The Final Recap

Well, I've been back two weeks now and it's been a busy couple of weeks. When I returned to work, there was a pile of work that had been anxiously awaiting my arrival. Well... there was that and a cubicle filled to the brim with pink and black balloons. It's been rather disturbing how quickly I've fallen back into my pre-trip quotidian habits. Part of that may have been that I was anxious to get home and find comfortable habits to return to. Something about western-style toilets, menus in English, and being able to drink tap water makes life so much easier. Sorry I haven't been able to get in touch with all of you since I returned. I've meant to but just have not been able to find the time. I'll try harder and hope to talk to you all again soon.

Looking back on the trip, I'm so glad I went. It's hard to explain to people when they ask how the trip was without saying something totally unhelpful like, "It was great!" What was great about it? It was great to strike out on my own for a month, to get away and remember that there's a whole other world out there beyond our individual bubble and our coasts. It was great to see Jeff again and experience an entirely different culture and how they deal with everyday minutiae that we all experience. But most of all, it was great to go away and come back knowing more about myself, what I'm capable of, and what I love about where I live. I'm not sure you can ever fully appreciate those things until you've stepped out of your comfort zone and disconnected yourself from them.

So... those are my final thoughts on the adventure. I think that pretty much wraps up this experiment in blogging but before I sign off, I have two final items to bring up:

1) I'm not sure how to get pictures out to everyone for viewing. I looked into Picasa but short of paying for a subscription (yeah, right!), I'm limited to 100 Mb upload per month. As I have 3 Gb of photos, that'd take awhile. Does anyone know another site that's easy to upload 3 Gb of photos so I can email a link to people outside of the Seattle area? Or should I just quit being a cheapskate and send Google (via Picasa) some money? Either way, hopefully there'll be an email headed your way with a link to view the photos I took.

2) I've already started thinking about my next trip. As I'm currently sitting on negative vacation hours at work and I'm also trying to not dip further into my savings to pay for this trip, I'm not going to be going anywhere anytime soon. But hey, it's never too early to start planning, right? So along those lines, I have three little words to say:

Trans, Siberian, Railway.


Take care everyone.