On the way back we stopped by Budapest, it wasn't far. Budapest, even if you look at it for a couple of hours at night after a long drive, is still very beautiful. Lights everywhere, bridges, illuminated Gothic buildings.
I've wanted to visit this wonderful city and stay a while for a long time, but it's good even like this.
Of course, since this is the concluding part, I must first answer the sacred question: what did I like most about Montenegro? It won't be hard, because what I like most are the brightest and strongest impressions, and here, trudging through the snow has few rivals. A friend of mine says that in Kabbalah there's this idea that a person's personal growth is only possible by swinging the pendulum of intense events — in order for you to feel very good/interested/deep, you inevitably have to experience the opposite extreme. The thought isn't new, but the fresh part of it is that these iterations will inevitably increase in amplitude. To be honest, I didn't really want that until recently; I already perceive and experience everything in life too intensely. For poets and artists this might be right up their alley, but for a programmer — not so much.
But I just got back from a trip around Iceland, and I realized there's no escaping it. It was very tough there, and in some places a total disaster, but the magnificence of nature, the spirit of adventure, and the joy of reaching your goal are felt a thousand times stronger afterwards.
While walking, we got hungry and decided to pop in for dinner. At first we didn't know the exchange rate, and got scared that the prices in all the joints were totally insane, around 30 lats. As it turned out, things weren't so bad — 1 lat is about 400 forints, and you can see the menu below. The restaurant is “Fisherman's Lodge”, a lively spot, they served everything briskly.
Prices were around 5-7 lats per dish, quite reasonable for (presumably) fresh fish. I think I had the catfish soup and fried catfish pieces, everything was tasty.
I am horrified that I'm throwing money down the drain again, but I just love to eat too much
In general, of course, you can always do without visiting bourgeois dining establishments, but you want to relax properly on vacation, not count pennies; you want to taste the foreign country as well, not just make do with its culture and nature. Though, while this logic still flies in Montenegro and Hungary, in Iceland, for example, a restaurant visit will cost you 15-20 lats minimum. Numbers like that give me the chills, to be honest.
The choice isn't easy, but one must follow the path of the samurai
The ancients teach that a person should make a decision within seven breaths. Lord Takanobu said: "If deliberation lasts a long time, the result will be deplorable". Lord Naoshige said: "If you do things half-heartedly, seven out of ten matters will turn out badly. A warrior does everything quickly".
When there is no constancy in your mind, reasoning will never yield a correct conclusion. Possessing a strong, clear, and unhesitating spirit, you will be able to make any decision within seven breaths. But to do this, you must be persistent and ready to crush everything in your path.
Another thing that really stuck in my memory is the endless resort sprawl along the Bay of Kotor. They say classic tourists, who are alien to admiring nature, are only attracted to this part of Montenegro. But even on us it made an impression with its languor and serenity — as if those harsh snow caps we were trudging through just recently weren't somewhere nearby. You can roll along like this, like in a 2D platformer game, forever — some houses and vacationers are replaced by others, somewhere there's roadwork, somewhere a guy with a fishing rod, somewhere tasty yogurt, and somewhere even an ancient castle. But without the contrast with the harsh temper of the mountains, you can't truly appreciate this warmth and relaxation.
On the way through Poland, we stopped at "Decathlon," a famous sports and outdoors retail chain originating from France (same owners as Auchan). The selection there is wide, and the prices are quite humane for us, though far from dirt cheap. I bought a few things there, and found some very beautiful and cool trekking sneakers, but my size was out of stock. The young female manager told me they could be found at another store of the chain located nearby, and offered to reserve them. The thought that no one would go to another store just for my sake crossed my mind, but I always drag things out as it is, hesitating over everything and missing out on many opportunities in life, so I agreed to her offer anyway and wrote down the address.
Unfortunately, my comrades reacted to my request with exceptional skepticism. That's fine in general, because eight people don't wait for one, but maybe it should have been smoothed over a bit more gently, without drawing so much attention to it. On a trip like this, stress and fatigue always pile up, and so afterwards there was an unpleasant, unhelpful argument about culture, views, common interests, and snobbery. Of which, by the way, it's easy to accuse any man whose interests differ from the standard cars, beer, football, and chicks, or women who show curiosity for something other than fashion, TV, family, and looks.
It's always hard for a person to understand how their interests and values can be completely incomprehensible and unnecessary to other people. And I'm more of a rule here than an exception — everything I do usually seems so necessary to me that I don't understand how one can live without it. I mean fitness, traveling, science, culture, especially music and books, as well as some kind of socially useful activity, like OpenStreetMap, organizing outings, or CouchSurfing. These are all interests, but there are also values, the main one being openness to everything new, a passion for exploring the world and life, studying nuances, the rare, the strange, the unusual, things that don't fit into boxes and go beyond the boundaries of clichés and standards. This value seems so universal to me that it's incomprehensible how one could not share it.
Doomer and ice cream
But if you're going to talk the talk—that is, as an atheist and a skeptic—you have to walk the walk and treat moral and ethical values as they objectively are, which is relativistically. Every human society has its own, and you can only say that some are better than others in a fairly narrow sense. It boils down to you believing that these values will bring more happiness to people if widely spread. But objectively, that's not the case. Probably, things like the ban on torture and slavery, and the rule of law are needed everywhere and by everyone, but it's far from a given that education, freedom of thought and movement, and the resulting desire to know and experience more will automatically bring prosperity to other people. The desire to believe and spread this is akin to Jehovah's Witnesses' drive to convert everyone to their religion, because by their notions, non-believers will go to hell and suffer eternally.
But I have no choice — to preserve their mental health, a person has to believe that how they live and what they follow is good. So the outings and travels, the promotion of a scientific worldview and atheism, the visits to cultural and uncultured events will continue, and in this blog you will inevitably see new ironic, pompous monologues.
Montenegro — 14, Conclusion
2012-08-03
