Dear Friends and Family,

It took me a long time to decide what I am going to write about. This time it won´t be about great adventures, wonderful hikes or interesting museums. Simply, because I haven't experienced any of them in the last 3 weeks. You probably all know that I´m in Sucre at the moment and that I had decided to stay here for 3 weeks. All with the main goal to learn Spanish (which turned out pretty good). I was planning do all cultural and adventures stuff but it didn´t happen. Maybe I am going to sound a bit philosophical (I don´t think I`m anywhere close of being one but that was the first word that came to mind...). The last 3 weeks have been more mind changing then I experienced so far in my travels. I guess that is why I feel so comfortable around here. Sucre challenged my mind, my thoughts and my intelligence and those are all things I am seeking for. Well I shouldn´t give all the credits to the city Sucre, because you can make it a party city without any problems. The credits goes to the people I have met, during my stay here. But seriously I could live here without any troubles. Don´t worry I´m not going to.

So what happened? To start with I met this wonderful American girl from Texas, Katie. She is in the same dorm as me and she arrived one day after me in Sucre. Soon we found out that are travel plans where quite similar. Finally somebody that has similar travel plans! The best thing was actually that we became friends pretty quickly and we decided to travel together for a couple more weeks. So first I will describe our travel plans before continuing my story.

Saturday we will leave Sucre

, and we will take the bus to Potosí. This is the highest city in the world and it´s supposed to be absolutely incredible horrible. We will stay there for only 1 night. After our visit we will take the bus to Tupiza. Hopefully we can arrange a 4 day jeep tour to Uyuni the same day so that we only have to spent one night in Tupiza. The jeep tour is to Uyuni, yes we will visit the salt flakes woooh . In Uyuni we have to figure out a way to get into Chili. Probably a local buss can take us to the border; our first city in Chili will be San Pedro. I have no idea what will happen next. Katie has more time pressure than me, so we will see if we will travel together till Santiago (where she will catch the plain back to USA), or that I will take it more slowly making my way to the south

Oke the story continues...So Katie and I started talking and I figured out that she studied foreign politics (forgot the exact name), so you can imagine that our interests and all are quite similar. Also the way you feel when traveling, the frustrations, the good things and all that are things we can talk about and more often can agree upon. I already got invited to visit her in Texas, which is definitely on my itinerary now. The past weeks we talked a lot about the USA, about the politics and how it is to live in Texas. I also told my experience of living in the Netherlands with all the good and bad tings.

The first weekend (the second weekend in Sucre) we ¨went out¨. Well there are some places you can dance here, but for us it meant going to a bar (called Amsterdam ieeek), sitting down at a table and getting some drinks and just talk. We were joined by a Finish guy from our hostel. A guy that had interesting thoughts about the world (this is actually where it all started). He was convinced that a world without government, without greedy people, without a complicated economical system could exist. The world is in desperate need of a philosophical revolution, he said. I agreed partially what he was saying, but for me it`s an Utopia. I`m too cynical or maybe too down to earth to believe these things could actual happen, afterall it are humans what we are dealing with. The discussion went on about: are people evil or good when they are born; how do people become evil; why does greed, hatred and egoism exist and so on...Interesting subjects for a Friday night. But that wasn´t the end of it, the night would become even more interesting when 2 guys from Israel joined us. I haven´t told them I would write about them so to honor there privacy I won´t share their names and all their stories.

However those guys were as I like to call it ¨serious¨ travelers. So guys I could connect with, and in my opinion that totally happened, we kind of connected. I ended up spending almost every night with them in my second week in Sucre. The subjects we talked about: politics in the Netherlands, Israel, the Middle East, USA, about sports, work, (art house) movies, music, travelling, relationships and much much more. People that know me will realize that I felt great around these guys. Their general knowledge was huge and we could just talk about everything. Agreeing or disagreeing it didn´t matter. I asked so many things about their lives because it is so different to my own experience, and they were glad to share. By the way off course it wasn´t constantly all serious stuff and we could have a good laugh as well.

Talking with them (and with Katie, the Finish guy, my Spanish teacher) started to make me think. Think about myself, my ¨position in this world¨ (gosh that sounds horrible) and about my interests. I cannot and explain everything, because it would be too much. I will just give you guys a short summary. To begin with, I realized that my general knowledge is pretty good and that I can talk about things that are going on in the world (thanks mom and dad

). However I realized even more (is that proper English?) that I actually don´t know anything and that I haven´t experienced anything (well not nothing but not that much either). I realized that I am so so so lucky that I was born in the Netherlands, where it is safe, where we don´t feel threatened and where we can focus on getting a career, being happy and all kinds of good stuff. I realized I am so lucky with my parents, the way they raised me, the fact that me and my brother were always taught not to think in black and white. That things happen for a reason, not to judge people by your first impression etc.. And that I am actually interested in other people and in their lives and that I´m so eager to learn. Well all those things were running through my mind the last week. Can you imagine!

Where Peru was a place to visit all these wonderful attractions, Bolivia is actual the place that made me think and probably changed me as well (it´s up to you to decide if I did or didn´t). Last week we went to the movies about the mines (again), to a movie about Jim Morrison (the Doors) and a movie about Che Guevara (the book is much more interesting and contains much more information than the movie). Afterwards we talked about it. I absolutely loved it. When we saw the mine movie the guys were as horrified as me. They said, can you imagine working there when you´re just a teenager, how lucky we are to be born in Israel and how lucky we are we can earn money in a proper way. I felt kind of aqward, if they already felt that way, how should I feel? Being born without knowing war, terrorism, etc. To be honest I felt a little bit ashamed. Well this is how I spent the last week, having some drinks talking about things, things that interested me (they only stayed one week).

How I have changed by this experience? I think by just realizing where I come from and that I have to travel much more, read much more, see challenging movies to become the person I want to become. I think that is one big step I have taken these last weeks. I realized that I am kind of a ¨nerd¨, following the news, being interested in the world around me and actually caring. So far, not many people I met can be made happy with the same things, and that is ok, totally ok (really belived me, I don´t want to offend anybody, I think it´s also a gift to keep your focus on your own life!). But I also have to think about myself, to accept myself. That I won´t change because people are ignorant or because they don´t care. I won´t lower my interests or become nervous anymore just because I don´t ¨fit in¨. This is who I am so deal with it ;-) that´s a new attitude I guess.

So yes by writing all this I have to tell you guys another thing, an important thing that will be life changing for me. Some of you already know it...You all know that my plan was to travel for 6 months and then afterwards go back to the Netherlands to study in Groningen. Well...as I experienced in this journey, plans are there to be changed. However this time it was not me who initiated the change. I got rejected from Groningen University. To be honest I was shocked. I still think that they underestimated me and my willingness to do this study, and I think that the reason they rejected me is crap! But nothing I can do about it. So I started thinking about what am I going to do now? Back to the Netherlands, getting a job? Search for another institution to get that degree anyway? Or keep travelling for a while and see what´s going to happen. Again this is the short version but as you might know I was kind of restless in the Netherlands, I had the feeling that I wasn´t challenged enough and that my personal development got stuck, or at least something like that. Now I´m travelling I feel great, I have the feeling that I am learning, developing and it is just simply great to travel. So why not continue doing this until I really miss the Netherlands and really want to get back. I think that if I go back to the Netherlands without being happy about it, I will get stuck in the same things again and I don´t want that. So travel plans changed again and I won´t be back in the Netherlands for a while. How long this will be I don´t know (I will defintely try to come back during Christmas).

My new travel plans are kind of simple. Finish my travelling in South America as originally planned, then get a flight up to Central America (Panama or something). Travel there from south to north. Then visit Katie in Texas (if I still have money) and then fly to Canada. As you all might know, I have a Canadian passport. I will visit my family and try to work there for some time to earn money. Which probably will be used again to travel...But that is too far in the future to know about. This decision made me so happy and when I write about it I feel excited, thrilled. For me this was the best choice I could make. How it will turn out, we will see...

Well that´s all for now. My next blog won´t be as much about my personal development (must be kind of boring to read it) but about the salt flakes and other wonderful things (I hope)..Ow one more thing that might shock you guys, lol..I got the piercing I wanted since I was a teenager in my right upper ear. Don´t worry it was all safe and stuff (my teacher took me to the shop and was with me the entire time). Does this means that I am changing? I don´t know...let me know what your thoughts are..

Love,

Michèle

Ps. The title of this story is because today is the day of the sea in Bolivia. As you all know, Bolivia doesn´t have a sea. They had, but they lost it to Chili a long long time ago. You can argue that it´s horrible that Chili took the coast from Bolivia. However think again when you find out why Bolivia lost the sea to Chili....This is the story...
When the Chilians threatened to take the sea it was in the period of Carnaval (Carnaval is a big big big thing here, the Bolivians love to party). The president at that time didn´t want to undertake any action because he just wanted to party. So while the president and the soldiers and everyone was partying, the Chilieans sneaky took the shore from Bolivia. It`s a true story (I didn´t believed it at first), my Bolivian teacher admitted that it really had happened. At the day of the sea, the children in the schools of Bolivia all write a letter to the Chilean gouverment to ask the gouverment to give back the sea (the letters aren´t actually sent to Chili, it´s just the idea). Interesting isn´t it?