American Soil

Friday night Jorie and I stepped back onto American Soil in San Francisco after 20 flights over the past 80 days. My older brother Jamie welcomed us with raspberries and bags of fresh food in tote. The raspberries were gone before we even made it back to his home, they were the most delicious treat we could have ever wished for.

Everything American has seemed exciting... We marveled at how clean even the airport bathrooms were, how orderly and safe driving felt, how refreshing the clean cool air is, how we could shower with our mouth open or just turn the tap for some water and of course we have been obsessed with all the food we have been craving for weeks. Although we have had the time of our lives and loved traveling our appreciation for America has grown.

We ended our trip with an amazing San Francisco weekend where we were spoiled by Jamie and Theresa. We explored the fun neighborhood streets, walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, caught up with old friends, played hours with my adorable nephew and ate so much delicious food. It was so fun to share some of our stories and experiences with Jamie and Theresa. Our weekend was such a wonderful way to come back to the States and get acclimated back into the "American way".

So after 81 days of being inseparable travel buddies (the most time we have spent apart was no more than 3 hours on two occasions) our trip came to a close as we parted each heading home. We were even better travel buddies than I could have ever imagined... Agreeing on budgeting, activities, food, and every detail of traveling life with one other person can be extremely challenging. Yet to Jorie and I it seemed to be completely natural and we shared all similar intents. We never fought or had hard feeling, we shared responsibilities, always seemed to be hungry at the same time, although it seems impossible we always had something to talk about and of course we enjoyed each others company. The more time you spend with a person the more you find out and often, especially in stressful situation, you learn about qualities that aren't your favorite. However, this wasn't the case at all for me, my respect for Jorie only grew the more we encountered character building situations. The opportunity to travel and see the world in the way we did is a once a life time opportunity, but to have such an amazing travel buddy to share the experience with, well that's one in a million.

Over past 82 days we have created a life time of memories. We soaked up cultures from 10 different counties, and ironically the more we traveled the more the world seemed to get bigger and small at the same time. We learned so much about history, culture and just human beings, yet the more we learned the more ignorant we felt. We went to the theater and opera, we biked, we went to museums, we farmed, we went to churches, we sailed, we snorkeled, we rode elephants, we played with tigers, we swam, we rode in Tuk-Tuks, we kayaked, we trekked, we ate local dishes, and the list goes on. And of course we took thousands of photos but most of the best moments weren't captured on film, only in memory. It sounds cliche but wandering the world was life changing. It was an epic 3 months and it was a trip of a life time.