The Finale
Trip Start
Aug 27, 2006
1
14
Trip End
Dec 07, 2006
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Thursday, December 7, 2006
It's raining here in Vancouver today. I don't really know if you could call it rain, though. Temperatures are somewhere just above freezing and just below melting. Huge, billowy snowflakes turn, before your very eyes, into wet, sinister slush (while still in the air). The slush builds up and then melts, the freezes, then melts again. Everything is wet and cold. The piles of this wet, icy snow also mixes with the dirt, the oils, and general melancholy of life on a day like today. The weather forecast for today is bleak with several signs of depressing. In short, it is the worst weather I have ever seen in my life.
So, it's with that backdrop that I bring you my final post of my trip around the world.
First, I would like to thank my parents for affording me the opportunity to go out and see the world and go to places I only ever dreamed of going to.
One of the first questions someone asked me when I got back home was, 'Do you feel more cultured?' I thought it was sort of a silly question-what does 'more cultured' mean anyways? Do I know more about my own culture? More about other peoples' cultures? What is the culture exactly that's equated with cultured? One of the best things about traveling is that it lets you see your own culture through the lens of another person's.
People go to India and are aghast at the poverty rates. Poverty really doesn't have any frame of reference until you see a family of four begging for change and receiving very little. The youngest, a baby, is crying from a lack of nourishment, love and security. The two siblings look up wide-eyed, a look of both desperation and hope. The mother just looks down at the ground, not making eye contact, not wanting to be judged or looked down upon by a bewildered and dumbfounded tourist. And it happens all over the country, millions of times a day. And every time you know that the money in your wallet, a wallet you have carefully placed in your front pocket to ward off any thievery, a wallet containing maybe the equivalent of $30, could change this family's, and millions of others, lives. And that is heart breaking.
But heartbreak is a constant in life. We are all heartbroken, in some way, each and everyday. Seeing the world didn't resign me to a life of lament and ill will. It inspired me to love it-in all its forms...from the foothills of Burma to the vast deserts of Egypt to the rich and layered Basque region. The more you see is the more you know and the more you want to explore. For every heartbreakingly, gut wrenching scene that I saw (and there were several) I also was witness to staggering and uplifting scenes of beauty and joy. I fumbled my way around in 11 different languages, tripping over my own lazy tongue and poor tonal control. Speaking was the hard part, but laughing was easy. Effortless. Natural. Occasionally some little instance would occur that would seemingly restore and strengthen my faith in humanity-- a young Burmese girl squealing with delight after playing the harmonica for the first time-- old Japanese businessmen getting drunk with new American friends (and covertly picking up the tab)-- soccer played in every bar (and every field) almost every night-- finding yourself standing (and I'll admit, drunk) in Marco Polo's backyard at 3 in the morning-- feeling completely insignificant and almost cliché even after being awe-stuck at the grandeur and grace of the Great Pyramids at sun-rise-- hand picking my first ever snake dinner from a cage of unlucky contestants-- and, Yes, even getting taken for $70 at a bar in Turkey by a bunch of thugs and con-artists. I, along with my loving parents, will laugh about that for the rest of our lives.
Yes, it was an incredible trip and yes, I loved all of it. While the color of the tropics may fade from my skin and the heightened feelings I had (I have never been more stressed out in my life than the first day I found myself walking around in Ho Chi Minh City, in the middle of the day, nervously clutching my way-too-expensive-and-flashy camera and wallet as thousands of mopeds and unfamiliar faces, smells, sights and sounds swarmed around me). But while some things will fall from memory, others will stay with me for the rest of my life, growing richer as the days wane and the mind embellishes.
Thank you again to my family for letting me trek off around the globe. I love you all very much.
It's easier to laugh than to cry, to love than hate.
I guess I'll end this thing on a Croatian toast I heard on my last day on the ship. Yes, it's a little sappy, so brace yourself:
"If you want to have fun for an hour, have sex.
If you want to have fun for a day, go fishing.
If you want to have fun for a year, get married.
If you want to have fun for the rest of your life, make friends."
