Eyes Wide Open

Travelling for me is not the destination, landscapes or using various means of transport. Travelling means meeting people with various cultural backgrounds, weird talks about UFOs and possibilities of reincarnation, solving mind puzzles, listening to songs in unknown language and tastes of food, the titles of which I might never pronounce. It is experiencing and facing something different. People say that business trips are not real travelling, they say it is work. However, I strongly believe that there are business trips that can be life-changing, they can take you to places where you would never go on vocation, they may force you to do things that you wouldn’t do on your own. I’m speaking on behalf of those trips that are designed by destiny to teach you something.
This particular one-week-long workshop took me to Payerbach, which is a tiny town in Austria with a crystal-clear river and one quite old church. It’s a place where birds are louder than cars, where people still greet everyone and sleep with their doors unlocked. This place offers you the possibility to find yourself and break away from enmeshment of social networks and perpetual rush. However, the workshop of storytelling added some spicy flavour to this tranquil town changing it to a mysterious place of dark secrets, dragons and wisdom.
Free WiFi was everywhere but I felt disgust even when I imagined entering virtual world, it seemed so wrong here. I didn’t dare to spoil the moment, so I walked barefoot in the garden feeling every pebble and every stem of grass under my feet. It’s so quiet that birds seemed to be screaming on the top of their voices, rather disturbing. The ignorant dog of the hotel strayed by and didn’t even stir when I called her name. Disappointed I lay down on the bench; moist mountain air was brushing against my hot skin. It was very hard to lay still, when the rush from the city is in my blood system and it claims for immediate action. I resisted and strange thoughts started appearing in my mind, things I had never had time to think about. I mentally stepped aside and examined my daily routine. Is this, what I really want to do for the rest of my life?
Suddenly, enchanted by the sounds of the guitar, I moved towards the melody, as I approached, I had the feeling that the guitar was being played on the strings within my ribcage and I could clearly notice the vibrations echoing in my body. It was the beginning of our storytelling workshop, the beginning of my story.