gifts

I decided to rely on the good old 30-liter backpack once again, and everytime it just amazes me how much I can fit in it. This time I needed to be prepared for anything from a huge metropol to total wilderness. A sleeping bag, mattress, tent, kettle, knife, raincoat, flashlight, food, hiking shoes, a warm sweater and two cardigans. Sandals, dress, the second biggest camera that I have, sketchbook, incence sticks. I'm just waiting for the moment when my bag falls apart. It's a miracle this hasn't happened yet. But so far I've needed every single thing I packed, and have not needed anything I don't have. Great.

Another thing that amazes me is how life really seems to give exactly what I need. Like when I had no shoes in Barcelona and refused to buy new ones, just within minutes I found a lovely pair of red sneakers, my size, my colour, abandoned on the street. There were no shoelaces, but my travelmate happened to have a pair in her pocket. She had carried them around for who knows what reason, but was now happy to give them to me.

Last week I met a girl, a hitchhiker, she came with us to the north but had nothing warm to wear so I gave her my clothes. And after a couple of days is was dressed in new clothes, clothes that were so much more beautiful than the ones I gave to the poor hitchhiker. It's like a big circle of giving and receiving, you pass something on and it will come back to you in some form at some point. Or it will go to the one who needs it the most, at least I hope so. Am I just lucky, or naive, or is life really so full of miracles as it seems to be right now?

And just yesterday I was thinking about how I need to buy new film for my camera, and was also looking at some lomography cameras and dreaming about Prague and simplicity of capturing moments. Just an hour later I met a guy who firstly gave me film (I didn't tell him I need it, he just came and offered it to me). Secondly, he told me that he works for a lomography company in Russia, "I can give you a camera if you want."
Then later that evening, I was driven around the heart of St. Petersburg with an old moped (and nearly crashed with a bus, but this was maybe not worth mentioning). I got a place to sleep, a grapefruit for dinner, I even got a home but this is too big to talk about yet.

And after just a couple of weeks of travelling, my backpack is so full of presents that soon I won't be able to close it anymore.
Gosh, I'm really trying to smile at people to give at least something in return. I really hope I'm capable of more than that. Today I was walking along Nevski Prospekt (the main street of St. Petersburg) barefoot, with a little message of bounty and simplicity in my heart.
The sad thing is that not many people accept it. They drive behind their black windows, stare at their mobile phones, and on their faces I can see a disgust towards a poor person. (Here barefooting can be really seen as a sign of poorness, not of freedom).
But some of them smile back.