As a kid I used to read a lot. And I mean A LOT. Mom used to say I was swallowing books. But ever since I moved to the States, I practically stopped reading other than school assigned readings. Not really sure why. Was it the new environment, new responsibilities, or stress of immigration? Or may be lack of my favorite reading chair where I used to curl up? Now, during our travels, I'm beginning to slowly reconnect with reading. We meet a lot of traveler's with books, and many hostels have book exchanges, but I kept wondering when do those people find the time to read? Didn't they come here to enjoy new places, new culture and not seek escapes in the book? I suppose one could read in the bus, but reading in bus often makes me sick, besides we try to take night buses. But once I found books I was interested in enough, reading in buses became less of a problem, plus I get time to read while Stasya (
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1)
stanyslava) heroically writes our
travel journal.
When we were in Argentina, I really wanted to read Che's
Motorcycle Diaries
, and my better half thoughtfully got it for me as a birthday gift during her side trip to NYC. I was hoping that reading about Che's formative years, would help me with my own self discovery during our travels, but after finishing it I hardly felt inspired.
One thing that did inspire us was our
brief encounter with an Argentinean couple that drove from Buenos Aires all the way to Alaska in an antique 1928 car, and even having a kid on the road didn't interrupt their dream voyage. The two wrote a book about their travels called
Catching Your Dream, but the book was in Spanish and we didn't dare buying it from them at the time. (Their book is now available in English,
Spark Your Dream). Over a month later, we walked into a bookstore in Bariloche, and the first thing we saw sitting on the shelf was their book. We left the store with a book and the dictionary. Getting past the first page proved difficult, even with the dictionary. Months of traveling taught us essential Spanish for getting a hostel room and ordering a meal, but we knew very little in the way of grammar, and dictionary is useless for looking up inflected verbs, figuring out tense, etc. But we wanted to read the book so much that we decided to take some Spanish lessons. As luck would have it, the teacher that was recommended to us was going away for a week and could only give us 6 hours of lessons before she left. We lived and breathed Spanish for two days (a lesson in the morning, homework, another lesson, homework till midnight), and surprisingly this proved to be enough. It took me about a month to read almost 400 pages, but I can proudly say that I read a book in Spanish! By coincidence, I finished reading the book on June 4th, which is Herman and Candelaria's son's birthday, so we congratulated them over email. The main theme of the book is that the secret to accomplishing your dreams is to start. I suppose we have already started, since we are on the road, but do we need to wait to complete one before starting another? There always were things I wanted to try, and we are getting some new ideas on the road... While getting a visa extension in Policia Federal in Rio, the clerk had a bunch of printouts with inspirational messages pegged to the wall behind her. One said: "Don't be afraid to try new things. Remember that only a single amateur built the Arc, while a team of professionals designed Titanic (Luiz F. Verissimo)."
Lastly, in the hostel in Rio, I picked up
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and found it hard to put it down until I finished it. The book is written from the point of view of a fifteen year old who has Asperger's Syndrome (i.e. autistic with high IQ). He is great at maths and noticing things, but understands little about human emotions, hates colors yellow and brown, and being touched. I keep thinking how my mind often needs to work in the same logical way that his does, and how often I'm surprised to find out that other people's thought process is different. But while his mind often gets overloaded with information to the point of making him sick, I often feel that I don't have enough info and my mind needs to work with limited information to paste together a complete picture. But this is like a puzzle, and I like puzzles. On the other hand, I guess I am lucky that my sensory perception doesn't overload my brain.
pissed off
loved