I spent the last few days with my girl­friend and my fam­ily. As usual, we went to the coun­try­side where my par­ents live and I am of two minds about it. No ques­tion, I like it there. It’s where I was born and it’s a lovely enough place, still not near as crowded like the cities. Even taken all the vaca­tion­ists into con­sid­er­a­tion it’s more than silent if you know where to go. And what’s more calm­ing than sit­ting high on the moun­tain on a bright, sunny day, look­ing down into the peace­ful val­ley while expe­ri­enc­ing moments of absolute still­ness and utter calm­ness? In con­trast to the big city life, every­thing is silent and beau­ti­ful and radi­ates a whole­ness few have ever expe­ri­enced. I really like it there. Next time I’ll make some pic­tures for your view­ing plea­sure, I promise.

On the other hand, there’s this old-fashioned style I can’t quite come to terms with. You know, no broad­band inter­net, no big plasma TV, no inter­est­ing dis­cus­sions, no ade­quate pub­lic means of trans­porta­tion, and the like. Of course, it’s small vil­lage where the rural pop­u­la­tion just don’t much care about out­siders. There are so many things that seem under­de­vel­oped to the untrained eyes. I know that there’s much more going on, I know all there is to know about the local under­cur­rents. Often enough I can for­get about all these “short­com­ings” because there’s a qual­ity to the peo­ple there most town­ers have lost ages ago. Any­way, I still miss some of the things men­tioned above …