Gonzo Girl

Maggie’s beads. So where did they land on this unforgettable experience?  

Dotting the landscape from Dublin to Budapest, they mark our journey in their own special way. 

The first was placed at the base of the statue of Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square Park, Dublin. Look at his expression!  Did he know what we were up to?

We should have placed a companion bead at Trinity College where Wilde studied the Greats. 

Flying off to the continent, our time in Munich was a blur.

No beads. Wished we had given one to Our Lady of the Train Station. I won’t soon forget her. 

Not too far out of Passau, where we started cycling, a bead was left at the base of a random statue under a random medieval castle fortress in the middle of a beautiful rustic stretch along the Danube.

We were too busy to leave beads in these amazing locations. 

My sister, a theatrical sort, asked us to leave beads for her at either a stage or a musical venue. We did both. 

I missed the chance to have this guy, also a theatrical sort, hold up a bead for a picture. 

Then we got busy again and didn’t leave beads with these guys from Columbia on a huge European tour. 

When we discovered that my cousin was on a Viking River Cruise and could meet us in Bratislava, I wished I had given her a bead. Instead, we shared a glass of wine, and were grateful for our chance meeting halfway across the world. 

 Sean’s visit to the hospital, offered a little extra time to leave one outside the Emergency room in Kormono, Slovakia. 

Our climb up the hill to the Basilica in Esztergom, Hungary definitely deserved a bead, but alas, I left them in the hotel room.

Finally, in Budapest, we found the perfect cafe to leave not one, but two beads.

The end of a travel experience is always a little bittersweet. There is the knowing that there are some places you will absolutely never see again, but if you are lucky, perhaps a few you might. In some ways, travel is a microcosm of life itself. Constantly changing, with ups and downs along the way. A string of vivid moments that one day fade into a remembering of the whole. But the beads draw out some specific memories, which otherwise could easily be muted with time. 

Trying to carry a little of the awareness and curiosity of this travel life back to my daily life can be challenging.

I guess my hope is to ultimately live all of life as an adventure, moment by moment. 

One bead at a time.