Excerpt from Realtravel.com Editor's Pick linked into the
Austin-American Statesman and San Francisco Gate travel blogger
                       
http://realtravel.com/brooklyn-journals-j5024159.html

July 11, 2007 Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn NY

Home, a week now.  Can't rightly get my head around the fact that it's over.  No, that's not right.  I can't quite accept that it ever happened at all.  A dream trip.  That description is more appropriate than you know.  Just a week or so ago I was skiing the Andes but it's like some amazing fantasy now, like I just woke up from six months of heavenly slumber while the world around me just kept chugging along with barely a ripple of change.   My whole life was traveling.  Always figuring out how to get to the next stop, always wondering where I was going to sleep, nothing permanent, nothing real.  Now it's over and I'm back to the people I missed so much.  I'm happy.  I want to be here in NY, home, with my friends and family.  I want to get back to my career, with more enthusiasm than ever before.  But when I think back on the trip, it feels like that was another person out on the road, a good friend I left behind, not the person I see in the pictures, not the person trying to understand it all right now.  Even when I try to explain the things I've seen or done, it's that dream analogy.   People nod along, say wow, and are interested for about two minutes, but eventually they realize that it is a dream I'm explaining and only one person truly cares about a dream, the person who just woke up. I don't expect anyone else to understand what I'm thinking.  I doubt anyone else will even read this far.  But when I read this ten years from now, I want this strange, schizophrenic experience not to be forgotten. 

For six months I became a traveler; stronger, braver, more independent and resourceful than I have ever been and maybe will ever be again.   For six months I saw all the wonders of the world (four out of the new seven anyway) and experienced everything I possibly could.  I slept in hovels, saw the worse poverty in the world, argued with crooked taxi drivers over 3 cents U.S., and overcame stress that would have popped arteries just weeks before I departed.  I also saw that we really all are the same.  Regardless of language, color or creed, every one I met was just trying to get by, just trying to be happy.  Ultimately, that pursuit of happiness is all that matters.  They cared less about my religion and politics than I cared about theirs.  None of the crap means anything.  Smiling matters, and that's all I should ever worry about again.  The traveler I shared the road with knows that well, so now the NY guy has to realize it too.  We'll see if I can keep some of these feelings.  Not sure if that's possible with the personality I have and the crazy life I lead, but I hope so.  I really do. 

And that's it, this is The End.  I have to find a job and a place to live, but I'm not worried.  I realize that one way or another, things work out.  Maybe that traveler is still with me in some ways.  I do know for certain how incredibly lucky I am.  Lucky to have been born in the greatest country on earth which enabled me to earn the time and resources to complete this dream, to see and experience all I have.  Fortunate to have completed these travels totally unharmed or harassed.  And most importantly, so very Blessed to have such wonderful family and friends to support and wait for me during such a long time away.  From the deepest echoes of my soul, thank you.  Thank you all, for all the emails, every comment posted, each single prayer whispered.  They are appreciated more than you'll ever know.  They got me through some very tough and lonely times and I once again need to say, Thank you all so very much.   -   Bill