“It’s for me,” I said, laughing. “You don’t know me, but I’m very special.”
I can’t explain how happy I felt. The fireworks had nothing to do with me. It was certainly in celebration of some wedding or anniversary, but I was there at the exact moment and I was able to watch everything from a privileged angle. If I had planned to live something special in Prague, I wouldn’t have imagined something so surprising.
We walked more than two kilometers to get back to the hostel and I told Simon I wasn’t ready to go to sleep yet. I thanked the company and informed him that I was going to tour the Old Town.
Luckily for me, he didn’t offer to join me, but he asked me to write down his phone number. Before I finished typing all the numbers on the keyboard, he surprised me with a proposaclass="underline"
- If you want to have sex later let me know. I don’t want anything serious. We can just have fun.
Saying this in Portuguese sounds even more disturbing and it took me a few seconds to decode the message. I put on a poker face, thanked the invitation to turn my back trying to process it.
No one had ever been so direct and clear to me. I was disturbed, but I thought it might be an efficient type of communication for him.
30 – EMOTION FESTIVAL
The owner of the minivan who gave me a lift to Vienna was a former Czech journalist who left his former job to work in tourism. The other two passengers were from Karlovy Vary. They told me about many places that had historical participation in the Nazi period and made me desire to return to explore the Czech Republic more carefully.
Since they spoke the same language as the driver, I spent most of the trip quiet, watching the moon on the horizon and thinking how proud I was of myself. I could be in Brazil crying because the things I had planned for that year had not gone the way I expected. But look: I’m on a ride from the Czech Republic to Austria, and learning thousands of new things from people I didn’t even know existed.
Luckily for me, the drop off point in Vienna was next to the subway station. I used public wifi and found that I was less than a 15-minute-walk-distance from the hostel.
At this point in time, Skyscanner had already shown me a plane ticket from Budapest to Milan for 12 euros. I used the “anywhere” tool again, and the universe was right on Conor’s suggestion while we were still in Dublin.
The daily conversations with the Irishman went from texting to video calling and he was eager to see me again.
- Six days to see each other, but it seems like forever – I read it on my cell phone as soon as I accessed the hostel’s internet.
- Don’t overreact, it’s only been 15 days since we last met in Dublin,” I said.
- Feels like 20 years ago – he dramatized.
- What will happen to our days in Italy if we don’t like each other? That question had begun to haunt me a few days ago. I wasn’t so anxious, but that was a possibility.
- Do you think there is such a chance? – Conor asked.
- We spent less than 48 hours together, Conor. Maybe you’ll find soon I’m not your kind of girl,” I explained, trying to get his feet on the ground.
- For Christ’s sake, look at yourself. You’re very much my kind of girl,” he said, sending me a picture with a funny expression.
I can’t deny that Conor’s attention had an effect on my self-esteem. He seemed to have taken a course on how to please romantic women with words. More than that, he knew exactly when and how to use them.
Despite having doubts about our meeting, I was absolutely calm. That part of the trip was a secret dream, created in my mind many years before I thought of getting divorced while reading Chico Buarque’s book “Budapeste”.
During my days in Eastern Europe, I was so focused on visiting the places I had always dreamed of, that I didn’t have time to design my romantic stay in Milan. Living in the present is good because it avoids excessive expectations.
Vienna surprised me by the cleanliness of the streets and buildings. A medieval city that seemed rejuvenated by the almost-religious silence of the parks. I spent hours among hundreds of species of roses in a garden next to the Vienna State Opera. There were large beds of roses in yellow, red, pink and white. I just wondered how dazzled my mother would be to see so many different colors and sizes of roses. I made several videos to send to her.
After leaving the garden, I happened to end up in the town hall square, Rathausplatz, and came across a huge movie screen on the gothic facade of the main building. I got on the internet right away and found that a free movie festival was going on there.
When I returned at night for the show, the chairs were almost all taken. I secured a seat on the back and the screen was painted a pale beige with “The Great Ghosts” by Yoann Bourgeois. Filmed in the Pantheon in Italy, the video featured a series of artistic performances where the bodies of the dancers mingled with the gears of a machine.
I began to wonder if I knew how to admire works of art and concluded that art is never just what its author intended. Art lingers in every human being who contemplates it, interprets it, and feels it. A work of art will be unique as long as only its author has access to it. After that, art belongs to everyone who observes it and understands it. It may look similar to some, but it will never be the same.
The second film featured the performance of two works by the Finnish Jean Sibelius by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. The young Santtu-Matias Rouvali, also Finnish was the conductor. I got emotional and cried several times. There I began to understand that I did not need to study Arts to admire it.
I understood that art is available to every thinking being on this planet who has the least sensitivity. What thrilled me the most that night was the discovery that I have always liked the arts, although I believed I didn’t have the slightest critical sense to say anything about it.
31 – REALITY IS BETTER THAN THE DREAM
When I arrived at my host’s apartment in the suburbs of Budapest, where I would spend only one night, he soon invited me to drive around the city. Full of energy, he opened the cover of his mossy-green convertible and we toured through the main monuments of the city. It was night, and the bridges and historic buildings were lit with golden light.
When we arrived at the Citadel, I couldn’t believe I was in Budapest. As I became aware that this was no longer a dream, that it was no longer my mind wondering what Chico Buarque described, my eyes simply told me that Budapest was even more beautiful than I had dreamed.
When I first read Chico Buarque’s book, I made several mental photographs of the city. At that time, I already knew Rio de Janeiro, so the counterpoint didn’t charm me so much. However, it was impossible not to compare the Paula who was in Rio de Janeiro months earlier, with the Paula who was in Budapest. I really felt like the character Jose Costa, the opposite of my own identity, but the most beautiful opposite.
From high above the Citadella, there was an endless black veil embroidered with stars on either side of the glittering zigzag of bridges that span the Danube river. It was all dark and a dazzling gold design.
The next day, during my walking tour, I was absolutely amazed by Budapest, and I couldn’t decide if the city was better during the night or the day. Living the reality of the dream with passion made my stay in Hungary so magical and overjoyed. It was real life dressed in a dream. It made me spend hours looking at the Parliament, the lions on the Chain Bridge, and the poetic scenery in the medieval Castle neighbourhood.
On the second day, after visiting the Buda Castle, I walked to a Starbucks and wrote my first post for my blog.