	Other places	Haifa shots

a few notes on the pictures:
there are some duplicates, most notably in the artistic/people category. pictures are taken by me, my brother and a couple of other friends. I could've put basically all pictures in the artistic section, but tried to keep it to a minimum to those pictures that were taken with the intention of being especially artistic. the burst shots is an attempt to see how it will look like. I will put captions and tag people later, as well as upload some movies. for now, just enjoy :)

cleanliness

I will start by quoting the virtues project about cleanliness:

Cleanliness means washing often, keeping your body clean, and wearing clean clothes. It is putting into your body and your mind only the things that keep you healthy. It is staying free from harmful drugs. It is cleaning up mistakes and making a fresh start.

I just cleaned up big parts of my home, and wow, it really does make a difference, not only in that it actually looks clean, but also how it makes you feel. just seeing the cleanliness around really makes you a lot happier. here's one for always keeping it clean at home.

monthly monthly, part 5?

it's been 5 months (and a few days more) now that I've moved out, and tradition bids that I write another monthly post about events, thoughts and whatnot. however, this time I won't do it, due to pilgrimage being the major part of the last month, and nothing much else happening. and since I will be writing quite a lot about that (it's coming, patience!), I'll drop this month's monthly monthly.

buying loyalty, and a bit more...

I never thought it'd be so easy to buy my loyalty. I always thought I'd stick to what I believed was best, regardless of any other circumstances.

now I realized it isn't so. after starting to work at aftonbladet I have started reading punkt.se, which is their (our?) free daily paper, a competitor to metro. I used to think that metro was the better paper (at least compared to the third competitor, city), with better language and good reports other than the "standard news".

but now I take punkt.se over metro when I have the choice, and I'm not sure I do think it's a better newspaper. (as for aftonbladet vs expressen, imo aftonladet is far superior.) it's got its advantages, but I definitely feel that I have been affected by where I work. not good...


in other news, yesterday proved to be a very interesting day. we had a seminar with short talks about different topics (spirituality, consultation, advancement of women, obedience, etc), with about 10-15 people showing up. my talk about consultation was quite okay I suppose, might type it up and post here, if I remember what I said...

also went to a houseparty at an old classmate's place, whom I hadn't seen for two years or so. small apartment, many people, good amount of snacks, chips and candy. what was really interesting was sitting and talking with his younger brother and a friend of his. we talked for more than an hour about everything, climate, media, celebrities, the world, etc. when we got into religion, she had to go (it was quite late). I figured I'd go with her and keep on talking, and we did for about half an hour more. we had really interesting discussions, and hopefully we'll meet up again to talk. it should be giving :)

no, I don't want to know the color of your bra!

back in stockholm, and the weather is just lovely. ~25 or so degrees, and sunshine. virtually not a cloud in the sky all day, and lots of people outside walking and enjoying their time. naturally, warmer weather means less clothing, and there comes something that I find annoying...

girls are showing more skin than clothes, more cleavage than face (huge sunglasses are apparently the "in" thing nowadays), and I don't know who finds it nice... they're showing their bras, underwears, and whatnot, and I'd much rather be without seeing any of that. sure, it might be attractive to see some parts of girls, but if any of those were my girlfriend, I'd send them right back into the closet to put on some proper clothing. it *is* possible to look good in the summer while still wearing clothes and looking decent, just seems a lot of people have problems doing that.

two quotations by Baha'u'llah seem very relevant:

"Such must be their state that their eyes should behold the evidences of His might, their tongues and hearts make mention of His name, their feet be set towards the lands of His nearness, and their hands take fast hold upon His precepts. And were they to pass through a valley of pure gold and mines of precious silver, they should regard them as wholly unworthy of their attention."

"Let your eye be chaste, your hand faithful, your tongue truthful and your heart enlightened."

as for the guys, I'm not interested in seeing what kinda color they have on their boxers either... it's not that hard to pull up a pair of pants or use a belt, is it?

I'm not saying people should walk around wearing burkas, no need for that, but just dress properly. it's much more appropriate, and sometimes it's what you don't see that's attractive.

a few short notes on pilgrimage

going on pilgrimage is a very personal, spiritual and, in many ways, life-changing experience. it is very difficult to explain it in words... but I will try anyways. with 10 days of experiences to share, it might take a bit of time to go through it all. hopefully I will be able to write it up in 5 posts (2 days per post).

I cannot say that my life has completely changed, but I have definitely been able to change the focus on some things. one of the most challenging things is to keep the spirit of pilgrimage up, as the instant I left sight of the Shrines, buildings and terraces, I felt that something within me faded just so slightly. no wonder that everyone who goes there instantly wants to go back, and I'm in no ways different...

pilgrimage is a time of prayer and meditation, joy and laughter, experiences and surprises. and I can assure you there was plenty of it all. stay tuned for more!

and I'm back

a lot of experiences richer, and two kilos lighter. will take a while to sort out my pictures (got 500+ of them), but hope to be able to have them up together with a long account of things by the end of the week.