Four months later

The blink of an eye, and four months are gone. Four months since I walked through the doors of Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau airport to jump back into normal life. Four months to catch my breath as much as I can.

Everybody says it is hard to come back from a holiday. It is even more difficult to come back from traveling. And the difficulty can only be as big as the trip was.

All in all, the obstacles didn't come from where I expected. Of course, of course, there is that urge to get on the next plane to "anywhere but here". Of course, there are all those memories I hang on to and I don't want to let go, scared of forgetting.

There is also all those unbearable "Time heals everything", almost as disturbing as those "You're still young, you'll certainly live more trips like this".

Yes, but...

Truth is, there is a mourning process. Saying "one lost, ten found" never made things better. Time never fills the holes left by those we are mourning.

Same!

There is a real pain. Not a physical one. But still a pain. A pain the body will remember. Like the couple of pounds we lost along the way we're putting back on. There is a questionning, the need to find back my marks, or to find new ones. And there is a need for a lot of time to breath freely again.

Four months and it's starting to get better. But it will never be the same. I'm starting to get a clear head, but still getting that call for traveling. The best remedy for the blues is using what we've learned on the road. Learned to live with the unexpected. Learned to accept not knowing what tomorrow is made of. And allowing ourselves to change our mind three times a day.

In four months, we work out our resilience. True : it is not nice to lie. But when people ask if the blues are gone, they really don't want to hear us say no. The people, they want to say "dust yourself up" or "get over it".

With time, by chance, I kept in touch with the people I found on my way. And I know I want to keep them in my life for a long time. I know now it is possible.

Four months later, at least, I started to move on. And if I haven't broken the mold completely yet, I'm not giving up on breaking it for good.

Six months are gone

It's done. For six months, I ate, slept, explored outside of Canada. The assessment of this sixth mont is really personnal because I knew it was the last stretch.

The sixth month, it's starting to come back in our head. It's preparing to avoid going crazy at the airport. It's stopping the screensaver, too, because we know there is no more tickets to buy and there are only a few cities to visit.

The sixth month, it's having a deadline. Feeling flexibilty slipping through our fingers because that 15th of August, we must be on a plane leaving Habana. No choice! 

At least, after all that time on the road, it is getting accustomed to any unforseen event. We can't call them all "unforseen"... because we stop planning. We live. That's all.

In those last weeks, I went back in holiday mode, knowing the mess in my luggage didn't matter anymore. Knowing that after August 15th, there was no other destination on my list. Nothing to get excited or to look forward to like in the past five months.

After all that time, I reached a state where I can accept goodbyes, leaving sad people without being over-depressed myself. Towards the end, the nostalgia came back, forced a last look behind before boarding that last plane.

I had to realize the wheel keeps on turning. When time comes to make an assessment, we meet people who just jumped in space, leaving for six months themselves, while they are excited about those first days on the road. We can see in them our naivety, six months earlier, in a hostel in San Diego. We feel like we need to pass the torch.

It also took six months to meet someone who would judge me. Someone who would insist to say six months are too short for what I wanted to accomplish. To say I've seen nothing, lived nothing, and that I can't pretend I've seen the world if I only spent a couple of weeks in each country. Like if there was a minimum time to live, feel other cultures. That "man" didn't make a lot of friends around the table we were eating at. Still, irony of fate happened three days before the end... And for those who are wondering : he was from Paris.

Here are the cities I visited in the last month :

Portugal Lagos, Lisbon
Brazil  Stopover in Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Paraty, Sao Paulo, Foz do Iguaçu
Argentina Puerto de Iguazu, Buenos Aires
Cuba Habana

Half way through

Little bit painful... Already (!) half way through.

That way of life, I could probably have it going for a few years. If I had the money, of course. Three months, seems long in the daily life. And when I look behind, I see all I had the time to do. And that is what is scary. Seeing all one can do when he gives himself time to do so. All one can discover. When, with the same three months, at home, I would probably would have just worked, slept, and ate. 

Three months, it's enough to take a distance from our regular life, to take a distant look on what surrounds us. And by taking that distance, you see clearly the obstacles coming ahead. Suddenly, we know where they come from...

Scary also, because the trip is like going down a very long hill on a bike. You start slowly, you pedal faster and faster, keeping your hands close to the brakes, and you end up letting go of the handlebars, getting tipsy of all that wind hitting your face. You only have to make sure you won't fall. And start braking before you hit the wall.

Traveling for three months, it's changing air. Like opening the windows when spring comes. Renewing. Knowing what we're missing. Knowing what we're not missing. Understanding that the decisions we make daily, that won't make everyone happy at home, are bringing us where we want to go when people let us choose our own way. We have a good judgement, after all... Relying on ourseleves, and ourselves only, it's proving (and proving to ourselves) at what speed we can move forward. It's stopping to define ourselves by the image others show us of ourselves. Only because it's better for them.

On the road, with some exceptions, we choose to be only with people we appreciate. Who are not trying to get something from us, if only the good times we spend together. Because they are not forced to stay. Because they will spend time with you only because they feel like they are gonna have a good time.

Example? One could think that the fact I refuse to drink alcohol would be a problem in an environment where youth gathers around a drink. Hostel is a synonym of alcohol. Strangely (the opposite of what I know, at least), nobody tried to force me to drink. Nobody called me a weirdo. Everybody invited me out. I was even invited to a pub crawl, knowing I wouldn't drink, simply because some people wanted to spend some time with me. Coming from people who don't need to talk to me if they don't want to, it makes me think.

Three months to open my eyes. They will probably be widely open after six months.

I just need not to close them back again.

Itinerary

For those who are interested, here are the cities I visited in the last month :

China : Xi'an, Pingyao, Beijing (and the Great Wall)

Japon : Osaka, Mino, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Himeji, Kyoto, (Osaka), Nara, Nagano, Matsumoto, Yamanouchi, Tokyo, Mont Fuji

And then there were two

*Please note that the chinese internet refuses to let me upload pictures. Gilly's pictures will have to wait.

Happy anniversary to you... That is what Marilyn would sing, this Sunday, to celebrate two months of globe-trotting between time zones.

Two months, a third of the trip, are now just memories. But remember, that's about a year in the life of a round-the-world traveler.

No real health issues yet (fingers crossed) even if the lack of sleep and the chinese food are sometimes having their effect on me. Nothing to traumatise me either. But a lot of little discomfort. That's normal.

In the assessment mode, like expected, China is the biggest challenge on the language and culture side, even if there is nothing too surprising since everything is shown on tv and on the internet. I only needed to get rid of my north-american reflexes, and of my preconceived ideas on the way things should be done.

Anyway, I wonder about the energy I'll need for the asian portion of my trip. We'll see.

Here, for those who are interested, are the cities I visited in that second month :

Australia : Melbourne, Geelong, Apollo Bay, Kennett River, Warrnambool, Halls Gap, Ballarat, Lakes Entrance, Threbdo, Canberra, Sydney, Blue Mountains.

Hong Kong 

Macao

Hong Kong

China : Shanghai, Hangzhou, Huangshan, Xi'an


Tip

Always try to know how much the others paid for an object you want to buy in Asia. It'll help you negociate. Booking a room online allows you to save money too. I paid 40 RMB for my room in Xi'an through hostelworld.com. Behind the desk at the hostel, it's written a room costs 60 RMB...

One month - Assessment

For those interested, I have been gone for a month now. I'm happy to realize I used EVERYTHING I have in my luggage, excepted some medicine. Nothing useless then. 

I had some problems, like I have told already. The most recent one is my ticket for Hong Kong I bought online but the company refused to approve it because of supposed problems with my credit card. On the other hand, the amount was billed on my credit card as soon as I bought it. It was removed afterwards. Now, everything is ok. 

Here are the cities I've been in in the forst month : 
Sherbrooke (CAN)
Burlington (USA)
San Diego (USA)
Los Angeles (USA)
Auckland (N-Z)
Rotorua (N-Z)
Taupo (N-Z)
Wellington (N-Z)
Queenstown (N-Z)
Milford Sound (N-Z)
Queenstown (again) (N-Z)
Franz Josef (N-Z)
Christchurch (N-Z)
Melbourne (AUS)
Phillip Island (AUS)