Two weeks off is both an incredibly long, and an incredibly short amount of time. So much happened, and yet it went by so fast.

I first found myself at a hostel in the Harz Mountains of Germany with a four-generational English family that had just bought the hostel and moved in less than a week prior with the idea that it would be a family home that they would turn into a bistro. A half hour before I arrived, they had finally got internet access and discovered my online booking. When I arrived, they had been frantically fixing up a room for me to stay. I must say it was interesting being a guest in an English family home in the German country-side, eating my meals, served just for me in the living room, watching English football on satelite television, and then walking on my own through the wet snow in the surrounding hills, or through the narrow hilly streets of the quiet German hill town. My host family was very nice, and someday I hope to go back to visit what I'm sure will be a great bistro...

And so Christmas Eve I travelled back to Berlin to stay at a hostel for the night, where I met an eclectic assortment of fellow travellers which included a Brazilian international affairs student, a Indonesian businessman living in Canada, a Mexican salesman, a couple of English girls, and a very wise and subtle meditating former criminal from Norway. We had a blast on Christmas Eve and partied late into the morning on Christmas Day.

Then came the centrepiece of my vacation - my time in a Zen meditation centre in the north of the Netherlands. There are some things that people as incapable as myself should not try and force into words, and I think this is one of them. So I will only say that the place was beautiful, the people deeply inspiring and edifying, and the practice both elevating and immensely humbling. For anyone considering a similar meditation retreat, if you are prepared for a challenge and are seeking to move 'from achievement to non-achievement' and return changed in ways I suspect one can only uncover over the years, I would certainly encourage it. Just make sure you're going to the right type of place for you.

I hope everyone had wonderful times during the holiday season, and are ready to begin the 2006 stage of whatever journey you happen to be on...  ¶ 2:30 AM