I have returned from the Greatest Summer Ever

I am one of the luckiest people in the world. Having moved to Canada over 3 years ago, I was a little baffled by this great country. It's like my mother country, the United States, but it's not. And in this case, it really wasn't as it concerns parental leave. Earlier this year, my wife who is on maternity leave for the year, asked me to join her during the summer by taking a few months off to spend quality time with her and our new son. Time, which is a very precious commodity in my profession of consulting, so to give her the gift of time was the best gift that I could give a new mother.

During this joint leave, we decided to move to Europe for 2 months. As children of immigrants, we only get to visit Europe here and there. But in this case, we truly wanted to immerse ourselves in the European culture. I consciously typed "move," versus vacation, (and it did freak out our friends) because we lived in my father-in-law's condo in Budapest for 4 weeks... see, luckiest man in the world. During our trip, we visited Germany, Belgium, France, Hungary, and Romania. We have over 5000 pictures, but it was the trip to Romania that I will never forget.

20 years ago, I visited my cousins and relatives in Romania. I saw the Arts building in Targu Mures / Marosvásárhely, I ate the food, I was driven around the questionable roads in the beautiful countryside. This time I did very similar activities, but this time the experience made a bigger impact. Probably because I am so mature now ... ... ... Anyway, the Arts Building of Targu Mures where my aunt works contains a room called the "Mirror Room," which is lined by beautiful stained glass windows. The windows either contain powerful scenes or triptychs of scenes from Hungarian ballads.

I was so taken back by the stained glass, that although it said no photography, I could not pass up the opportunity to quickly snap a few pictures. Luckily I did this, as later I saw that online there are only atrocious pictures in poor lighting. Not at all able to capture the magnificence of that Art Nouveau room. Why the hall had a "no photography" sign is beyond me. They probably should have let some amateurs photograph it to replace the awful online pictures. But I got my pictures, and I was happy.

When I returned and was relaxing in my aunt's condo, I had this strong urge to draw my favorite window - The Drowning of Kata. It is both morbid and beautiful, which is always a very fascinating cross section of themes eliciting both horror and fascination. However, I needed to figure out how to represent stained glass without it seeming to feel like a coloring book piece of art. I achieved it by doing a lot of outlining in different widths of ink. The effect makes the lines appear to glow, much like a stained glass window.

As soon as I drew Kata, I knew that I needed to do them all. Now here I am 2.5 months later and all 12 pieces are completed. Not only that, but one of the broader windows "Csaba Dreaming" has also been inked onto a large watercolor sheet. This will be a gift to my son on his first birthday. I hope he likes it as it shows a baby dreaming in his crib as his mother watches over him. The dreaming is represented by bubbles and stars arising from the crib. It contains so much love and hope in that simple moment, that I thought of no other person who should have it.

This really was the greatest summer in my life to date. Not only I got to spend 24x7 with my firstborn, but also I was able to find artistic inspiration and invent a new technique that I wanted to practice everyday and every night. As my business school friend wrote in his book, travel does yield amazing and unknown benefits. Thank you travel. Thank you Canada. Thank you my son.