Halftime

I have been thinking what might be exciting enough to share, but its not much I can come up with. Every day is really almost the same, the only thing that is changing daily is the base-ingredient for the curries. :)

Apart from that, well... I am no longer falling asleep during classes and became almost 100% certain that meditation is just not the way for me. It went really well for the first week, but then my mind became so pre-occupied with stuff, that it seems I need more than this month to develop a meditation routine, where I manage to spend more than 10 minutes without having the greatest or worst ideas screaming through my head, making me dizzy. But its all good. I got some great tips from the teachers here on asana sequences and "tricks" on some poses, which already worth this whole trip.

Of course there is more than that to it. I met some incredible people; apart from the initial 5 of guests; a group of 4 from Ecuador who I really hope to visit next year - Gustavo led the best class I have had here so far -, the teachers and students of the ashram - together make this place amazing. The daily 2 yoga sessions along with the healthy diet and overall peace of mind resulted in me losing a few kilos (not that it was planned or wanted, but its allright I guess.. ;)) and got me back in a reasonably good shape, somewhere where I was during summer last year. I am sure it will be all past tense after the first 3 weeks back in Europe.

I still haven't figured anything new about life but it has never been part of the plans. The rather simple life with hardly any conversations (apart from the mails) helped to put some long-overdue feelings to rest and clear up some new ones, which is a great result on its own. And in 2 days I will be in the Himalayas and I guess that will be life-changing on its own too.

I never made it to the kitchen so there will hardly be any recipes for those of you at home; the kitchen and main chef - though latter seems to be a kind man - are not convincing enough for me to have a closer look at food-preparation, and I rather not find out what have I been eating for the past 2 weeks... :)

DHL just managed to deliver my netbook after over 2 weeks - and they made me pay 70 EUR as income duty - about which neither me nor Allan, who sent it over, was informed of in advance. Take my advise and use Fedex or UPS instead, I promise you its only trouble with DHL!