what does that even mean? i feel like through my travels, home became wherever i was... whether i was there for a day or three weeks. and now i'm back in boston. i guess that is what i should say. not back home, but back in boston.
a lot of people have asked me why i'm back... and well, i am not really sure. i got a bit complacent when i was in buenos aires. i love that city and spent three weeks there, but towards the end it got a bit too comfortable. and i felt like i needed to be uncomfortable again. plus... my parents kept asking when i would be home, a friend's wedding in june... and... some other things. so i felt like that was what i needed to do.. go to boston for a bit. but i booked my return flight from bogota. i got to colombia... and realized, all i needed was somewhere new. i had already told several people i was going back to boston, so i felt like i couldn't back out. and i had it in my mind (still have it in my mind) that this will just be a short stop. after traveling for almost five months, seeing something new everyday, meeting someone new everyday, that is just what i'm use to. i'm not use to the everyday life. did i get sick of introducing myself everyday? of course i did, but ya wanna know what? i would take that back any second now. :)
to pump myself up for being back in boston, i have to think about things that i look forward to....
+ bbq sauce, peanut butter, spicy foods - you can barely find ANY of them in south america... i missed these throughout my entire trip and if someone asked if i missed anything from back home, it was always these three things.
+ good beer - okay, so i probably could have lumped this in with the food, but... south american beer is so... blah. there was only one that i had that i could actually say was good... and that was club colombia. was so happy to go to on the border in the airport in orlando and order a sam summer!
+ not having to figure out where certain symbols are on keyboards - the @ symbol was alway alt gr + either 2 or q. the _ and the ? seemed to jump spots at every keyboard. and sometimes keyboards looked like keyboards from the states, but the keys were all different
+ doing laundry whenever i want - well, okay i guess i could have done this more often on the road, but when you're also looking to saving a buck, you tend to wear things a little bit longer than usual. or you wear things two days in a row, and wear it to bed. yes, that is what you do, and i thought that was kinda gross at first, but you just do it. and so does everyone else. but when you did do laundry (which was always drop it off at some place and pick it up the next day), you would pull out every single piece of clothing and smell it. it was one of the best things.
+ sleeping without earplugs - while i got use to hostel life and sharing a room, sometimes it was a drag. waking up with one earplug in and one out and trying to find the other one... just annoying. esp when there is some dude snoring away in your room.
+ throwing toilet paper in the toilet - in south america you throw it out in a trash can. all the trash. whether a number one or a number two. i got so use to this, though, that when i went to the bathroom in orlando, i threw it out in the trash. oops! at least it was only a number one.
+ being able to drink tap water - and not have to worry. yes, you could drink it in most places in argentina and some places in colombia. but it was always a "should i? or shouldn't i?"
+ not carrying money in my boobs - okay, maybe i still do it occasionally when i'm in the states, but i don't have that "this is my safety money in case i get robbed" thought. it is more of a convenient way of carrying it if i don't feel like bringing out a bag. and for the record, i didn't get anything stolen. came close though.
+ seeing friends and family - i've seen my family and a couple of friends and it has been good. my parents aren't travelers, so they barely even asked me how my trip was. which, is very frustrating to me, but i know that my friends will be super excited to see me and find out what i have been up to. and if possible i would like to meet up one on one, because then i get to talk about my travels even more. :) haha. selfish, yes.
i'm sure there are other things, but those things come to mind. i really want this to be fairly quick to be at home because getting settled means getting back into real life. and no offense, but real life kinda blows. i want to head on over to southeast asia for a couple months. it is meant to be really awesome. i need more pages in my passport though. i only have two fully free pages. it was three until the nice guy at colombia customs stamped me out of colombia on a free page. nice guy, though. he asked me what foods i tried in colombia. and actually, the guy at customs in the states (i usually don't like the states' custom people) was really cool. he was fascinated at all the countries i went to - 7 (ecuador, brazil, argentina, peru, chile, uruguay, and colombia) and said he missed his chance at backpacking. i told him that he didn't cause i met people in their fifties and even a guy who was seventy. i hope he rethinks it and goes out to see the world, cause it is massive and awesome!
