TravelStream™ news feed for member jtpharr on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jtpharr en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:57:45 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jtpharr/europe06/1172504880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jtpharr/europe06/1172504880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jtpharr/europe06/1172504880/tpod.html Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:57:45 -0400 The journey begins in the beautiful city of Paris and ends...who knows where.

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Perth, Australia

Enough Italy, enough Spain, enough Europe. I'd spent 8 wonderful and rewarding months gallivanting to all corners of Europe but enough is enough. Time to shake things up. Ah hell, enough of the Northern Hemisphere, let's venture to the land down under. A land where the kids ride kangaroos to school, everyone has koalas as pets and the toilets flush in the opposite direction. So without further delay, let's throw another shrimp on the barbie! To Australia we go!

Let me first say this. Australia is not close...to anything. It is actually the only continent that is its own island and while it happens to be the largest island in the world, it is the world's smallest continent. I booked my flight to Perth (major city in Western Australia) from London knowing it would be a long trip but there isn't much you can do to prepare yourself for a trip consisting of a total of 24 hours flight time over 8 time zones, across the equator and into the southern hemisphere, a place I'd never been.

My trip down to Australia, as taxing as the lengthy flight may sound, was surprisingly manageable thanks to the amazingly accommodating Emirates Air. I've traveled a fair amount in my life but I have never flown on such a nice airplane with TVs in every seat with hundreds of on-demand movies, TV shows, music selections, games and more to choose from to help pass the time along with top notch meals and pleasant and helpful flight attendants. An added little perk for me was that by flying Emirates, I got to touch down in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and hang out at the airport for a few hours each way. I would have liked to get out and see the city but I wasn't there long enough to do so. Do I smell a future trip? Who knows.

My first stop in Australia, Oz as they call it, was in Perth to stay with some friends I had made in Barcelona so, thankfully, I would not be immediately thrown out of the frying pan of the 24 hour flight and into the fire of hostel living. I would at least have my own room in a house with familiar people and have time to adjust to my new surroundings. One of the first things I did once I got in and it was an appropriate time given the time difference, I called home to let my family know I had arrived safely. As many times as I would talk to people back home throughout my time in Oz, I always found it funny when someone would ask what time it was there. Being anywhere from 12 to 14 hours ahead depending on where I was, often my answer would be something like "9 AM tomorrow". So while my family and friends were living in Thursday evening, I was carrying on with my Friday morning already having been there, done that and gotten the t-shirt. "How's tomorrow?" "Sunny and 85." If only I could take that power to Vegas or Wall Street.

It didn't take long for me to have my first experience of just how different a place I was in. From just walking around my friends' neighborhood on the first day I arrived, I realized that I didn't recognize any of the birds that were flying around. Actually, that's not completely accurate. I recognized some of the birds but they were not the type that you are used to seeing outside in day to day life. They were more the birds you see in pet stores back home or on TV shows about exotic lands far far away but definitely not in your neighborhood. I'm speaking for myself here but I personally have never seen a cockatoo perched on the power lines or tree outside my house.

In general, the wildlife throughout Australia was different than anything I'm used to being around on a daily basis. One day while walking through the botanical gardens in Sydney, I came around a corner and right smack in the middle of the sidewalk was a big lizard just hanging out. I walked around him and it just sat there soaking up the rays without paying too much attention to me.

While lizards are not entirely foreign, one thing that was a most definite first for me was when my friend Marty and I were playing golf one day and I can honestly say that never before have I had to wait for a group of kangaroos to clear the fairway before I was able to hit my next shot.

Finally, just to prove my point, I saw a poster hanging up that was meant to help kids learn the alphabet by associating animals with letters . For example, for "A" there would be a picture of an apple, for "B" there might be a picture of a bear and for "C" a cat, etc. The Australian version of this poster was much different. A: Abalone; which is some sort of sea crustacean. (Side note - while I was in Oz, an abalone diver was bitten by a great white shark and only managed to survive by, while head-first in the mouth of the beast, reaching out and poking it in the eye with the tool he was using causing Jaws to let him go and swim off.) B: Bilby; looks like a mini-kangaroo/rat/possum combo. C: Cassowary; emu-looking animal. D...you get the point.

The longer I was in Oz the more unique things I saw and experienced. Seeing different plants and animals that I had never seen other than in captivity or on TV was almost a daily occurrence. It was almost as if I was in a far away land with entirely unique wildlife and landscape on a completely different continent on the other side of the world. Crazy.

Having traveled through small and compact Europe for the previous 8 months, I found that it took some time to adjust to the size and layout of Australia. Oz is about as big as mainland USA but has about 1/10th the population density of the States at only about 5 people per square mile, and most of the major cities are along the coast with a whole lot of nothing in the middle. No longer was it as easy as hopping on a train for a few hours and being in the next major city without the need for much planning. I quickly realized that I would have to trade in my lovely train rides for planes and buses, that is, unless I wanted to take the train across the country which would have taken a couple of days and cost me heaps more money. While I do love riding on the train, I have a feeling that sort of ride wouldn't be something I'd enjoy.

An unexpected element that caught me off guard was hearing everyone speak English. I didn't realize it but I had gotten so used to either hearing Spanish or some other foreign language that made no sense to me that I had mostly been tuning it out. I never really realized before how much you can hear of other people's conversations around you if you pay attention. I think we are all so used to the background chatter that we tune it out but I must say I quite enjoyed being able to eavesdrop once again. Oh don't judge, you all do it too, you just don't realize it.

Last year while sitting behind my desk at IBM, I was talking with a good friend of mine who was traveling in Australia at the time and upon asking him how he was enjoying Oz and what he thought of it, he answered with "It's a lot like the States only there are kangaroos hopping around everywhere". That mental picture was so funny to me at the time and still sticks with me to this day.

So how does Australia actually compare to the States? I must give my buddy Jason credit because his description was pretty accurate, although a bit exaggerated. Australia is exactly like the United States, well, except for the fact that they drive on the other side of the road, use different words for certain things, speak with a different accent, use a different currency, have a more liberal culture and unique wildlife inhabiting their own continent that sits on the complete other side of the world, just to name a few.

The big cities like Sydney, Perth, Melbourne etc did actually remind me of big cities in the States with sky scrapers, taxis, bums and traffic. Perth reminded me a lot of Florida with its sandy base and tropical palm-tree surroundings but with weather almost like San Diego with days that were warm but not too humid.

Although, however similar the cities and towns were to the States, I still never felt completely comfortable and at ease walking around. Like I said, they drive on the other side of the road and that's something that I could never really get used to and pretty much every time I crossed the street I looked both ways about 5 times and still wasn't 100% sure I wasn't going to get side-swiped while crossing.

On that same topic, a funny thing that I noticed and something I probably never would have realized occurred to me in Sydney. I was walking down some stairs that were narrow and somewhat crowded and I was having trouble making my way down . It seemed like I was the only person trying to go down amongst all these people going up. It took a second as I pondered this but I soon realized that I was walking down the stairs on the right side, the wrong side of the road. So it turns out that not only do we drive on a certain side of the road, but subconsciously when we walk on the sidewalk or up or down stairs, we adhere to these traffic laws as well. Check it out next time you walk past someone on the sidewalk or when you go up the stairs. It's true. We treat pedestrian traffic the same way we treat vehicular traffic. As soon as I realized this, I thought back through some other instances I had and it all made sense. From then on I was maneuvering my way up and down stairs and on sidewalks with ease. It was a small victory but a victory all the same.

As I have made a few references to McDonald's throughout my blog I thought I would use a different fast food giant to convey another interesting story. While I kept a keen eye out for the comparison of McDonald's menu from country to country, I came across something interesting in a rival, Burger King. While you can go almost anywhere in almost any city in Australia and order a Whopper or any of your favorite Burger King items, however, I challenge anyone to find a Burger King to order from. Confused? Hear me out. Apparently when Burger King first wanted to expand to Australia there was a restaurant or chain that already had the Burger King name and wouldn't sell out. So what did Burger King do? They changed their name. So, like I said, you can go anywhere in Oz and get anything from Burger King you like, the only thing is you have to go to Hungry Jack's to get it. Same menu, same slogan, same colors, same logo, same everything, the only difference is it's Hungry Jack's instead of Burger King. It just so happens that Jack is the most common boy's name in Australia. Clever. Now only if it had been Burger Queen...then Australians would be enjoying their Whoppers with cheese at Hungry Jessica's.

The Australian culture is very much centered on the sun and the sand. I'm not sure what official percentage lives along the coastal areas but I've heard that anywhere from 80-90% of the Australian population lives on the coast. Given this and the aforementioned low population density you can only imagine how sparse and barren the center of the country must be. Therefore it is safe to say that the culture is predominately beach-driven. Even their currency is made of polymer so even if you tuck your bills in your boardies and hop in the surf, you don't have to worry about it being ruined.

Hand in hand with the sun-seeking Australian beach-going culture is a serious health issue that I heard coined as their national epidemic. Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world due to the outdoor-loving culture coupled with the brutally intense tropical sunshine. I have never seen so many ads for skin cancer prevention and awareness, part of an ongoing campaign to help educate and raise awareness across the country to battle a disease that affects almost 1 in 2 Australians as some point in their lives. On billboards, in magazines, on TV and almost any other form of advertising you will see ads warning of the dangers of skin cancer and preventative measures to take to reduce the risk. I myself had a run-in with the intense sun while in Surfer's Paradise on the east coast. I went out to the beach to do some body boarding. I put SPF 30 sunscreen on and was only out in the sun for about an hour and a half but I think the combination of the water, the board rubbing off my sunscreen and the crazy-intense sun (no my ghostly-pale fair skin had nothing to do with it) left me in pain with my newly sizzled lobster-red skin and stunned that it had happened in such a short amount of time.

I spent the majority of my time in Australia working my way up the east coast from Sydney up to Airlie Beach making stops in cities and towns along the way to check out the various beaches and islands and to visit friends. Surfer's Paradise was not much of a surfer's paradise as the beaches were quite crowded and the waves were very modest. From what I hear the hard core local surfers go to areas farther south around Byron Bay where its meant to be less crowded and the surf much larger.

Further up the coast I went on a 3 day/2 night excursion on Fraser Island which is the largest all-sand island in the world. It was set up through a company where you and nine other people pile into a Land Rover 4x4 with camping gear and a backpack of your own stuff and ferry you over to the island. I was grouped with people from Wales, Australia, England, Switzerland, and Korea. We got to the island about mid-day the first day and spent the afternoon off-roading on the sandy roads of the islands while checking out some cool lakes. That night we set up camp and had a BBQ, some beers and just sat around and shot the breeze.

The second day we started around 7AM and spent the entire day driving along the eastern beach up to a rock outcropping called Indian Head overlooking the South Pacific Ocean where the water married into the horizon as far as you could see and then spent the last hours of the day in the Champagne pools, so named for the spray shot into the air when the waves crashed against the rocks.

Our last day was meant to start around 6AM but due to a handful of hangovers coupled with the need to pack up camp we ended up getting a late start. Regardless, we spent the day playing around in a fresh water stream that was like a chilly lazy river at Wet 'N Wild and Lake Mackenzie on the island's interior which had crystal blue water that was wonderfully warm and relaxing to just float in. Before we knew it is was time to head back across the island to catch our ferry back to the mainland. Once we got back everyone was so exhausted from the late nights, early mornings, sleeping on the ground, being out in the sun and heat all day and the various instances where the truck got stuck in the soft sand requiring us to dig, push, pull or whatever it took to pry it free that everyone went to sleep as soon as they could shower and find their bed.

As I have mentioned, Australian culture is energized by the sun and the sand and most everyone lives on the coast. Rightfully, this translated into me spending a lot of time on the beach. The beach is not a foreign place to me as I grew up spending every summer on the gorgeous Gulf Coast beaches of NW Florida. As a kid I spent countless hours playing in the waves, building sand castles, digging holes to China and burying myself and others in the sand. Well one day while playing around in the sand and digging a hole the childhood memory of trying to dig to China came back to me. I thought about it for a minute and wondered, if we dig to China from the States, to where are other kids around the world digging? I ignorantly thought everyone digs to China but when you think about it, if you were Japanese or Korean and you went to the beach, I don't think you would be that interested if you were digging to China. With people from many different countries around me, I was in the perfect spot with the perfect audience to get several different sources.

From what I found, people digging their shovel into the beach are most often headed to China. Australians and Kiwis dig to China. We also know that we Americans dig to China as do our neighbors to the north. It seems that most mainland European kids are also doing all they can to reach China via a self-created sub-terrainean beach tunnel. The only anomaly that I came across was the Swiss, of course. They wanted to remain neutral and decided that all of their kids, instead of digging to China, would dig to Australia. Joining the Swiss in an effort to reach Oz are the youth of the U.K. seeking asylum from the dreary and rainy weather. The biggest outlier of a digging destination that I got was from the Koreans who apparently find that China is too close and prefer to aim their shovels at the far off lands of Argentina. Argentina? Random...but if you look at a globe it is actually quite accurate as Argentina is almost directly on the other side of the globe from Korea.

My favorite part of this whole experiment ended up not actually finding out where the various countries were headed. While the varying answers were an enlightening discovery the true enjoyment of it all came from trying to convey what I was actually trying to ask to someone who doesn't speak English as their first language. I found it so funny to see the different reactions to the question. I would love to know what was going through their heads as they were doing their best to speak English and then have an American ask them such a random question as where they used to try and dig when they were kids at the beach. In the end, I was able to get my intentions across and once they realized what I was asking answered with a chuckle and reciprocal curiosity of my digging destination.

Further up the coast from Fraser Island I stopped in a little town called, well, the Town of 1770. Creative name eh? 1770 is a sleepy little beach with plenty to keep you entertained. The hostel I stayed at had a really cool bungalow style with plenty of places to relax, whether you wanted to swing in a hammock on the patio or lounge amongst the palm trees in the garden.

Off the coast of The Town of 1770 lies the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world. So I got to thinking, if you are a reasonable distance from any wonder of the world, especially if you have never seen it, then you best make the most of the opportunity and check it out. Right? Right. With that in mind, I found and booked a day trip out to Lady Musgrave Island which lies at the southern-most tip of the reef.

The day began at 6:30 AM when I dragged myself out of bed to catch the shuttle to the harbor. Luckily for me, there was an English girl from the hostel who was embarking on the journey as well. The package included a trip out to the island, an island tour, a catered seafood lunch, guided glass-bottom boat reef tours and all the snorkeling you could handle bro. The excursion started off with a grim outlook as we spent about half of the hour-and-a-half-long boat ride out to the island in rain that looked like it was there to stay. The captain kept saying that it was going to be a beautiful day out on the island but I thought he was just buttering us up. Sure enough, not 5 minutes after we arrived, the sun came out and for the rest of the day we had gorgeous weather.

The company we went with had a permanent pontoon set out off the reef so we had a place to hang out and relax in between snorkeling, eating and touring which was ideal. The reef around Lady Musgrave Island provides a perfect place to snorkel because the reef has naturally formed a complete circle off one side of the island which creates a natural bay shielded from the rest of the open water. From the pontoon, you can just drop over one of the diving platforms and work your way to any of the number of reef embankments surrounding the boat. The water was so crystal clear that you could easily see the bottom resting 30-40 feet below and the various blues along the surface of the water were amazing. People with pools would kill to have them that color with the use of chemicals. It was hard to even imagine this was natural sea water. With the sun shining through the crystal blue water, the fish and the coral were like what I've seen in aquariums, only I was swimming in it. Anything from big grouper to sleek needle-like fish to tiny fluorescent ones that seemed to glow, the array of colors and varieties was impressive. I burned an entire roll of film on an underwater camera attempting to capture the beauty of the underwater paradise but, while I haven't seen the pics yet, I think I can safely say that however the pics come out, it won't do the true brilliance of the colors justice. Unfortunately, by this point my other camera that I had been using had succomed to the 9 months of daily abuse and thousands of pictures and no longer worked leaving me not only without any other photos of my snorkeling adventure but also nothing for the last month or so of my travels.

A true testament to just how enthralled I was and how much there was to see and take in was how fast the time went. I felt as if I had snorkeled for MAYBE an hour when I realized that the lifeguards were calling everyone back in and the several hours of snorkeling time had passed. It was time to gather back on the boat and satisfied with the events of the day, me and my new English friend took seats on the front of the boat to watch dolphins and enjoy the breeze as we cruised back to the mainland. All in all it was an awesome day with great weather, scenery, food, company and yet another one of life's great experiences in my pocket.

Continuing up the east coast, I arrived to Mackay to meet up with Will, a friend I had made while living in Florence. I spent a long weekend with him and his friends and family tucked in the valleys of the Great Diving Range in northern Queensland. Will and his friends' schedules have them working 4 days of 12 hour shifts back to back followed by 4 days off. I quickly found out that the majority of those 4 days off is devoted to crabbing in a creek by his parents' house. We spent all day Saturday out in a 15 foot aluminum boat on this creek, in and out of the trees, setting and pulling traps, all in hopes of catching as many crabs as we could. Well I shouldn't say just crabs as there are a few things you must check before tossing your catch in the bucket. First of all, is it a male? What ever you do though, don't get caught taking in a female because the fines are astronomical. Then you have to check to make sure it's big enough because the same goes for undersized crabs...bad news. We ended up crabbing for a day and a half and from the two boats we had in the water we caught about 7 or 8 crabs which we immediately boiled and ate. Thanks to Will's boat we had enough to have our crab feast because the boat I was in saw very little action and by the end of it all had only pulled in 2 crabs. At least I know not to pursue a career as a professional crabber over the next few months as I look for a job.

While I had some great experiences in Australia, I feel as though I owe it another trip to fully appreciate all it has to offer. I went there for the last two months of my 10 month trip and frankly, my travel batteries were pretty low. I found that I was at the end of my desire to constantly have to make the effort to make new friends every other day, and while most all of the beaches I went to were beautiful, there is only so much desire I had to visit yet another beach by myself, especially given the already rocky relationship between me and the Australian sun. Also, from time to time I'd see something hysterical or breath-taking and without anyone to be there to experience it with me and without the ability to call or even text something to someone to share the moment, it was essentially lost. Traveling along caught up with me and the desire to share my experiences with someone at times undermined my full appreciation and enjoyment of certain things at various points along the journey. It is safe to say that along with all the wonderful things I have seen and the new experiences I have had, one thing I have taken away from my trip is that many things just aren't as meaningful if there isn't someone there to share it with you.

I'd always wanted to go to Australia and am very happy I took the opportunity to go. I've loved most of the Australian people that I've met over the years and their accents. I've always been enamored with Australian women and have jokingly said that my future wife is from Australia. I realize now that the main reason for that was because the accent was foreign to me and a nice novelty. Now after hearing it for the last 10 months I think it has lost most of it's novelty and much to the delight of my mother, I did not fall in love and get married, never to return home again.

So no, kids don't ride kangaroos to school and people don't have koalas as pets, in fact I never even saw a koala while I was there. The toilets don't flush in the opposite direction but to be honest I couldn't even remember how the toilets flushed in the States. They don't walk around saying "let's throw another shrimp on the barbie!" They don't even call shrimp shrimp, they're prawns. All these stereotypes aside, the one reputation Australia couldn't shake was what a uniquely beautiful country it is. I will return, this time with company and I would tell anyone who has always wanted to visit Australia one thing. Make it happen. It is well worth the trip.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jtpharr/europe06/1172764380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jtpharr/europe06/1172764380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jtpharr/europe06/1172764380/tpod.html Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:50:21 -0400 The journey begins in the beautiful city of Paris and ends...who knows where.

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London, United Kingdom

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]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jtpharr/europe06/1173149640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jtpharr/europe06/1173149640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jtpharr/europe06/1173149640/tpod.html Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:47:45 -0400 The journey begins in the beautiful city of Paris and ends...who knows where.

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Dallas, Texas, United States

"Good evening. This is your captain speaking. We have begun our decent into Dallas/Ft. Worth and we should have you on the ground in about 20 minutes. I hope you have enjoyed your trip and come back and see us again soon."

Wow. Dallas. I couldn't believe it. I'm really home. Wait...is this home? Where is home? I'll worry about that later. Throughout my long trip back that carried out over 9 days and 17 time zones from Airlie Beach to Sydney to Perth to Dubai to London to Dallas, I never really felt like I was actually going home. To be honest, it just felt like more traveling, more sleeping on couches, more unfamiliar places and long flights. It wasn't until I heard the captain say that at the tail end of our 10 hour direct flight from London Gatwick to DFW that it really hit me. I was home, or at least, back in the USA. The long road was over. A moment that I had thought about so much throughout the trip, especially over the last month, had finally arrived.

It didn't take long for me being back to feel mostly normal and after about a week it felt like I had never really left. Not a whole lot changes. I haven't lived in Dallas in about 9 years and have only been back to visit on holidays or breaks. After only a few days that's how it felt, I was just back in Dallas visiting friends and family. While it took me almost a week until I was sleeping almost normal, the fact that I was home seeing my family and friends, watching TV, sleeping in my own bed and drinking cold 12 oz. canned beers out of the fridge didn't seem that weird. Now I'm trying to get used to the fact that I am most likely gonna be here for a while and get used to the idea that I can see my friends and family more than just for a long weekend. I did however have that moment every once in a while where I would take a step back just to realize that I actually was not just back in Dallas, but my new home, and doing all these things that I had been missing and wishing I was doing for so long.
I was overseas for almost 10 months. 42 weeks actually. 294 days to be exact...but who's counting? I've met people from over 40 countries as far away as Congo, Bulgaria, India, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Sierra Leone to name some of the most exotic. I now have friends scattered all over the world, some of whom are still globe-trotting and possibly making their way through the States in the next year or two. I traveled to over 55 different cities in about 17 different countries. That averages out to a different city every 5.3 days. Looking back on it, I didn't realize just how much bouncing around I was actually doing considering I was "settled" and living in Barcelona and Florence for about 4 of those 10 months.

Of all of those different places in so many different countries, I was bound to find some true gems along with some duds. While I am going to share with you some of my favorite and least favorite cities in the next few paragraphs, I must preface it with this. While I may have loved or hated a particular city, my own personal take on any place was indeed affected by an array of outside factors. I honestly think that while I didn't like Warsaw, Poland but absolutely had a blast in Krakow, Poland has only a small amount to do with the actual city itself. The city is only one factor. You also have to consider your mindset, attitude, energy level, health, hostel experience, people you meet, weather, food, nightlife etc etc etc. While there are probably a thousand things that factor into my experiences, take it with a grain of salt and don't let me rain on your parade. If you want to go to Warsaw, by all means go, and please, let me know what you think. I think that if I were to go back and restart my trip and take a completely different route, I believe I would have some drastically different opinions of several cities.

Here are a few cities I didn't particularly enjoy and a little insight as to why:

Warsaw, Poland - I was completely exhausted from two weeks of World Cup mayhem and really just wanted to get out of Germany. I really wanted to go to Krakow to chill out. However, I had heard some sketchy things about the overnight train to Krakow so decided to stop in Warsaw for two nights to break up the trip. I didn't find a whole lot to entertain me, the hostel was average and I wasn't in the mood to party or meet new people so looking back, Warsaw never really had a chance.

Zagreb, Croatia - See above...except it was "working" in Florence that had done me in. I stayed about 18 hours in Zagreb, 8 of which was sleeping in a piece of crap hostel with no A/C and dirty rooms.

Madrid, Spain - I think a lot of the dislike for Madrid was the fact that it was my first city I hit that I was truly on my own. I officially started in Paris but I had stayed with a friend so this was my first stop doing the full deal of booking travel, staying in hostels, having to make friends etc, and my terrible overnight train experience on my way to Madrid definitely didn't help. I found it to be a big city with not that much that interested me. I talked to a lot of people about Madrid and the consensus I got was that it is a city that takes a little time to warm up to. The people that I talked to that loved it were the ones who had made an effort to spend more than just a couple of days there.

Listing some of my favorite spots comes with some exclusions. I found that by far, I enjoyed myself the most and had the most fun either in cities where I had "settled" for an extended period of time or places where I had traveled with my good friends from home. I was wowed by the sights, namely the women, in Sweden while traveling with Eric and Johan. I loved my time bouncing around the debauchery that was Germany and the World Cup with Kevin and Beckett. I had some of the craziest times in Florence while "working" with my buddy Scott from Maryland and all the new friends I made there. And last but not least, I had an absolutely unforgettable once-in-a-lifetime lifestyle in Barcelona with some amazing new friends I hope to carry with me forever.

Those times and experiences excluded, here are some of my other favorite spots:

San Sebastian, Spain - I had 4 days off from work and decided to take a trip to get away from the Barcelona scene for a few days. San Sebastian was such a beautiful city on the coast with an awesome set of beaches protected from the open sea by a cove with high cliffs looking back over the city and out over the water. I was there in mid-December and there was something about the streets at night illuminated with Christmas lights in the cold crisp winter air. I did nothing but sightsee and relax and didn't expect at all to have such a wonderful time. I can't imagine the vibe the summer must bring.

Krakow, Poland - I was fresh off running myself into the ground around Germany for two weeks from the World Cup and went to Krakow to rest. As it turned out I didn't end up doing too much resting as the nightlife was great and the hostel I stayed in was superb. The locals that I met were some of the nicest people I met throughout my travels and invited me out with their friends the first night I got into town. I was there for a week so felt no pressure to hurry through sightseeing and had plenty of time to explore the surroundings of the quaint town it is.

Vienna, Austria - Another city that caught me off guard. I initially planned to only stay two nights but ended up extending my stay because there was so much to see. By the time I got to Vienna I felt like my eyes were glazing over looking at all the different sites and architecture styles, but walking around Vienna proved to me that there was still room for amazement. There was so many beautiful buildings throughout the city that every corner I turned yielded another masterpiece. Of all the cities I visited, Vienna has to be in the top 3 for the most beautiful architecture.

I have had some unforgettable moments throughout, but most certainly there are some forgettable ones as well.

For example, I've seen some amazing and breathtaking sunsets, landscapes and architecture but also have chased roaches in some completely disgusting hostels in cities that I probably wouldn't visit again.

Also, I was fortunate enough to have the unforgettable experience of watching Team USA play in two World Cup games live with two of my best friends. However, the complete exhaustion and defeat we felt following the last USA game was most definitely something I would never want to experience again. We had spent the whole day partying with fellow USA fans only to see the US team lose and be knocked out of the tourney. We sat around all day waiting for a 2AM overnight train that ended up being late and having no sleeping seats. So after our long day we got no sleep that night and, to boot, we arrived early in the morning and were unable to check into our room until late that afternoon. Drained, we headed to the nearest park to find a plot of grass to catch whatever rest we could and just to add insult to injury, we had to weave through several old, fat, hairy men sunbathing completely nude and spread-eagle just to find a suitable spot to catch some z's. We were so exhausted that my buddies wanted to change their tickets and go home the next day and quite frankly, it crossed my mind too.

"I hope you have enjoyed your trip and come back and see us again soon." How many times had I heard that on a plane and not even thought twice about it. This time it was such an understatement that I couldn't help but smile. Trip? I hardly call it a trip. Grab your thesaurus and pick any synonym. What I did was a journey. An expedition. A quest.
A trip is a week-long vacation to the beach.

Enjoy my trip? How could I not enjoy a once in a lifetime experience to travel without agenda or worry to anywhere in the world I wanted with the opportunity to see amazing places and meet some quality people from around the globe. Sure there were highs and lows, as you would expect over almost 10 months of traveling on your own in lands afar, and, to be honest, I wouldn't do it again, not for that length of time anyway. As a whole, the journey was definitely one of the best experiences of my life, although, I choose my words carefully because I don't necessarily say it was the most fun time of my life. While there were many a moment throughout that I will never forget and times when I have never laughed so hard, there were also times that were lonely, challenging and character-building. All of these new experiences; highs and lows, life lessons, together formed a journey that has changed me forever and made me a better, stronger more well-rounded individual.


Funny as it may sound, the first thing that made me say "wow" that I noticed that was different when I got back to the States, and definitely not something I was paying particular attention to, happened in the bathroom. The first time I stepped into a bathroom in the States, my first glance at the toilet shocked me at how much water was sitting in the bowl. I think I could go for a swim in there. Who needs a pool?

So I'm back...and it feels great. I've been home now for a little over two weeks and the transition hasn't been as drastic as I thought it would be. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I am not working yet. I can't imagine how crazy I would be had I returned from 10 months solo traveling with little or no agenda and completely on my own time to a 9 to 5 Monday to Friday. I think that is a one-way ticket to the loony bin.

Now I just have to figure out what is next. I am living in Dallas now with my Dad and Step mom while taking as much time as I can to visit everyone else I can while I have the time. My next few months consist of more traveling, this time around the States; to visit family in Florida, Atlanta, and Philadelphia; to visit friends in D.C. and NYC; a bachelor party in Las Vegas and a wedding in Maryland. After all of that it's back to the real world I believe. I'll be looking for a job in Dallas, I'll need to buy a car, move into my own place, buy a bed, you know, all the things you do in the real world. I am not exactly sure where I will be or what I will be doing come July but it is an exciting place to be because I am back in the city I grew up in with a lot of my family and friends around and hopefully a lot of opportunities across the board. You can never know what the future holds but I am intrigued to see how things unfold over the next 6 months.

All things accounted for. I have arrived home safely, I have enjoyed myself immensely and I have captured a fair amount here in this blog. I started the blog as a simple way to keep track of some of my ideas, a medium by which to capture my thoughts and pictures, while simultaneously sharing it with family and friends. Never did I expect to get such rewarding feedback and sincere appreciation from so many people while getting such enjoyment from maintaining it. All that being said, there is only one more thing to address. You. I can not thank all of you enough for your unbelievable interest and enthusiasm for my blog along with your love, support and companionship. This blog is by far one of the greatest things I have from my travels. Whether you are family, an old friend, a new friend or someone who I only spent a day with, you all played your own part in shaping my journey and for that I sincerely thank you. You have all been part of this experience and I can not say enough to tell you how much it has all meant to me. Thank you.

With that I close the book on this journey. Hopefully there will be more, shorter, excursions in the future with more captivating experiences, people, photographs and stories. For the meantime however, I am going to cherish staying put for a while.
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates

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Sydney, Australia

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Airlie Beach, Australia

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Mackay, Australia

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Town of 1770, Australia

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Fraser Island, Australia

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Hervey Bay, Australia

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