Welcome Home - The Last Post

I arrived via train - Amtrak's Vermonter - which, after making its way from New York city to New Haven, cuts up through Connecticut and Massachusetts before following the west bank of the Connecticut river which makes up the border of New Hampshire and Vermont. If it had been up to me, I would have had it follow the east bank and called it the New Hampshirer, but I suppose I'm not without my allegiances, and in the end it was not up to me. The ride takes six hours and is especially beautiful once the train starts following the river; at times, all you see out the window is corn fields and the winding, tree lined river banks, making you feel as if you're the only person around for hundreds of miles.

Spring Time in New Hampshire

The ride is familiar to me, so I was able to sit back and relax. As we entered Vermont I was surprised that the trees were well behind Washington and even New York as the tips of the branches held only the smallest touches of green as they entered into the beginning of spring. As I got closer to home, I started feeling a bit anxious and a bit nervous, my heart picking up pace in my chest. I guess this was it, the end of the trip and the end of the convenient excuse to not get on with my life. I was a bit surprised how tough the last thirty minutes of the ride was - you know that unbearable impatience you have when you're returning from a long trip, and you're almost home and you just can't wait any longer? Well, I hadn't had that feeling for 6 months now and here it was back in full force.

The train moved slowly to a stop and my door halted dead center in front of my folks. My mother, having read my DC post jokingly complaining about the lack of fan-fare upon my return, had brought me a balloon, and after an exchange of heartfelt hugs (though rather weak as they strained to get their arms around my large backpack), my mother said to me, "hear's your freakin' balloon". What a woman. And so, I arrived six months to the day I had left.

We piled in the car and drove the familiar 5 miles home to a fantastic meal (by request) of lasagna, my Mom's famously lethal Caesar salad (basically garlic with a touch of lettuce) and plenty of red wine. The house was about the same, the town hadn't changed much, and my parents filled me in on the small bits of news and gossip which had accumulated in the small town of 3,500 people in the last 6 months. The next day, in celebration of my return home and to mark my 27th birthday, I endeavored to do absolutely nothing- simply killing time until a trip to the local restaurant for a birthday dinner. That was nice. The weekend brought my sisters home, a trip to the Walpole players uproarious rendition of Rumours - a Neil Simon play, a hike up Mt. Monadnock, and a rib BBQ. Fortunately, we had not yet run out of excuses to party and Sunday morning the children put together a Mother's day brunch with lobster Eggs Benedict (my sister's brilliant idea - she lives in Maine), fresh fruit, sweet breads, mimosas, Bloody Marys, our neighbors (who are as good as family) and seating for seven by our small pond in the warm spring sun.

Mother's Day Brunch


Family Reunion (from left to right: my sisters, me, my mom, the neighbors, my father)

So since my return, the question of the hour (besides "how was your trip") seems to be, "What's it like to be home?" Well I'll tell you: it's disorienting, frustrating and boring, but at the same time it's comforting, relaxing and cheap. I've decided that the most unexpected result of this trip is the need to find the new me. It's interesting that I arrived in Beijing six months ago and I was frightened and confused- I wasn't sure why I was there, what I was going to do and wasn't so confident that I could pull this off. It took me a good few weeks to settle into the lifestyle and after not too long the "new me" was born - confident, decisive, independent, adventurous and most importantly, happy. There I was, I was doing it, and I was loving it.

The happiness lasted on, but eventually began being dulled by loneliness. After months on my own I started to feel alone in the down times, longing for a little consistency and sick of making friends for only a day or two, a week if I was lucky. I pushed on, keen on new adventures, but my spirit lagged a little as I looked forward to home.

So now I'm home and I find myself wondering what happened to the AJ that ran around China on tiny buses, confidently struggling with the language in pursuit of adventure, able to make decisions on a dime and always feeling as if I came out on top? You have this expectation that the experience will change you and you'll come back a totally different person, but it's not true. Upon returning, I got bombarded with the same problems I had before I left. I immediately started back into the BS of everyday life like updating my insurance, paying overdue bills, replacing my driver's license, worrying about "dating", unpacking emotional baggage from my past, then quickly trying to stuff it away again. And then there's the big question, the looming question - "OK, so I just turned 27 and returned from a 6 month vacation, now what the hell am I going to do with the rest of my life?" Along with these issues and questions, comes aspects of the old me: unsure, unconfident, mildly depressed and mostly confused. So the question before me now is simply, "Well who am I now?"

The experience of travel for me was undoubtedly life changing, with a valuable gaining of perspective on who I am and who we Americans are, and increased confidence in many areas, but the net result is not a totally different person. I felt like a new man abroad, but the context was totally different, and so I adapted and settled into a different kind of life. Now that I've returned home, I'm getting a snapshot of the old me along with the problems I was so quick to leave behind. What I feel faced with now is the need to revisit these problems, and reconcile my experiences to create the new me, the hybrid me, the me that's embolden by what I've learned and ready to take on problems in a new way and make a new life for myself. Sound good? I hope so, 'cause that's all I got...

So that's where I stand - settling down to reality and starting to be comfortable with this modified, hopefully improved version of my old self and move on from here. As I settle into it, I begin to get excited for the future. Where will I be in a month? two months? a year? Beijing? Sydney? Seattle? New York? I can't tell you, but I feel ready to take on the new adventure of getting there.

AJ

* * *

Trip Debrief
To finish off my experiment in blogging, and to give a summary of the trip, I've prepared a series of tidbits for your viewing and reading enjoyment.

Over the course of this adventure I have posted almost 500 pictures taken during my adventures which is only a fraction of the thousands I took while traveling. Rather than bore you by going through them all again, I've taken on the arduous task of narrowing down the field and have provided 50 of my favorite pictures from all over the world. These pictures have been digitally remastered and published to my Flickr site with higher resolution, new titles, and detailed descriptions... but wait there's more! On top of that, I've utilized Flickr's feature of locating the pictures on a digital map so you can see exactly where I took them. Pretty cool, eh? Now, I know what you're thinking - and the answer is definitely yes, I do have too much time on my hands these days. Maybe I should take up TV watching or crocheting as a new hobby...

The 50 Best - Click Above for the Album

To further drive home (and belabor) this point, I've also produced maps of China, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand which show where I went and how I got there. This should help those of you who have complained about being geographically challenged and clueless about all the places I went (as if that's my fault). Note that on these maps the blue dots represent previously mentioned picture spots.

China Map - Click to Enlarge

Southeast Asia Map - Click to Enlarge

Australia Map - Click to Enlarge


New Zealand Map - Click to Enlarge

For my final trick, being a former engineer, I couldn't help but give a section to show the trip by the numbers:

• Departed Walpole, NH: November 8, 2006
• Arrived Walpole, NH: May 8, 2007
• Length of trip: 6 Months = 181 days
• Foreign countries visited: 8 - China, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada
• Holidays spent abroad: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Valentine's, St Patrick's, Easter, my sisters' and father's birthdays
  
• Different places I slept: 85, including: 5 trains, 7 buses, 3 planes and 2 boats
• Average stay: 68 hours = 2 2/3 days
• Transportation used (not counting public transport, taxis, day trips, etc.): 14 planes, 12 trains, 55 buses, 7 boats
• Books read: 17
• Activity ticket stubs saved: 73
• Pictures taken: 2,977 - roughly 16.5 per day
  
• Pictures published on Flickr: 487
• Pictures taken with me in them: 137
• Cameras killed: 1
  
• Sicknesses: 2 Food related "incidents", 1 upper respiratory tract infection and 1 spider bite
• People met: innumerable
  
• Email addresses collected: 37
• Blog postings: 36 - roughly 1 every 5 days

The Big Apple to Home

I Will Cross This Bridge

Growing up a New Hampshire country boy I spent my youth with a notion that New York City was quite possibly the most vile place on earth. I visited the city only a handful of times during my childhood and was always overwhelmed with the scale of it all, the noise and the grungy, dirty streets. But that was then, and it may surprise you learn that I’m a bit of a different person then I was 15 years ago.

Bathroom Graffiti

I first fell for New York on repeated trips to visit the many friends who took the short bus trip from Ithaca to New York after graduation. Once I learned the neighborhoods, figured out the subway and explored the streets, I started seeing New York as a vast array of interesting places instead of one monolithic giant, and once you’ve hit that point you realize the possibilities are too numerous to be ignored. I guess what I’m trying to say is that New York’s an acquired taste, and like coffee, now that I’ve gotten a taste for it, I just can’t get enough (sip, sip).

New York is also one of the world’s most (if not the most) international cities. The place is just really, really big (I can't stress this enough), very diverse, and from neighborhood to neighborhood the mix of people and cultures varies with surprising speed. That’s one of the great things about the place – from the skyscrapers of midtown to the low rooftops of Brooklyn, they’ve got just about anything you could ask for.

Manhattan from the Roof

This trip to New York turned out to be a special one since I had the pleasure of crashing in Brooklyn for the first time and with its great bars, hip coffee shops and the wonderful Prospect Park only two blocks away life was, indeed, very good.

Bocce Bar


Prospect Park Tree

Now accustom to checking out new places, I immediately grabbed my buddy’s bike to see Brooklyn. I cruised Prospect Park through the warm spring air and then headed down Beach Ave for Coney Island and the Atlantic Ocean. The ride through Brooklyn was fascinating as I flew through traditional Jewish neighborhoods, Italian neighborhoods and navigated through the veritable sea of baby strollers.

Brownstones

It was early in the season for Coney Island, but warm enough for the large, shirtless Italians to strut their stuff down the wide boardwalk, and though mildly disturbing, I wouldn’t of had it any other way. After a hotdog at the original Nathan’s hotdog stand (stand being an interesting descriptor considering that the place takes up a whole city block), I jumped back on the bike and moved on past the closed amusement parks, freak shows and the museum. The place must be hectic in the height of the season, but right now it was rather low-key which was alright by me. I then cut through Bensonhurst and onto the brand new greenway trail which follows the East river under the Verrazano narrows bridge for great views of lower Manhattan.

Coney Island Boardwalk

Also of note, I spent a day visiting the MOMA which was fantastic, and after convincing my friend Chris to shirk his responsibilities on this particularly perfect Friday afternoon, lazed about in central park and stopped by the new Grecian/Roman wing of the MET for a extravaganza of carved stone . To round out the weekend, I walked from Park Slope to Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge, ate nachos and drank margaritas in Tribeca to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, ate a delicious Israeli brunch, and enjoyed a fine evening back yard barbecue in Williamsburg. I’ve been told that I visited New York on the best week of the year and I certainly believe it. The weather was mid 70s and sunny, there wasn’t a drop of rain the whole time, and the flowers were out in force while the trees glew a brilliant green with new growth.

Manhattan and the Bridge


Brooklyn, For Lack of a Better Title

Other than that, life in New York involved catching up with old friends, making new friends, relaxing in the park, fighting off offers of places to crash in the city and engaging in further contemplation about begrudgingly reentering the “real world” as they refer to it.

Speaking of which, yesterday evening, after six hours of contemplation while winding through New England on the train, I finally arrived in New Hampshire six months to the day after setting out and on the eve of my 27th birthday, thus officially marking the end of this incredible experience - a sad moment no doubt, but it certainly feels good to see my family again and to unpack my bag for the last time… or at least for a while anyway…

Colonial Drive - Walpole, NH


Welcome Home

Triumphant Return

I returned to DC, my hometown for the two years prior to leaving the country, and I was honestly a bit disappointed by the reception - no band, no cheerleaders, no flowers, not a shred of confetti and not even a single frickin’ balloon. Initial shock over at the anti-climactic nature of my return aside, I got to work. After a bit of confusion and a wrong number which led to a long message on some random person’s voicemail, I was finally able to rendezvous with Bridget - a fine welcoming party in her own right, as well as my buddy Chris’s girlfriend - who graciously whisked me to Glover Park and to my new home for the week, their couch.

America the Beautiful

My initial reaction upon returning to DC was one of pure fascination, it being the first place I’d visited in 5 months of traveling where I’d actually been before (discounting Seattle which I barely remember), and a place I’d lived for two years no less. But it was different now – not actually concretely different, it just felt different through new eyes. Things that bugged me before now astounded me: why doesn’t anyone smile on the buses? Why are wait staff so rude (discounting Cassandra at Café Citron who became the love of my life after jumping over the bar to chase down some delinquent on their tab and then, after bragging to us about her accomplishment, bought us a shot to celebrate her final being canceled)? And, why does almost everyone seem to drive an SUV when they only drive 12 miles at a time through stop and go traffic?

This said, there are also many good things about DC. It’s a truly spectacular city in the spring with tulips, cherry blossoms and bright green leaves soaking in their first rays of sun. I was also reminded of the extent to which DC truly is an international city, with residents and visitors from all over the globe. The streets and bars are packed with young activists trying to change the world and practice what they preach, and then there are the crabs. Oh, the crabs. These were the things that got me to half consider my friends requests for me to return to DC for good.

Springtime in Glover Park

After running around for five months meeting excited travelers and interesting locals, I continued to long for new stories of adventures, forgetting that the real world to which I will shortly return isn’t always quite as interesting. The first thing I asked Bridget after jumping in her car was whether or not she was still at the same job which was answered with a resounding, “AJ, you’ve only been gone six months!”. I keep asking people what’s happened in my absence and the question was almost always answered with a long blank stare. After a little coaxing and persistence I’d usually get something out like a trip to Hawaii, the new kickball team, a promotion or a new pair of shoes, but generally it appeared to be the same old same old in the District. At first this started to depress me, as I continued to contemplate my reemergence into the real world, but then I began to take comfort in it. I quickly found myself back in some of the old roles with old friends and old coworkers. I was back, even if for only a week, and there’s comfort in fitting in, in your place, and being surrounded by the familiar, by those things that just don’t change despite how much you might want them to. For months on the road I longed for this place, but now, faced with it, the idea has become bittersweet. Though, I know I will eventually find it again in a new place – a new place to call home.

The Local Hang

OK, enough of the melodrama and cliched writing already. To be consistent with previous postings I should probably go ahead and give you an idea of what I actually did for a full on week in DC. Surprisingly little of interest it turns out. I frequented my favorite coffee shop (where I sit as I type this), visited a couple familiar bars, sat by Andrew’s pool to recharge my fading tan, walked the mall, saw the Constitution, participated in a crab BBQ, met with the old bosses to talk about part-time work to restock the coffers, crashed the company happy hour, worked on my resume, continued sorting through the pictures from my adventures and saw a ton of old friends while simultaneously making some new ones. There were also a couple attempts at dancing (all failed) thrown in there, an attempt at bike repair (mostly successful) and a 2am falafel run (an unrivaled success).

Andrew, Chris and Bridget Prepare for the Feast


The Massacre of the Innocents... and the Delicious


Take My Wife Please!

So that’s DC in a nutshell, or at least my version of it. Next stop the big apple the last (planned) stop on my epic, if I do say so myself, adventure.