I know you expected to see the poster for this famous movie. But I won’t show it because it’s bullshit. Nomads do not receive a pension and those are the real nomads. But the people in this movie travel because they have a monthly income that allows them to do what they want. A story written by a pensioner, and not by a true nomad! So I would like to say that yes, it is a beautiful thing to travel the world but if you are rich or have a pension you cannot go and advise others on how to survive. You are a false nomad. If you want to see the real nomads go to Mongolia instead where they can give you real advice on how to survive. It pisses me off all these people who have put themselves on a camper or van and already have money and want to believe that they survive only by traveling and selling bracelets. Come on?!!! Can we believe such fake people?
The term nomad is really overused today, and we often forget that there are people who live this lifestyle out of necessity or culture, as the only reality they have and not as a choice.
Once very many, today there are few people who still live in this way: the nomads of Mongolia are one of them. In the arid Mongolian steppes there is no room for cultivation, the main means of livelihood is livestock, and to always guarantee new pastures for the cattle, families move with their gers and their trucks, which represent all their possessions.
Living this life is not easy, there is no hot water (not even cold water to take a decent shower), no toilet, no power outlet other than solar panels for the cell phone, no fridge and no entertainment. We tried to live like this for a week and it was pretty tough. Between the food always based on the strangest meats, the lack of hygiene and the most absurd behavioral rules, nomads live a truly crazy life.
You cook on the floor, eat on the floor, sleep on the floor ... but if there is food placed on the ground and you try to climb over it, walking over it with your feet, you will hear it screaming! Nomads really eat everything: from sausages made of guts emptied of excrement, to the head of a kid with delicious eyeballs, but the most absurd thing we saw presented for dinner was a… marmot !!! Not just its meat: a marmot emptied of its entrails and used as a "pressure cooker" to cook its own meat!
Thank goodness there will be something good to drink, right? Obviously not, because what they usually drink is salty tea. Yes, salty. They are people used to riding for hours and hours, they will have a very comfortable and soft saddle ... but no, their saddles are made of wood and, in order not to miss any inconvenience, their stirrups are very short, so that you always have to ride raised from the saddle. An infinite pain. The ger is a concentrate of ancient engineering, a real portable miniature house. Once disassembled, it is transported entirely with all the furniture in a pick-up. Do you know how long it takes to assemble one? Two hours, counted.
A nomad wakes up every morning at 6, milks the cows and then accompanies the herd of sheep on horseback to pasture… then he stands there watching them for 4 to 7 hours, with a nap attached. The horses are not tied up, nor in the pens. They are left free but with the 3 legs tied by a rope, so that they can graze and move but… do not stray too far.
What we would call spoiled milk for them is a delicacy in which to dip cookies or add to soup. Nomads eat a lot, it will be to stock up for the harsh winter. And they expect you to eat the same. The problem is that grandma's delicacies aren't exactly what they offer you. And they are almost aggressive in insisting that you do an encore, forbidden to say no.
"I am proud to be born in the taiga," says Tumursukh sitting at a table in a cafe in Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia, a stone's throw from the offices of the Ministry of the Environment, for which he works. “My father took me there since I was a child, and he taught me to know and love her. When I left to study in the capital, I began to miss him. I waited several years before my dream came true: to be appointed by the Ministry of the Environment responsible for the protection of the Hovsgol region. So in 1987 I was able to create the first protected area and safeguard a part of the region from mining. In the 1980s, the first industries began to settle down, digging the mountain to get phosphorus. We fight to preserve our nature from this type of threat because the taiga, which is home to rare flowers, elk, bear and ibex, is precious and fragile. The government understood this and decided to keep it ”.
Ulaanbaatar (Ulan Bator), the capital of Mongolia with just over a million inhabitants, has become the most polluted capital in the world, surpassing Beijing and New Delhi, which both have 20 times the number of inhabitants. In December, when temperatures drop to as low as -40 degrees, air pollution levels are five times worse than in historically polluted Beijing, largely due to the number of coal stoves that poorer residents rely on.
Agence France-Presse reports that Mongols are turning to drinks like "oxygen infusions" and "lung tea" to try to strengthen their bronchial ducts and protect themselves from the polluted air they breathe every day. Advertisements for these probably ineffective drinks promise that "an oxygen cocktail is equivalent to a three-hour walk in a pristine forest" and grocery stores sell canned oxygen that they swear will turn ordinary glasses of juice into oxygen-rich cocktails.
Meanwhile, producers of so-called lung teas such as Enkhjin, Ikh Taiga and Dr. Baatar claim that their products are capable of filtering pollutants from their customers' airways. "It first removes toxins from the blood, then turns them into mucus, and then all the plants contained in the tea help strengthen the human immune system," said Baatar Chantsaldulam, CEO of Dr. Baatar.
Unfortunately, it is becoming an increasingly far-fetched prospect. Over the past 30 years, 20% of the entire population has moved to Ulaanbaatar, and many of them are displaced farmers, herders and rural residents who have come to the city to find work. They are too desperate to live in the Gobi desert, but too poor to afford housing, so they live in gers, one-room tents heated by coal stoves that can be built, or dismantled, in a couple of hours.
According to Newsweek, there are more than 180,000 gers in the city, and all that coal (or wood or trash can be burned to warm up during those freezing winters) is responsible for most of the air pollution; WHO estimates that 80 percent of Ulaanbaatar's airborne pollutants come from ger stoves, compared with 10 percent from transportation, 6 percent from power plants and 4 percent from "solid waste."
The Times reports that Prime Minister Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh announced in January that the transportation and use of raw coal in Ulaanbaatar will be banned after April 2019 (this has generated a lot of concern as it will cause another economic crisis among those mining, selling and transporting coal). Meanwhile, the Ulaanbaatar Clean Air project is doing what it can to help, trying to replace Ger residents' coal stoves with cleaner, more energy-efficient models. It is also trying to pressure the government to seek affordable permanent housing options for this section of the population.
"Ulaanbaatar may be the coldest capital in the world, but it doesn't have to be the most polluted," said Coralie Gevers, World Bank Country Manager for Mongolia. "Improving air quality management in Ulaanbaatar and reducing pollution concentrations would prevent disease, save lives and avoid huge health costs."
I want to travel. And do you know why? Because life is so much more beautiful when you see every nation in the world. Life is definitely more beautiful when you meet people other than you. And by different I mean another mentality, other cultures, other colors. Life changes you and becomes more beautiful when you book your plane ticket, when you get on the plane and leave, when you arrive in that city, when you arrive at the hotel, when you start to see something new. And nothing, life is even more beautiful if you travel.It’s a time when I let go of a lot of things: people, situations, feelings … I learned to let go of what didn’t do for me, everything that hurt me. Sometimes you have to leave out certain situations because they are no longer part of us, you feel them extraneous, which are no longer yours. It is precisely at that moment that you choose to think about yourself and your happiness. last night I dreamed of a beautiful tree, with dark leaves at the top that faded downwards, they were shiny and moved in the wind, then in that wind I hear a voice hissing “look in the trees, this is the key”. the meaning is broad and intense but already very understandable. When someone lives by restraining himself, at a certain point something is triggered in him: An escape. A positive escape, because he finally escapes from too many requests and learns to say “no”. Run away from too many duties and start doing what he likes. Escape from too much perfectionism and learn to love yourself. Escape from the fear of never being up to it, of never being able to really live. Run away and look for himself, sometimes ending up finding himself.If my energy doesn’t wake you I’m not for you, if my spirit doesn’t inspire you don’t force the connection, if my mind doesn’t make you think deeper, it makes no sense that you have me in your thoughts If my passion doesn’t move you then it will be better to change direction, if my presence does not help you to evolve my absence surely will, If my love doesn’t open your heart surely another love will, go and find what makes your being vibrate, don’t even stop to look back. One of the greatest acts of love is letting go, the vibration doesn’t lie. Trust your process.You have only one chance, accept what you have lived and what you are experiencing, they will serve for everything you will live and in the end, you understand that the future is the best part. The present does not exist because, just by saying “now”, it has already passed and then you live the uncertainty that must make you smile, because it is a surprise and you have to go to meet it, like when as a child, you jumped out of bed and ran to go to unwrap christmas gifts. It takes an hour, a day or a night to find the sun, to find yourself and to understand that everything passes and that after a slap, life offers you a caress.Move away from where the time is up Or stay, accompanied if you think you can’t get away but keep dreaming beyond that closed window Go through everything while you color the world with each step Stop interpreting, let yourself flow Avoid looking for the signifier, immerse yourself in the unknown Connect to fullness, it will replace any deficiency Love independently, intensely, hopelessly and then let it all slip through your fingers Don’t hold back, blow every whys away Don’t pretend, get confused Don’t lead, let yourself be carried away by the wind Don’t build houses, hologram bridges Don’t be satisfied with those who caress your heart Know what you deserve and not because it will be difficult to find but because it will allow itself to be reached. And allow yourself to fall in love with the possible, while the impossible will show you the way.
Near Trieste, on a rocky spur overlooking the sea, stands the Miramare Castle, once the southern gate of the Austrian Empire. A place of wonders where Princess Sissi stayed during her long travels in Europe. A treasure trove of history and legend that tells the tragic story of its founder, Maximilian of Habsburg.
Here Princess Sissi saw the sea for the first time and was captivated by its beauty and impetuosity; characteristics in which the empress probably found herself.
Panarea, a view from the highA corner of the townA beach in PanareaBradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in PanareaBeautiful seaSome marine caves in PanareaVery beautiful cavesPanarea townA street in the townAnother street in the townRaya Summer Fest
Art is his need. An instinctive need to create. An instinctive need to be and communicate one’s being to others. Affirming its existence with the creative act is the only way for Hamlet to live. Feeling such a force within oneself, an energy, an immense explosion, a storm that never settles down. A sea that is always stormy to its depths. Being a river in flood, dangerous for others, not accustomed to strong liquid currents, but a natural and splendid element for her. Art is its power. The power to create from nothing. To give life to what has never existed, which has never been seen, which has never been read. A sublime, divine, most envied power. Art feeds on souls. Art is insatiable, it is its fierce demon, and it has been walking this path all its life looking for an escape. But you never get rid of art because only art makes it free and alive. It is like a second skin and if you take it off you become skinned and you cannot live anymore. Hamlet has art in every cell, like a deadly virus, which never becomes a disease but which accompanies her throughout her life as a faithful travel companion. Art grinds the flesh, the spirit, the whole life. He raises it into the highest sky, being able to see without eyes, hear without ears, draw without using his fingers; and then makes it descend into the most terrible depths of the human abyss. Art is a miracle of life and death. Whoever possesses the gift is condemned to a parallel life. Hamlet goes in and out as if from a window. It goes in and out of itself, feeds itself to the pigs, gives its vital breath, falls apart and then begins again. Who would ever want such a life? Yet many envy it and do not know what it means to have the fire of inspiration that consumes! Art is its condemnation.She didn’t choose to start drawing, then painting, writing and playing at the same time. A dark force took his hands, and guided his dark energy. He was thus able to empty the pain he felt while living and to enclose it within his creations. Nothing remains of that period: everything burned. Unfortunately, something was saved from his subsequent dark periods, still not gone and up in smoke. Amleta was born on a cursed island, in a sick country, and soon she got rid of her life and the pain took her far away, where she continued to suffer and create, create and destroy, herself, paintings, installations, plays, notebooks, sculptures, … Amleta creates and destroys what he creates. Hamlet is and is not at the same time. He yearns for this perennial creation and has tried several times to free himself from his prison without success. This gift, this power, this torment of colors and words, is the nectar of his days. Everything else is just a bitter side dish.
Florence is the land of masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, Brunelleschi and Masaccio. A land full of culture and renaissance
The Dome by BrunelleschiThe Annunciation by BotticelliDAVID by MichelangeloPiazza della SignoriaThe Last Supper by Leonardo da VinciMadonna by RaffaelloWalking in FlorenceThe cherubs of RaphaelBotticelli’s VenusView of the cathedral of FlorenceInteriors of the Palazzo VecchioDonatello’s DavidThe Old Bridge
I love to travel but at the same time I find it stressful. Above all, pack your suitcase, arrange things in bags and backpacks, try not to forget anything, queue at the airport, get up very early to catch your flight or late in the evening, look for places where you can eat local food (because they are nowhere to be found ) and then walking around and around, and you get tired after a few days and you want to go home but you like that place, it’s inspiring. We have never brought our cats and dog, both because they are used to the garden and therefore would suffer to stay in the hotel and because we usually have someone to leave them to take care of them. I don’t like always going to the same places but I like to discover different places. I hate the scorching heat and love milkshakes. Especially in the summer, my day starts with fresh fruit blended with rice or oat milk. Strawberries, kiwis, watermelon and grapes, peaches and melon. In the summer I only like the sea. Hornets and wasps of all kinds arrive and I can’t stand not being able to stay in my garden and I can’t keep the windows open and it’s a stressful mess. I lived in London and had contact with English people (of English origin) of a certain age who explained to me the right way in which they made tea. Sachets are never used but only dried leaf tea. The teapot must first be heated with hot water, which must be left inside the teapot for 6-7 minutes (never rinsed and never cleaned). Then after you remove the hot water from the teapot and put about 3-4 teaspoons of dried leaf tea, cover with the lid and wait 5 minutes for the whole teapot to take in the aroma of the tea. Only then can you pour in the hot water and wait another 5 minutes. Then you put the strainer hanging from the spout of the teapot, or on the cups, and pour the tea as it is. The teapot is never cleaned, it is absolutely forbidden to touch it and the more the years pass, the better the tea made in the same teapot becomes. In the English style, slices of lemon are never combined but only milk. And it is drunk with a cucumber sandwich or with typical English sweets.
my dark side always stands out. it is a constant struggle. it sinks and resurfaces. you continue to breathe while remaining at the bottom of the sea. submerged in torment, chained to the passion that takes away a piece of me every day, I fight an existence of continuous death. a black blood flows in my veins, I tried to purify it, eradicate it, erase it from my every vein, from my every cell. but it always remained where it was, even when it seemed to disappear. Each time it regains the upper hand and holds me prisoner in its claws. The night is nothing, it is during the day that the atrocious suffering of being and not being at the same time begins. Like a crack in a well-programmed clock that has this little detail. I ride on the lost hours of my inhuman time and I lose myself in the shadows that are drawn in my secret garden. A little girl comes out of the past, brings flowers to a grave, and says her name is Ophelia. That little girl was me at the age of five, and I was reciting death on the Persian carpet at home. I soon appreciated the silence of certain places where the only living presence were the marble angels. The scent of rotten flowers followed my steps. I never felt so happy as my first time at the cemetery. Was that the paradise everyone was talking about? there you could stay like that, just as you were. He didn’t have to talk to anyone, he could sit and stay for hours with them, the stone angels. They whispered sweet words to me and I alone heard them. The candles fascinated me, I wanted to take them home, my mother scolded me, you can’t steal from the dead! She said. I was upset, for me they were the flames of their lost hearts and I wanted to keep them safe, in my home. Then, when I was finally grown up, I bought as many as I wanted and my room glowed with flames. They were so happy to me, people didn’t understand light, they thought they were candles of the dead and that was it. I miss the cemeteries. It has been a long time since I entered it anymore and nowhere have I found that silence again, perhaps only when my struggle ends will I be able to rest too and be just a stone angel. Art is a need. An instinctive need to create. An instinctive need to be and communicate one’s being to others. Affirming one’s existence with the creative act is the only way to live. Feeling such a force within oneself, an energy, an immense explosion, a storm that never settles down. A sea that is always stormy to its depths. Art is power. The power to create from nothing. giving life to what has never existed, which has never been seen, which has never been read. A sublime, divine, most perisolos power. Art feeds on souls. Art is insatiable, it is a ferocious demon, and whoever takes it is doomed and for all life seeks the escape route but one never gets rid of art. It is like a second skin and if you take it off, you skin down and you can’t live anymore. You have art in every cell, like a deadly virus, which never becomes a disease but which accompanies you throughout your life as a faithful travel companion. Art grinds your flesh, your spirit, your whole life. It crushes you and lifts you into the highest sky. you can see without eyes, hear without ears, draw without using your fingers. Art is a miracle of life and death. Whoever possesses the gift is condemned to a parallel life. You enter and exit as if through a window. We go in and out of ourselves, we feed ourselves to swine, we are left in pieces and then we start again. Who would ever want such a life? yet everyone envies us and do not know what it means to have the FIRE that consumes you!
