I like reading stories. It's the best way to waste your time during summer holidays.
Before the day reserved for packing bags, I went out in search of a book to read while lounging under Costinesti's sun (if I may say so). I was thinking to get a book with reasonable number of pages (under 250), not too complicated, but not too ordinary, with a catchy plot, written by a clever author, with characters big enough to read when the sun bothers my eyes....anyway i had lots of demands for a "beach book." I spent more that 1 hour staring at the shelves in the bookstore and finally I made a decision based on a movie I had seen some time ago. No..it was not a movie about a book, but a movie about an author, Hemingway. So, i picked from the shelf "The old man and the sea".
The first day at Costinesti. I haughtily took out my book from my beach transparent bag and looking with pity at the others who were just sleeping, playing in the sand, drinking beer/coke/water/etc, eating corn/chips etc, or doing any other "useless unenlightening activity", I began reading my precious book. I must confess that my eagerness soon faded away since I became more preoccupied in uniformly tanning my legs than in the characters of the book. Despite this, I finished the book in that day. I was very disappointed. So all this book was about an old man failing to catch a fish???!!!????? No no no....what was I supposed to read in the next 6 days????
Second day at Costinesti. I humbly took out my book from my not so transparent sandy beach bag and I decided to re-read the book. And it was great...indeed. There were so many things hidden in such a simple story written with such simple words.
I continued to read selected passages from the book each day of my staying in Costinesti. I had such a great reading experience...I could hear the sound of the see, feel the breeze and the hot sun...it was like I was really next to the old man in his poor fishing boat fighting with the shark.
As they say...the conclusion...the conclusion is well known, but not many believe it...the greatness is in simplicity...and...sometimes being at the right time, in the right place, with the right book makes a summer unforgettable.
