Around the world in 603 days

Well, time to go home. In the end, my trip lasted 603 days. I've been to 23 countries and boarded 31 plane flights (my bag was only lost by an airline once). About 10 months were spent in New Zealand where I had 3 different jobs. I've read about 30 books, taken 10 hours of video footage and I'm guessing about 6,000 pictures. And I did it all with no broken bones and only one trip to jail.

So I guess I should wrap up the last two weeks of my trip and put this blog to rest. My final week in Sweden was great. It's a beautiful country, and it's pretty cool that it never seems to get totally dark at this time of year. At 10:30 it's still rather bright and even in the middle of the night the sky isn't true black. Sweden is ridiculously expensive though, I'll say that. But I spent 3 nights in Stockholm walking around the city and going out with some fun people from my hostel. After that, I took two days to see some islands out on the archipelago - there are about 24,000 islands in the waters outside Stockholm. Very scenic and peaceful and some good hiking, but not so many backpackers. My best friend there was a 3 year old German girl. After leaving the islands, I decided to hop on a train back to Gothenburg to hang out with Petra for another couple days. We had a lot of fun and I finally had some Swedish meatballs and it was fantastic. Then I had one more night in Stockholm. I met up with my friend Stephanie who I met in Kuala Lumpur, she lives in Stockholm and I went out for drinks with her and her friends.

The next day I flew to Brussels. I was very excited to be visiting the land of beer, mussels, and chocolate. I hadn't heard overly positive things about the city but I don't know why. It was great and it had some really beautiful areas - Grand Place is ridiculous. Also they have the bar with the most beers in the world. Spent a night there with some other really funny Americans. Then after two days I came to Holland. I went to Rotterdam for a couple days, it was pretty cool. More laid back than Amsterdam for sure. It was totally bombed out in WWII so the architecture is a mix of old and new, and it is an interesting place to go.

Then it was on to Amsterdam for the last 3 days of my trip. A city like no other. Kate my friend from England came to meet up with me there, hadn't seen her in about 9 months. It was good to catch up. The last time I'd seen her was when we split up in Hanoi. Also I ran into my friend Mike randomly in an internet cafe - he was one of the guys I was travelling with during the full moon party in Thailand last July. He's been travelling since then and Amsterdam was his last stop also. So we went for some beers the other day. Now I'm just sitting here finishing up my blog. Then I'll be out celebrating my last night for the remainder.

And so, that's it. It's been incredible. This is the last entry. I go home to New York tomorrow. To answer your questions: yes I'm excited, yes I'll miss the travelling life, no I don't have a favorite place, no I don't think I'm a different person now, and no there will be no book. As for what I'll do when I get back to New York, I plan on pursuing my lifelong dream of becoming a prostitute. Thank you and good night.

---

---

---