Re-Entry

From Cusco to Lima to Atlanta to San Francisco then the airport shuttle back to San Jose and finally I'm home. The pets are not dead. The TV is not stolen. And I don't have a family of possums living in my dishwasher. However, something smells a little funky in the refrigerator. I should have thrown away that Brie before I left.

I'm sitting here at the computer, the dogs are asleep on the floor next to me and I'm drinking a beer. It's amazing how fast you settle back into your old routines. In a way it feels like I never left. But in another way, I can't believe I'm already home.

One of the strange things about travel is how it plays with your sense of time -- and not just through jet lag. Any trip I've ever taken of any appreciable length seems to fly past at high speed, but stretch out behind me in slow motion. This trip was no exception. I can't believe five weeks have gone by already, but when I look back, it seems like it's been a year since I left.

As I write this, I'm downloading 602 pictures from my digital camera to my computer. Like the camera, I still have a lot to process. It's beyond a cliche to say that travel changes you, but the reason it's become a cliche is because it's true, and so people say it a lot. It's only been five weeks but I do feel changed.

More important than anything else I've learned on this trip, I've learned that being born in a Westernized, first-world country is like winning a sort of Universal Lottery. I've seen enough shantytowns, one-armed children begging on street corners and open sewers for me to realize how good I really have it.

I read recently that 2% of the population of the world holds more than half its wealth, and that almost all of that 2% live in Europe and North America. Those numbers sound impressive but they start to hit home even more when a five-year-old kid rows up to your tour boat in a bowl and asks you for a dollar.

My trip was always fascinating, but really, it wasn't always fun. Sometimes, it was painful.

I had an amazing opportunity, and I was incredibly lucky to have the time and money to take a trip like this. I met wonderful people, ate some truly, truly disgusting food and saw more eye-popping wonders than one person has the right to expect to see in an entire lifetime. But I've come away from this experience with the realization that the world, while beautiful, is also an incredibly hard and unfair place.

Often on my trip, I felt like I was slumming. It's easy to take an air-conditioned cab to a spectacular temple ruin, snap a few photos, and then ride back to your air-conditioned hotel so you can take a nice shower and go have dinner. When you get tired of the heat and the bugs, when the government collapses in yet another coup, or when the monsoons flood the town, you can just go home. On the other hand, the kids who should be in school but instead spend their days trying to sell postcards to people like you are stuck there, and so are their families. And largely, nobody on the planet cares if they make it, or if they don't, because 98% of the planet is too busy themselves trying to survive.

Despite what I wrote before I left about happily embracing all the pre-packaged cleanliness of modern tourism, now I'm not so sure. I wonder if it's a good thing to travel to these places, happily snapping pictures and buying Angkor Wat paperweights, then flying away again, or if it's like going to some kind of zoo where the exhibits are people.

I can now see the appeal of eco-tourism, where before I felt like it was something hippie wannabes did. I think I would feel better about visiting a place if I were going to help dig a well or build a school in ADDITION to sightseeing and buying souvenirs. It's great to have come up a winner in the Universal Lottery, but I think there has got to be some responsibility that comes with it.

Still, another part of me thinks (hopes) that at least by visiting a place and spending some money there, I've at least done something positive. Maybe, in a teeny, tiny way, I've helped re-distribute the world's wealth just a little.

So, my trip is over, but the thinking has just started. I'm grateful to be home, I'm grateful to have a home to go back to in a country where stable (if inept) government, potable water and electricity are the norm, and I'm grateful to be among that vanishingly small percentage of the population of the world that has the luxury of engaging in tourism. I've learned something important. Now I just have to decide what to do with the information.

But no matter what I do, I know I need to do something differently.

So, it's true that travel changes a person. This trip has changed me. I'm just not sure how, yet.

Alive

Flying from Lima, Peru to Cusco - gateway to Machu Picchu - requires flying directly across the Andes. The Andes have a somewhat unfortunate reputation when it comes to air travel, and as soon as I got on the plane I started deciding which of my fellow passengers would taste the best. Just in case.

Fortunately, most of the people on the flight were college-age backpackers in their prime, and not many potentially stringy old people. Of course, happily, it didn´t come to that. We made it just fine, obviously, since if we had crashed on a mountain I probably wouldn´t be blogging right now, I´d be trying to figure out how to build a radio using rocks and frozen urine.

Still, I found the flight to Cusco a touch nerve-wracking. The approach to the airport requires flying down a valley that seemed at the time to be only slightly wider than the plane itself. I suspect, in fact, that they built the plane based on measurements of the valley. It was also in the back of my mind that Cusco is at approximately 11,000 feet above sea level, which means that there really aren´t even that many air molecules to hold the plane up in the first place. Also, Cusco airport (I made the mistake of reading before I got on board) is infamous for its wind shear. I don´t know what wind shear is, but I know I don´t want anything to do with it.

I breathed a sigh of relief when we landed safely, but since I was at 11,000 feet, all that came out was a tiny little puff, and then I got dizzy from the exertion. You might be surprised how much you really notice being 11,000 feet above sea level. Let me tell you, you notice. I bent down to get my luggage from under the seat and when I came back up, I almost blacked out. I´m fine if I lie completely prone and don´t move. But as soon as I do anything (sneeze, pick up a particularly heavy cup of coffee...) I need to stop and take a rest.

Thankfully, the Peruvians, after 400 million years (I made that number up) of living at these elevations have come up with a great way to combat altitude sickness. They call it Mate de Coca, but what it is, literally, is cocaine tea. Celestial Seasonings should grab onto this market, because trust me, it´s going places.

Now don´t get the wrong idea. You´d have to drink hundreds of gallons to get high. It´s very MILD cocaine tea. But I hope eBay doesn´t institute random drug testing any time soon, either. It does work wonders on the altitude sickness, though. Before you drink it, you are dizzy and lightheaded, and after you drink it, you are dizzy and lightheaded and you think you can walk through walls.

No really, it´s not like that. But it does seem to clear up those nagging headaches you get from the rarefied air. The interesting thing is (at least for someone from the United States) is that this beverage made from a Class IV Narcotic is available everywhere. They have a big carafe of it in the hotel lobby. They served it on the plane.

It doesn´t taste too bad, either. Never having tasted refined cocaine (really, Mom) I can´t compare, but if that´s how the street stuff tastes, I´m surprised the addicts don´t sprinkle it on ice cream.

But I digress. The main reason I came to Cusco wasn´t the cocaine, it was Machu Picchu. I went today, and really there´s no point in even trying to describe it. Suffice it to say that, without exaggeration, it is the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my entire life. It beats the Pyramids, and it beats Angkor Wat. Don´t get me wrong, those places are also amazing, but this place doesn´t even seem REAL. You come through the entry and there it is, perched on a mountain, and you are so awestruck by the sight of it that you just stand there with your mouth hanging open, frozen to the spot.

In fact, later in the day, I entertained myself by standing near the entrance and watching other people come in. It didn´t matter what language they were speaking because I could tell from their expression that they were saying the exact same thing I said. ¨Holy shhh...¨

Those Incas had a real flair for the dramatic. It´s like they always say - location, location, location. If you can pick anywhere to build your temple complex, I say build it on the top of a mountain in the Andes. You can´t beat the view.

Machu Picchu was my last stop on my round-the-world trip, and I´m glad I ended here, because I can´t imagine anything else I could see that would compare.

Now I´m off to bed and tomorrow it´s back on the plane to Lima, then home. This time, I´m packing seasoning salt in my carry on.

Last Tangle in Aires

If you ever want to feel like a big, fat, un-coordinated, gigantic-footed, stumbling clod (and who doesn't?) try dancing tango with an Argentinian.

I have discovered on my visit to Buenos Aires that Argentinans are, almost invariably, lithe, attractive, graceful and could probably tango straight from the womb. I, on the other hand, am the exact opposite. I am not lithe, attractive or graceful, and I when I dance I look like a drunk Pillsbury Doughboy. For these EXACT reasons, I chose to see a tango SHOW, where I could sit unobtrusively in the audience and watch other people be graceful. If I had wanted to dance, I would have gone to one of the approximately 15.6 million tango dance halls in Buenos Aires. There's one in the bathroom of my hotel room. It's not as if I couldn't find one if I'd wanted.

But of course when I went into the bar where the tango show was taking place, I discovered it was the size of a shoebox and had three tables. (It was recommended by the couple running the hotel where I'm staying. They didn't mention the fact that you could have fit the entire dance floor onto a TV tray.)

As soon as I walked into the door, I felt an icy finger of terror run up my spine.

"Oh God," I thought to myself, "they are going to make us come up and dance with them." It was far, far too small for me to remain hidden and anonymous in the audience. But by then it was too late. I was already being led to my table. It was some comfort that I was seated next to a Korean man who, if anything, looked even more mortified than I was. He obviously knew what was awaiting him, too.

But it was supposed to be a SHOW. A SHOW. I looked at the little brochure I'd picked up in the lobby of my hotel. It even said "Tango Show" right on it. I had been led like a lamb to the slaughter.

Suddenly there appeared on the dance floor an (of course) impeccably dressed, lithe, attractive couple who, despite having four square feet of space to work with, were quickly flipping and twirling and writhing and doing other various tango-related things. Someone once called tango "the vertical expression of a horizontal desire." After watching these dancers, I think that's fairly accurate. In fact, there were moments when I felt somewhat uncomfortable to be watching them at all. "Do you two want some privacy?" I wanted to ask.

There were a few more dances, then some singing, and I started to relax. "Maybe I was wrong," I thought to myself. "Maybe they WON'T make us dance."

But just then, as I was fiddling with my camera, I saw out of the corner of my eye some legs next to my table, and attached to them, a woman from the tango show. I pretended to be intensely focused on my camera, but then she said, in an oh-so-charming accent, "would you like to dance with me?" I couldn't even pretend not to understand her, dammit. She spoke English.

"Um."

You can't very well say "no." Not to a woman dressed to dance the tango.

She smiled at me encouragingly.

"I don't know how," I said, hoping this would end the conversation. But of course, none of the tourists ever know how, do they? That is why they bought tickets to a SHOW. People buy tickets to watch people doing something they CAN'T do. Otherwise we'd have movies about cleaning the toilet, not about car chases going the wrong way down the interstate.

"Then you will learn with me," she said. Oh she just had an answer for everything. Damn her.

Well what can you do? I didn't want to hide in the bathroom for the rest of the evening, so I got up and tried to tango. But every time I took a step I had to look down and make sure I wasn't about to crush her tiny feet. I couldn't have danced less gracefully if I'd been wearing skis.

"You can look up," she said.

"I am afraid I am going to step on your toes," I said.

"Oh, that will not happen." And she said this with the confidence of a woman who makes a living dancing with un-coordinated tourists and has thereby gained a kind of preternatural, toe-related sixth sense. And she was right, I didn't step on her toes even once. However, that is really the only positive thing I can say about my dancing -- it caused no one any injuries.

I Fly to Thee, Argentina

Well, I'm back in the Southern Hemisphere again. These hemispheres, let me tell you, they are very far apart. I started out yesterday morning in Madrid and a short 15 hours later, I arrived in Buenos Aires. Fifteen hours on an airplane wouldn't be so bad, really, if, for example, you were dead. However, since I am not currently dead, I found it somewhat horrendous. Also, my seat was broken. And I flew Air France, so my "in-flight entertainment" consisted of three movie choices: 1) "Casino Royale" (dubbed in French), 2) "Monsters, Inc." (dubbed in French), and 3) some movie about Edith Piaf (originally in French, so no dubbing was necessary). My French isn't very good, so I thought for at least 20 minutes that I was watching a French movie about Judy Garland.

Turns out Edith Piaf had kind of a rough life, as far as I can tell. I don't know how to say "addicted to intravenous painkillers" in French, but I think that's what happened to poor Edith. I still don't like her singing, though.

Of course with these overnight flights, you always land the next morning at some ungodly hour and of course your hotel room isn't ready because sane people are still in bed at that hour, including the people who are currently occupying your hotel room. So I spent the morning wandering around Buenos Aires in a half-asleep stupor. I stumbled my way into some kind of flea market where I found what might possibly be the world's largest selection of t-shirts featuring Homer Simpson dressed like Che Guevara. I almost bought one, but then I decided I would wait to see if I cound find one with Homer dressed like Eva Peron. That strikes me as classier.

So it turns out that the thing to do in Buenos Aires (if you are a tourist) is to go see a tango show. Tango is very big here. People are always tangoing. I saw people tangoing on the street, including a woman who was apparently tangoing all by herself. I am not sure if "tangoing" is really a verb, but it is here. So tomorrow, I will set off in search of some tango-related entertainment.

Not Having Contractions

There are no apostrophes on Spanish keyboards. Therefore, I cannot use contractions. It is very inconvenient, and it got me thinking ... is English the only language that uses contractions? Apparently Spanish does not. I suppose if you do not use contractions you do not need an apostrophe on your keyboard, unless it is for the tourists.

George Bernard Shaw thought using apostrophes in contractions was stupid and he refused to do so in his writing, so it is full of words like cant and dont, but I have trouble doing that because I am a copy editor at heart. You can get away with a bit more if you happen to be George Bernard Shaw.

I am in Madrid right now and it is still raining. It has been raining my entire visit to Spain. Thankfully I spend a lot of time indoors -- primarily in bars...I mean museums. Yes, museums. There are a lot of museums in Madrid, many of them containing art. I enjoy looking at art until my feet start to hurt, and then I do not really enjoy looking at art any more. Drinking red wine, happily, does not make my feet hurt. So I have options.

The Rain in Spain

It was pouring when I landed in Barcelona but I passed up the line of taxis at the airport because, dammit, I was going to use the Metro to get to my hotel. Only tourists use cabs. Of course, the fact that I was hauling a 65-pound suitcase and had no umbrella made no difference. Nor did I care it was midnight. I was a devil-may-care world traveler.

Of course, the train wasn't running because of renovations on the tracks. But that was ok because they had a bus. The friendly man in the information booth who spoke very little English told me to get off the bus at Sants train station and catch the Metro from there.

I should have been immediately suspicious when the bus stopped at Sants train station and nobody but me got off. And only after the bus pulled away did I notice the entrance to the station was closed for the night. So much for the man in the information booth.

Did I mention it was raining? Because it was raining a lot.

So there I stood, in a quiet part of town, completely lost, at 1 am, in the rain. I wasn't feeling quiet as devil-may-care at that point. "Well," I thought to myself, "I'll just hail a cab." Even though only tourists take cabs, I was willing at that point to make an exception.

Well, it turns out, strangely enough, that not a lot of cabs come by a closed train station. Did I mention it was raining?

As I stood there I noticed a group of presumably Spanish youths congregated in front of a closed store. As I watched, they proceeded to set the store's awning on fire and run away. So now, I was not only standing in the rain with a 65 pound suitcase, but I looked like I had just committed arson. If a cab didn't come by, at least I'd get picked up by the cops.

But then, like an answered prayer, came a taxi. I waved my arm frantically as it drove past and splashed me. Ah, it was full. Then another. Also full. Then another. You get the picture.

At last, I saw an empty cab. I waved my arm and he pulled up. "Hotel Adagio," I said. He looked me up and down and saw immediately I was a man in need of help. Lost in a strange part of town, in the rain, hauling a huge suitcase, he was ready to assist.

"Fifty Euros," he said.

Well, apparently we weren't going to be using the meter that evening.

"Yes, fine, yes," I said. I knew I was getting cheated but I was so wet I didn't care.

Of course, the next day I found out that cab ride should have cost me 5 Euros. It was a true-life demonstration of the law of supply and demand.

Ugly American

My friend Chris asked me how, as an American, I was being treated abroad. It's a valid question given the current political climate. I expected to encounter a fair amount of anti-American sentiment but I really haven't. I think that, unlike some Americans (think "Freedom Fries"), most people in other countries are able to separate U.S. citizens from U.S. foreign policy. Yes, I've seen more than one anti-Bush t-shirt, but I have yet to hear "Yankee, go home!"

Now, I'm not so naive as to think that this has NOTHING to do with the fact that I'm essentially a walking cash dispenser. Business owners in popular tourist destinations would probably happily serve lunch to someone with bubonic plague as long as he had money to spend. However, even the people I've met that aren't trying to sell me something have been, almost invariably, helpful and welcoming.

Cab drivers are another story. Cab drivers are angry, angry people. I suppose I can understand that. Imagine what kind of mood you'd be in if you spent every day commuting to work, but never got there.

Of course, while those I've met have been nice, I have certainly encountered some cultural misunderstandings. Probably the most memorable happened when I was passing through a metal detector to get into my hotel in Cairo. (There are metal detectors everywhere in Cairo.) It beeped and the guard gestured toward my belt, which I started to remove so I could try again. He said, "no, no" and waved me through (I suspect because I was obviously a tourist I didn't merit a lot of scrutiny).

I apologized and said, "sorry, at airports in the States we have to remove our belts." He looked at me and asked, with no hint of irony in his voice, "everyone, or just the Arabs?" From his facial expression I could tell it was a legitimate question. He really wanted to know. It was a little sad.

As a comforting side note, the stereotype of the Ugly American is, I think, exaggerated. I am sure there is no lack of rude American tourists in the world, but all the Americans I've met on my trip have been respectful of other cultures, well-behaved and genuinely seem curious to learn about their host country. I think when Americans travel now, they are aware both of our general lack of popularity with the rest of the planet, and that our reputation precedes us. I think as a result we try a little harder.

This is in stark contrast to tourists from other nations who seem to particularly enjoy standing in large, dense groups at the bottoms of escalators, entrances and exits to museums and will not move until you start using elbows and, often, knees. I think the worst behavior I've seen recently was the couple making out at the Holocaust Memorial in Prague.

I was just happy they weren't Americans.

Drive Like an Egyptian

There seem to be only two rules for driving in Cairo: 1. Every square inch of available road must be occupied at all times. 2. You must be able to prove you have a functioning horn -- every 15 seconds.

There seems to be an intricate code here expressed by honking. One honk means, "don't get in my way." Two honks means, "get OUT of my way." And three honks means "I owe you a new cat."

There's also some code involving flashing the headlights but I can't figure that one out yet.

As much as I hate to say it, I think during this entire trip so far, above everything else - the amazing sights, the interesting people and the incredibly strange food - the one thing I've gained more than anything else is a real appreciation for traffic laws. Really, it's one of those things a person doesn't appreciate until it's gone. At this point, if I had to pick the three things that define a civilization, it would be possessing a written language, a legal system, and crosswalks.

Crosswalks are wonderful. If you haven't appreciated a crosswalk lately, take a moment the next time you are crossing the street to say thanks for the little green man.

One Night (Plus Two Other Nights) In Bangkok

The song says that one night in Bangkok makes a tough man humble. What the song doesn't mention is that's because it's so damn hot. Thailand has three seasons - cool, monsoon, and hot. In a choice demonstrating a certain lack of planning on my part, I chose to visit during the hot season. The "cool" season here averages around 80 degrees, so that gives you an idea of what the hot season is like.

It's hot.

If you can get past the constant sweating, however, it really is a fascinating city. It's fascinating because of the sites (temples, Buddhas, rivers choked with ferry boats), but more so because it's so completely foreign. It's really the first non-Western city I've visited and however Westernized Bangkok actually is (and I have no illusions because today I saw a Buddhist monk wearing an iPod), it seems to me like another planet.

Case in point - I almost walked into an elephant yesterday. Literally. I was walking down the street, and I looked over my shoulder (trying to figure out what sort of food was on the cart I had just passed, and honestly it looked like a fried rat) and when I looked frontwards again, I was staring at an elephant, standing in the middle of the sidewalk.

Admittedly, I think he was there for tourist photos (for a small gratuity), and he was a small elephant (as they go) but it's still not something that's going to happen to a person in San Jose. No matter how much you want your picture taken with an elephant in San Jose, you're probably out of luck. Not so in Bangkok. Elephant photo opportunities, apparently, abound.

I felt sort of bad for the elephant. He obviously didn't enjoy standing there in the crowd, and he gave me a look that said, "You think YOU'RE out of place here, buddy? Try being an elephant on the sidewalk."

I could identify with him. I feel like an elephant on the sidewalk here, myself. I spend a lot of time either lost or getting lost; large, out-of-place, graceless and slow-moving. Throngs of Thai people flow around me like a fat, guidebook-toting island as I stare at the map, again, in confusion.

Bangkok, for all it's wonderful, humid, thronging, elephanty-ness, must be the least pedestrian-friendly city on the planet. Or if there's worse, I don't think I want to visit. First of all, there's no street signs. Second, there are no crosswalks. Crossing the street here involves eyeing oncoming traffic and leaping in front of vehicles that are the least-likely to do serious harm if they hit you. The best are the three-wheeled taxis (tuk-tuks) because not only are the easily maneuverable and can probably swerve around you, but also because if they run you down, they will probably do a lot less damage than, say, a bus. Still, I often stand at a corner and wait for some Thai people to show up and cross with them. I figure a) they probably know what they are doing, and b) drivers may be less-likely to run down a local. But largely, it seems to be a crap shoot.

Getting over the Land Down Under

I'm writing this from the airport in Seoul and everything on this computer is in Korean except the keyboard. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to post this or if I'll end up accidentally launching missles at North Korea.

I'm on my way to Bangkok now. I left Melbourne this morning (at 4:30 am) and I will get to Thailand after midnight (which is 4 am Melbourne time). So I'm looking at 24 straight hours of travel today. What's even worse is that yesterday was St. Patrick's Day and the bar in the hostel where I was staying in Melbourne had a band. A very loud band. I suppose they were playing Irish music but I decided that all music sounds the same through the wall when you're trying to sleep.

I suppose total, numbing exhaustion is all part of the adventure of travel.

Yesterday I took a tour down the Great Ocean Road, which is the Australian equivalent of the Pacific Coast Highway. It was spectacular, and it was the first time I've seen kangaroo roadkill. I tried to take a picture out of the window of the bus but we were going too fast. My conclusion, however, was that they aren't as cute when they are flat.

I also saw a koala. It was presumably alive because it was still in a tree, but they sleep 22 hours a day so it's hard to be sure if it wasn't stuffed and put there by the tour company.

The most famous natural wonder along the Great Ocean Road is the Twelve Apostles, which are rock formations along the coast. The name is a little misleading, though, because thanks to erosion there are only nine left. But I suppose it would be too expensive to change the signs every time one fell over. Even though there were only nine left, however, it was one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen. I wore out the batteries in my camera taking pictures, but they'll never do it justice. I was sorry to leave Australia so soon.

Didgeri do's and don'ts

If you ever decide to take a trip around the world, my first bit of advice to you is to buy one of those little electric carts you see fat people driving at the mall. My feet are reaching levels of truly exquisite pain. I don't know why anyone would bother with bamboo under the fingernails. Just send your prisoners on three walking tours of Sydney in two days and throw in a musuem on Aboriginal history. Right now, I would admit anything just for a chance to sit on a bench.

"Yes, I have blueprints for nuclear weapons stuffed in my pants. I admit to everything. Please, just don't make me look at the exhibit on didgeridoos."

I keep telling myself that whatever doesn't kill me can only make me stronger. My feet can't hurt this much for five straight weeks. They will either get used to it, go numb completely, or fall off. In any case, they will stop hurting, and if they fall off, I can justify getting a little cart.

Last night I took a "ghost tour" of the oldest part of Sydney, called The Rocks. It's where the first convict settlers lived, and is obviously the site of many ghastly stories involved murder, mayhem and overall bad manners. It's a natural place for a ghost tour, and it was interesting hearing the sordid past history of the city and all its supposed spirit inhabitants. However, I came to the conclusion during the tour that, try as they might, Australians cannot be scary. It's something about that accent. They always sound so jovial. So my poor tour guide, bless him he was trying so hard - flashlight under his chin and the Shakesperian English and everything - and it was just impossible to take him seriously. It was sort of like watching Paul Hogan hosting Masterpiece Theater.

Well, tonight I leave on a flight for Melbourne. I'm looking forward to being able to sit down for at least 90 minutes. I'm hoping for one of those nine-hour delays where the plane is stuck on the tarmac. That would be great.

Paul is Dead

I've been very disappointed by the toilets in Australia. Despite what I've always been lead to believe, they do NOT flush in the wrong direction. I spent several minutes flushing yesterday with my digital camera at the ready and never once was I able to gather photographic proof of the supposed clockwise flush. I got some strange looks doing this, so maybe I shouldn't have been using a public restroom.

After spending several days staring at the Abbey Road poster in my hotel room, I suddenly realized that, encoded within it is a secret message. Brace yourselves. I think Paul is dead! See, he's got bare feet. And also, George is dressed like a gravedigger. This is all very significant, especially when you're jet-lagged. It's such a tragedy. He was so young...

Lest you think Australian popular culture starts and stops with the Beatles, however, I want everyone to know that the American influence can be seen here, as well. Just yesterday I saw a gift shop selling "Vote for Pedro" t-shirts. Everyone in Utah will be happy to know that, once again, you are setting the international standard for campy hipness.

In another odd discovery, I have found that Detroit Tigers hats seem to the be latest fashion craze here. I see them in the windows of clothing stores all over town. I wonder if most people in Australia even know where Detroit is. Also, I want to know -- why the Tigers? Why not the Red Wings? I would think Australians would have a lot easier time identifying with hockey than baseball. After all, this is a nation founded by convicts, and I think 80% of the players in the NHL have arrest records.

I recently developed a blister on my left foot approximately the size of a grapefruit half. Due to this, I have been spending a lot of time today lying in my room watching TV. After several hours of this, I am lead to the unavoidable conclusion that Australian television is the worst on the planet. I thought British television was bad (four channels, all cricket), but it is nothing compared to the television here. Here it is four channels, but they show nothing except quiz shows involving fifth-graders. You might think this was national pride, a public demonstration of the highly educated nature of Australia's youth, but they seem to get most of the questions wrong. Australia may actually have stupider schoolchildren than the US (47% of whom, I read in a recent study, think Abraham Lincoln was the lead singer in REM). I vote we invade them now, while we are still smarter than they are.

Hemispheric Atmospheric

Sydney looked exactly like it was supposed to. My plane from Seoul descended through a layer of clouds just as the sun was rising and my first view of this continent was the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House sitting on the water in all their iconic splendor. I said to myself "my God, there it is" and the words just popped out of my mouth without any premeditation. It's one of those views that elicit almost a reflexive response of awe.

My hotel, also, elicited a similar reflexive response. In that case, it was "my God, this is it? For eighty dollars a night?" I won't go into too much unpleasant detail, suffice it to say that it features a bunk bed and an Abbey Road poster covering some mysterious stains on the wall. It looks a lot like a dorm room, only not as clean. Sort of like you might picture the dorm at a college that granted degrees in, for example, crack dealing.

Still, after 22 hours on a plane, I was just happy to have access to a flat surface, and I fell quickly asleep. Only later did I wonder if I should have checked first for fleas. I am sure the fleas in Australia can spit paralytic venom over 30 feet. Everything in this country is deadly. Even the cats here are venomous.

After I woke up (thankfully, flea-free) I stumbled out onto the street and walked in ever-widening concentric circles until I located some coffee. I drank two cups of something they call a "tall black", which I later found out was straight espresso served in a cup the size of a washtub. So after that I was able to cross many, many items off my itinerary at high speed, although they were all slightly blurry because my eyes wouldn't stay still. But now, the caffeine has worn off and I'm ready for bed.

Pills, pills, pills!

I was packing tonight and I realized I am taking eight different prescription medications with me on this trip. I have an entire bag devoted to pills. At my doctor's recommendation, I have anti-malaria pills, pills for altitude sickness (Cusco, Peru is at 11,300 feet), antibiotics (for some reason he tossed those in when he found out I was going to Bangkok), pills in case I get typhoid, pills in case I drink the water (if you know what I mean)...I can't keep track of them. For all I know, there are some pills in here that make me invisible and let me see through time.

My primary concern is not that I am going to get sick, it's that I'm going to get arrested for walking around with 65 pounds of pills in my suitcase. I don't want to end up like the guy in "Midnight Express". It's not that I'm too pretty to go to prison, I just hate having a roommate.

I wonder if this is what people mean when they talk about "adventure travel". Can you measure adventure in number of prescriptions? If so, where do I rank having 8 of them? I can't imagine what ailment could befall me that I do not already have a pill to counteract. Maybe there's some disease in New Guinea that makes your hand take on a life of its own and try to strangle you. I don't have a pill for that one. But what good would a pill be when you couldn't even open the child-proof cap because your hand is trying to kill you? I leave it to medical science to address these questions.

I feel a certain amount of embarrassment having all these pills because each pill is physical evidence of my weak, Westernized immune system. Do the Cambodians walk around popping anti-malaria pills all day? No, they don't. They just get malaria. And I bet they don't bitch about it, either.

I wonder if growing up there it's similar to the West, when the neighbor kid gets chicken pox and your parents send you off to play with him. "Why don't you go play with Phirun? He's got malaria and that disease where your hand tries to kill you. Take a sweater."

There's no doubt about it -- my immune system is a pansy.

Advanced Preparations

The closer my departure date creeps, the more sure I become that I am going to forget to do something vital before I leave, and when I come home I will find that I have somehow managed to black out the entire city of San Jose by leaving the iron on, or lost my citizenship, or had my car repossessed.

It's not until I tried to plan a five-week absence from the country that I realized that life really isn't easily put on hold. PG&E doesn't care if I'm on vacation and people are just going to keep sending me mail.

I've done what I can to prepare, but I know that when I arrive home, something will have gone wrong. The lights will be shut off or the fish will be dead. Except I don't have fish. But what if I come home and find someone has MAILED me fish? THOSE fish will most certainly be dead. I don't need that kind of bad karma.

So whoever reads this, don't mail me any fish for the next five weeks.

Anyway, I decided finally that all I can do is try to cross everything off my To Do list and then hope for the best. And remember to throw away the leftover Hamburger Helper.

A few thoughts prior to leaving

I decided to take a trip around the world for three reasons. First, I have a deep fascination and respect for the various cultures that make up the great human experience. Second, I had a lot of frequent flyer miles. And lastly (and perhaps most importantly) I wanted to explore dysentery as a potential weight-loss program.

Therefore, when I realized I had saved up quite a bit of time off at work and double-checked to confirm I was still unmarried and had no children, I decided to cram an extra pair of socks in a sandwich bag and hit the road.

Ha ha. Just kidding of course. It wasn't that easy. A trip around the world requires a surprising amount of advance planning -- things like finding the suitcase that the cat hasn't peed on, buying shoe inserts and doing lots of Google searches such as "tourist shootings at an all-time low in ". Don't forget the quotes.

Some would say that you shouldn't over-plan these things. Some would say let the road rise up to meet you. Some would say let the Earth be your guide. Let the dust of ancient civilizations soak into your pores until you become one with the great, unending cycle of human history. Those people are dumbasses.

The problem is that we've all been sold this idea by today's media that travel isn't really travel unless you end up sitting in some malarial swamp eating stew made from toad scrotums and spit and picking ticks the size of cantaloupes out of your hair. People aren't allowed to say "I went to Paris and stayed at the Westin" anymore because that just elicits a round of eye-rolling that implies you might as well have stayed home watching CHIPs re-runs and eating TV dinners.

Apparently, the theory goes, the rest of the world has now been so Americanized that unless you have to be inserted into your vacation spot by green berets, your trip overseas doesn't count. To me this seems like the ultimate irony because thanks to Netflix and pizza delivery, most of the time the only thing that gets the average American out of his or her home is a gas leak. In other words, it's easy to criticize someone else for not taking enough travel risks as you wedge another handful of Cheez Its into your mouth.

I, for one, don't want to hear it. Yes, admittedly, there are lots of places in the world where the influence of America is felt, where people cater to tourists and where toilet seats are sealed with "For Your Protection" wrappers. But I say, don't discount these places. I say, embrace your sanitized toilet (not literally) and your bottled water. For God's sake, at least you're leaving the house.