Mari Travels with Tango

Re-united with my Finnish Tango Friends :-) As so often, after weeks of constant change and variety while travelling, the return to 'normal life' has happened so fast that I have barely been able to keep up. The 29-hour boat trip, by now such a familiar part of the homeward journey, slid by almost without notice, and before I understood it, I was back on the home soil. Riding out of the Vuosaari Harbour, a little outside of Helsinki city centre, it was all so familiar that I could have done it with my eyes closed. To prolong the inevitable, I spent a couple of hours riding around the city, having too many cups of coffee in my favourite cafés and reading the wonderful book that I had purchased for the boat trip (The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón). It was a wonderful, sunny morning, and my home town showed itself at its best. Listening to the sea gulls, the wind and the familiar language, it took only a couple of hours to feel as if I'd never been ...

As so often at this stage of an eventful and emotionally charged journey, today I found myself in quite an emotional state of mind. I woke up to a beautiful sunshine, which together with a well-slept night and a delicious breakfast contributed to a general sense of wellbeing that carried on all through the day. As there was essentially nothing I had to get done, I decided to spend the day just enjoying the sun while doing some half-hearted browsing on the shopping streets of Rostock. As I had known I would, very soon I found myself in a bookstore, and once again I was immediately struck by the limitless opportunities of discovery that the literary world offers. Just looking at all those books almost moved me to tears, as in some obscure way it made me feel incredibly fortunate. No matter what, even if I never achieved another thing in my life or never left home again, there would always be this new world to discover. And even when I get old and my physical capacities weaken, I will a...

My two days in Paris passed in a blur, and the constant state of exhaustion made it all seem a bit surreal. Thus, all my memories and impressions on the city are somewhat vague, but what I do remember, I really like. It is so easy to see why this city is the most popular tourism destination in the world: it is full of wonderful, old buildings, lots of attractive people (not a small share of whom are foreigners), an abundance of cultural events, shops and sights for those who want to spent their time looking at them. And it really is as beautiful as they say. Getting around by bike proved to be the perfect way to see the city. Admittedly, I was mostly on my way to or from a milonga, but I did look around me as well. And wherever I looked, I saw manifestations of the immense importance the French place on beauty. Don´t get me wrong, I also like beauty, especially when it is allowed to take so many different forms, and indeed, based on Paris it seems to me that beauty really is mostly ...