The End (Days 104 & 105)

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This is my final blog of the trip but sadly it will be the first one I write in the manner that I hoped my blog would be written. Too often when I mentioned to people along the way that I had a travel blog I would shy away from sharing it. Partially, I was afraid to let people in on what I was thinking but mostly it was that I was unhappy with how the blog turned out. Instead of being a well thought out reflection of my experiences it was closer to a rushed list of what I had done in the last 24 hours. Just like my trip that is all over. I look at today as the first day of the next stage of my life. The post-college or post-Europe or whatever you want to call it stage. My travels may not be over, but they are suspended for now.

I took my last photo last night from my seat in the Besiktas club stadium. I captured the illuminated pitch in the stadium with the dome and minarets of a mosque peeking above the far-end stands. One of the most beautiful and intriguing pictures I have taken on my trip. It's a good place to stop, at least for now. A little later, I would go back and look on the very first picture I took on this trip. It was of my favorite brother laying in his hostel bed in Dublin exhausted after a long trip in. What an amazing trip it has been since then. No amount of pictures taken can begin to describe it properly and honestly, neither can I.

I wish I was bright or eloquent enough to express what I went through the past three and a half months and how it has changed me. The best I can do is write honestly about my trip and hope the thoughts, feelings and the like that I experienced overseas become visible once again. Before my trip as well as during it I was asked by people what I was hoping to get out of it. At the time I felt I either did not have an answer or at least not one I could properly express. Initially I looked at the trip as a purely hedonistic journey and in some ways I still feel that way. However, it is clear that despite not knowing the answer, or even the question at the beginning of my trip, I have found both along the way. As difficult as it is to put my finger on it something feels different. The one thing I know for sure is that while this is the end of my trip it is the beginning of my travels. As I saw along the way there will never be a day when you are too old or too held down to get out and travel like you are young again. As I was told by an Australian guy in Sevilla whose name I have long forgotten, "The bug is real." At first I was not sure if I was affected but now I see the symptoms. For every place I visit I learn of a handful of new places that I feel I need to experience.

Traveling makes the mundane extraordinary. Even the simplest things can bring you so much pleasure. You often never realize how beautiful something is until you see it from a different perspective. Just as you may find something commonplace exhilarating in a foreign place someone from abroad will likely think the same about where you are from. I've always hated when people say something like "France or Europe has more culture than at home." Of course it doesn't, it's merely different. Going deer hunting in PA or to a minor league baseball game in Kansas is as much a cultural experience as visiting the Louvre and it's probably a hell of a lot more exciting.

I've often had trouble realizing that we all aren't wired the same way and that they may be things that I love that others loathe or at least feel indifferent towards. I understand this but how can others not be as passionate about traveling as I am. I can't count how many times over the last few months I have become so overcome with emotion with elation that I just wanted to let loose and scream as I felt there was no other way to properly express just how happy I was to be in that particular place at that particular time. There are not too many things in the world that can make me feel that way but on this trip I have been lucky enough to experience the people, places and things that make me feel that way.

Just as traveling can make you feel like the king of the world it can also be quite humbling. I have always thought of myself as an open-minded and worldly person but I have quickly realized how unknowledgable or even ignorant I can be of the world around me. It's just like scientists say, the more we learn about the world, the more we find out just how little we know. I may never be able to learn it all or travel everywhere but it's an appealing challenge. Are there things that I regret not doing? Absolutely. But I am hard pressed to think of an experience I would give up in its place. As I have constantly said, it's just a reason to come back. To me it means I still have that fire and yearning to get out and explore and that is something that I hope I never lose as long as I live, no matter what I have seen or done.

My Chilean buddy Gonzalo who I met in Marseilles told me about this 70-year-old American couple he hosted once in Chile. Despite their age they had the enthusiasm and be wonderment of kids. Every little thing they saw or did stood out to them like they have never seen anything like it before. They couldn't wait to come home and tell Gonzalo all about all the amazing things they had seen. And these are people who have been all over the world and yet each day is a new adventure for them that could not be jaded by anything in the past. God bless them. That's something I look forward to down the road. One trip down and hopefully many more to come.

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Photos

wash
pre-prayer washing

blue4
Blue Mosque courtyard

shoes
shoes in a bag at the mosque

market
market