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This blog has really taken a turn for the worse since coming home from the trip.

Just don’t want my blog to get deleted. That is all.

Remember when we used to tie witches to stakes and burn them for being witches? I miss the days of yore.

Forget water boarding and the whole ripping out fingernails thing. Wanna torture someone? Have them sit down in front of a computer for hours on end, searching hopelessly for the “one perfect image”. Sites like Getty, Corbis, etc should be illegal.

My nephew could be in the sixth sense. I was at the park with him today and noticed he drew something on his arm. I asked what it was and he said a symbol from his dream last night. I had him redraw the symbol on paper. It looked exactly like the symbol for “Christ”. Im calling the Ghostbusters immediately.

Transitioning back to the “real world” is a “real drag”. It’s hard man.

No one wants to talk to you. Strangers spitting on you as you ask for change. All our friends from the trip are dead or in a mental hospital. No wait that was Vietnam. Never mind.

In a way it is actually  like that. We spent an entire year making our own rules. Going where ever we wanted. Doing or not doing what ever we felt. Our life was completely up to us to create. And now we’re home. Back to living by other peoples rules. Dealing with other people’s problems. Watching the Kardashians. Ugh. I know I sound like a completely self absorbed a-hole but I’m not. I guess you don’t really understand it until you’ve done something like this. You come home and you feel separate from life. Your friends all talking about things you have no idea about. You can’t talk to your friends, because every sentence starts out “well when i was in Cambodia…” and I really don’t want to be that guy. Something else changes too. The little things that used to drive you crazy, standing in long lines at the grocery store, gossip and petty arguments, not enough ice in your iced tea…all these things don’t matter anymore. Because you’ve seen how the rest of the world lives and consider yourself lucky that you can drink iced tea at all without shitting out of your ass for 2 weeks.

And you quickly realize its all around you. The news on tv is negative. The shows on tv arent as funny as they used to be. The celebrities not nearly as interesting. The politicians even more corrupt. The food doesn’t taste as fresh. Peoples energy all off.

I know it sounds horrible, but it’s not. I guess it’s just a changing of perspective. A new way of looking at the world. A realization that the “American way” isn’t the only way. Whatever it is, it’s taking a little getting used to. I had the melt down every traveler talks about and now I’m on the other side, hoping I can cling to the lessons I learned on the trip and continue to see the world for the amazing place it really is..that and get back on the road as soon as possible.

I get you Mr. Cruise. I truly get you.

It’s down to these two for the next trip. 2012. World trip part deux. That is if we live through the whole 2012 thing. Here’s to hoping those Mayans were wrong!

Purdy aint she?

That’s the only rational explanation I have for what I’ve just gone through. The most amazing year of my life. The most amazing things my eyes have ever seen. The most amazing people. All this year, and completely all unbelievable.

As soon as the wheels touched US soil the disbelief set in. Had I truly traveled around the world for an entire year? Was that me trampsing through cow shit in the middle of Delhi? Or was it all a dream? A hallucination? Had I really done it?

Everything at home looks and feels the same. It’s hard to wrap my mind around.

This is my last trip blog, the one about coming home. I know or at least thought this one would be a long essay about the things I learned on my year abroad and the person I have become, but all of that is too cloudy right now. Too hard to make sense of. I think I’ll notice the changes piece by piece, little by little each day. As for the essay, I guess I just don’t have the words.

what I will do is thank everyone who made this year possible.

First off Sabrina. Without you I would have never made it out of Los Angeles. You were the absolute perfect person to travel with, my best friend and the woman I love. Everyday, even the days I awoke to you peeing in the sink above my head, were the best days of my life. You not only showed me that I can truly love another person you also taught me how to love my life. You’re amazing.

Thanks to all the people I met along the way. Even if I never see you again you have changed my life forever. You’ve opened my eyes to the world and reignited my imagination. Dave, Nelly, Cameron, Mikey, Meredith, Geoffrey, Kirstie and Hannah there’s not a chance in this world we dont see each other again.

Thanks to the kindness of strangers. Especially Hillary, Hugh, Alexandra, John, and Anne. You made us feel like family when we were thousands of miles away from our own.

Thank you to Sabrina’s Egyptian family. You welcomed us to Egypt with open arms and truly made our trip one we will always remember.

Thanks to all the folks at Secret Weapon for making the trip possible in the first place. Dick, Leah, Cam, Pat, and of course Jack (sorry about that whole bird chewing your face thing.)

Thanks to my family for missing me while I was gone. It made me feel purdy special.

Lastly thanks to God. (this is not my Emmy acceptance speech), but instead something that means alot to me. I asked God to protect us during our trip, to keep my heart burning with curiosity for the world, to keep my eyes open to all it’s wonder. He never let me down for a second. I felt his presence in every step I took.

There’s no way I can express what this year was like, I can only know for certain that this is the path I want to continue to walk down. There’s so much of the world left to see. I plan on seeing as much as I can.

So I’ll keep writing about it and hopefully you’ll keep reading.