I had felt myself racing through Europe. The rush of the western world had seeped into my travel and hilariously, defined my escape from it.

The world around me slowed down when I hit Slovenia, and I started to slow myself down as well. I stopped taking buses everywhere and started to hitchhike, finding the pace and interactions more enjoyable, more tangible to what feels important about traveling.

I stayed in Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia, for about a week. It is a quaint little city tucked into the rolling foothills of the Alps. The surrounding area is lush and green, and it felt familiar. 

(These pictures are from a small town called Bled, north of Ljubljana, near the Austrian border).

In my time there I began to think more seriously about the next chapter and what it would look like. I was still with Kai (although he would leave in Croatia, bound for an adventure of his own) and together we planned a loose route, and decided that a slower pace would compliment our goals better than seeing as many places as we could squeeze in.

From Ljubljana, hitchhiking took us south to the coastline of Slovenia, which barely exists, and from which you can see the coasts of both Italy and Croatia.

The paradoxical perfection of hitchhiking comes in the inability to choose the direction or distances that you travel… as beggars indeed cannot be choosers. But this is part of that slowness that I had planned for. 

This paradoxical perfection led to a sort of jagged route southward, with some drivers dropping me in random locations, and others tempting me to sway off of course entirely. In the end I found the famously gorgeous Croatian coastline kept me glued to it as much as possible.

While I was working on slowing both the pace and energy of my travel, I did have one deadline to keep in mind; Meeting my next travel companion – my mom – In Dubrovnik (The southern most city in Croatia).

This was not just a lovely reunion for us, but also an excuse I could give her to take some time off to see (and swim in) the Adriatic, and to hike in the mountains of Eastern Europe. If it wasn’t for my brother and me, I think my mom would have spent a big portion of her life traveling (kids are the worst), but rather than regret, I felt mostly excitement from her, excitement to be back out on the road. It was a beautiful thing to be able to travel with her, and to see the same exhilaration in her that I have been able to feel for so long on this trip; like the world is in your hands and you are ready to see it all. 

We spent the next few weeks trying to cover too much land, but enjoying almost every minute of it. Somehow, while the pace had picked up again (no hitchhiking with mom), the energy stayed slow, and there was no feeling of rushing as we bounced from one amazing place to the next. 

We headed south through the mountains of Montenegro, where the peaks started to get bigger, and the protected channels of water made for good swimming. The elements in the architecture changed again from the prestigious white marble look that dominates so much of the coastline of Croatia, to more humble features and a subtle mix of grays and earthtones. 

From Montenegro we continued to Albania, where we hiked and explored the Albanian Alps in the north of the country. The mountains there blew both of our minds. They are true peaks, proper mountains, towers of glacial beauty. It was yet another reminder to me that I am not made of city material. This is something that has been strongly reinforced during this travel experience as I have been spending so much time in cities. It was a freeing feeling to be back in the depths of nature, in the middle of the mountains.

As we made our way back to civilization in Albania I had fun retracing some of the steps I had already made on this journey; from Tirana (the capital city) to some of the surrounding Villages. There is something I find continuously surreal about revisiting places. I believe this to be a common feeling for those that have traveled; that revisiting a place, and the familiarity that comes with that, solidifies the realization that the world is not as endless as it may have previously seemed, yet it is simultaneously so intricate that it is not condemned to repetition, ever new and renewed. It is the replacement of breadth for depth. 

(some revisitings below)

The adventures were endless as we continued south and crossed the Greek border into the homeland of Democracy (an ancient, and entirely mythical form of government).

In Greece we continued on a northern route, seeing as much as we could on the way; from the clifftop monasteries of Meteora, to the coastline of Thessaloniki. 

This brought us to our final chapter together as we took a bus out of Greece into Istanbul. We spent a few days exploring the city before her flight home. These days were filled with the spice markets, mosque tours, and ferry rides, as I tried to squeeze in all of the things I thought were essential for her to see in the city before she left. 

When she left I was overwhelmed with a feeling of appreciation. It was something deeply special for me to get to share that time with her.

As lucky as I am to be on this trip, I am even luckier to have been able to share little bits of it with each of my parents. 

From there I started again, on my own for the first time in a long time. I had a great time traveling through Europe with a friend, and back into the east with my Mom, but to be alone again was to once again reclaim my trip as my own.

I started to look further east, to the closing of the circle, winding my way back to the family in Armenia, and all the adventures that I would find along the way.