Martins Onskulis
PRPE_108 Sec. 08N
January 31, 2016
A Map in Your Head There is nothing more worrying in the moment than when you have to say goodbye to your family, a moment when sitting in the airplane and the pilot is starting the engines. Like a heavy bird the plane slowly glides to the runway and turns. Not to miss a single second to feel vibration of airframe, wings and tension beneath them. Land begins to run turning into regular tracery, knitting together like grandmother’s knitted gloves and socks. The only question is how free you can let your daily routine behind you and be open to unknown. Nothing is more breathtaking than the moment when you get out of the train in a strange city, with a map in your hands and overhead the sun as a compass needle. Welcoming of tourist groups and organizations holds back the true first impression of the city. How many places will not been discovered - the festival or hidden waterfalls, by traveling together with the tourist groups from point A to point B, and left without the landscape behind the car window. The best way to travel is alone. Standing alone on the dusty platform, I fill my lungs with the smell of a strange city perfumes. My map is adjusted to the north. Once the first steps are taken in a strange land, it becomes yours. I will never forget the days-long train trip to Omsk (Russia), when I woke up in the morning in my tiny cabin and I know – few more days to travel, I am not leaving train today, have to keep myself busy with anything that is around me. I will never forget the old Indian woman in New Mexico at the Red Cliffs selling turquoise jewelry. I will never forget wandering through Paris when early in the morning after waking up, after six hours founding myself close to the Eiffel Tower. Only then I realized that I cannot go to it, because it seemed that all my blood was in my foot and my head