A Post of Positively Palpable Profundity, Perhaps

(This post was written as below.  Nothing new was added.  Somehow, it was lost in the cybersphere, never having made it to the blog, so I am reposting it today Jan 14, 2015.  )

Well, as of today, Sept. 1, 2013, we have officially hit the one-year anniversary of our departure to the great unknown. We got back seven weeks ago, but I decided to give it a little time before I wrote this final blog post, with the hope that a more removed perspective would elicit eloquence.  Everyone wants to know what we learned on this trip, and in what ways we grew as people because of this trip.  Even when looking back after seven weeks of time to digest it all, I can honestly say that I still don’t know the answers to those questions.  But in the process of writing this, hopefully something sage shall surface.  I promise to grow wiser by the end of this writing.

To begin, I want to summarize a little of what we accomplished on paper in those ten months and eleven days.  If Central America counts as part of South America, which it actually does in some people’s eyes (though I am aware that it is usually grouped in with North America) then we hit five continents.  Australia and Antarctica be damned.  Of course, some people also include Australia in the greater continent "Oceania" in which case we hit that continent too, since we went to Bali in Indonesia.  So in a way, the only continent we missed was Antarctica.  It's on my bucket list.

We slept under 79 different roofs (why is it not "rooves" like "hooves"?), and an even 80 if you count our own, since we did have to travel to get back to it.  We actually did go 'round the world, as when we crossed the oceans we were always going west, never east.  We logged over 57,000 miles of travel, equivalent to well more than two full revolutions around the Earth at the equator. 38,000 of those miles were by plane (19 flights in all).

Here is some good fun, read this!  The rest of the miles traveled were by rental car, bus, electric train, steam train, cruise ship, speedboat, water taxi, land taxi, subway, tuk-tuk, foot, bicycle, surfboard, boogie-board, horse, kayak, zipline, elephant, motorbike, cable car, Swiss-Alps-type gondola, Venetian-canals-type gondola, chair-lift, bobsled, funicular, motorized fishing boat, ferry, river raft, rowboat, camel and swimsuit (yes, we floated down the River Kwai at a pretty good clip for a couple of miles with only swimsuits and life jackets to carry us.) 

The Swiss Alps gondola near Gimmelwald.

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Our own personal driver with his tuk-tuk in Siem Reap, Cambodia

Floating down the River Kwai at maybe 15kph

We visited 27 countries, if you include Vatican City and Monaco as countries. I do. We learned how to say “hello, goodbye, please, thank you, yes and no” in 17 official languages.  We bought things using 16 different monetary systems (would have been a whole lot more a decade or two ago, before the culture-squashing Euro came around). I lost one camera, two hats, four pairs of sunglasses, and my wedding ring, not to mention my pride on multiple occasions.  I had one bone broken, one eye infection, and three separate nasty rashes that shall remain unspoken of from here on out. I had two colds, one flu virus and a single digit number, but only barely, of attacks of Montezuma’s revenge, or food poisoning, or water poisoning, or whatever else it was that brought me to intimate terms with the nearest toilet. I gained 15 pounds in Europe alone.  Chloe gained four inches and three shoe sizes.  We all gained invaluable experience with feeling like idiot American tourists for future trips.

This "fridge of glory" pic only represents the parts of Europe that we visited.

So what does that all add up to?  What did we take away from the trip other than our 45 refrigerator magnets and 42 overly lengthy blog posts?  How am I different than I was a year ago today, other than the extra 15 pounds?  Well, I still don’t have the answer, so I’ll let the kids take a shot at this first.  Here is the final summary post from each of them.

Josh (age 10): Bad trip, good trip, yummy food trip.

A lot of people ask me what my favorite parts of the trip were.  But that is a hard question to answer because the trip was so big, how could I just choose one or two things?  Do they mean my favorite country? My favorite thing we did?  My favorite food?  One thing I figured out pretty fast is that I didn’t really like just seeing things on the trip like scenery. I mean it can be cool like the mountains in Switzerland, but I like doing things much more, like those times with waterslides, or zip lines, or the bobsled, or the ropes course.

Riding the bobsled in Slovenia with a view of Lake Bled below

So here are some of the things I really enjoyed doing the most on the trip and why. I thought a place called Arenal in Costa Rica was awesome because there was a hot springs there that had an attached water park.  There were three water slides there that we used. One slide had a shallow slope and boiling hot water at the bottom. One had warm water and a super steep slope that you went over 25 mph going down. There was no line there and I loved going face first down. The last one was also warm and always had a line. That slide was looooooooong and had lots of twists and turns. It was fun and I found a technique for going fast. It was to go on my swimsuit covered knees.

Flying into the nearly 100 degree F waters.

Told ya I was going fast!

Another good time was when we celebrated my birthday in Slovenia where we bobsledded, bungee jumped on a trampoline and did a ropes course with zip lines all in one day.  You can read about that in another blog post called “Ultra Fun Day”.  But there were so many other fun days to choose from, like the day where I rode a camel in Morocco, or those squid fishing days in Thailand, or when we got to play with the elephants in Kanchanaburi, or when we went snorkeling and jelly fish poking in Bali and got to ride on the pontoon of our boat for a while.  As long as we were actually doing stuff instead of just looking at stuff, I was content.

Bungee Boy

Chloe caught four squids in Thailand.

Riding the pontoon during a snorkeling trip in Bali

Not that there weren’t some pretty darn cool things to see like the Cenotes in Mexico, or the temples at Chichinitza, or the waterfalls in Costa Rica, or the Eiffel Tower.  I even loved Lake Como, Italy for the beautiful water.  But even then, the best part was piloting the speedboat on the lake.

They didn't let you climb the temple in Chichinitza (shown here), but they did on the taller ones in Ek Balam!

The cenotes in Mexico are underground lakes that used to be sacred places, and now are just swimming holes.

There were also some things I really didn’t enjoy. I didn’t like the heavy crowds, the bad European weather, or the stinky metros. The worst crowds were in Rome.  It was so packed in the Pantheon that I couldn’t move.  And we went to four times as many museums and castles in Europe as I would have liked.

The craziest moments of the trip were the earthquakes, the flipped kayaks, and the ditch that we got stuck in, all in Costa Rica.  Then there were the seagulls that hit both Chloe’s and my dad’s heads and grabbed their pasties in England.  Or maybe the crazy taxi driver in Bangkok that never got us to where we wanted to go even though he insisted that he could and just kept driving and driving...

Oh and then there was the food. Mmmmmmmmm, that was good food. My favorites were the Italian pizzas and gelatos, the Pad Thai from Thailand, and I think the rack of ribs in Cornwall.  But I certainly didn’t mind the fondue from Switzerland or the casados from Costa Rica either. The chocolate from Belgium was awful good but I think the Swiss chocolate was even better. My dad disagrees about that order. But I never need to eat fish for breakfast ever again like we did in Japan.

Breakfast in Japan (seven kinds of seafood)

Here is a list of more of my favorite things from the trip.

My favorite meal was those ribs and also the stew that my mom got that same meal in Cornwall, England. My favorite dessert was my birthday cake because the frosting was just a mixture of butter and sugar. My favorite apartment that we stayed in was in a town called Lauterbrunnen (pronounced low(rhymes with cow)-ter-broo-nen) in Switzerland because the sofas were comfortable, the place was really big, and it had a good table to play can pong on (ping pong with a net made of cans). My favorite animals were the coatis from Mexico, the camels from Morocco, the elephants from Thailand, and the toucans and monkeys from Costa Rica. 

My favorite thing from a museum was a chess set made in Norway in the 12th century and the pieces were made out of walrus ivory. My favorite big city was Paris because of the Eiffel tower, which I think was the one tourist attraction I enjoyed for more than a few seconds. My favorite non-flying transportation was going from Paris to London in the EuroStar train through the Chunnel because of the cozy seats and the yummy toasted sandwich. My favorite view from our house was looking down from a place in Costa Rica called Baru because of the valley with all the green trees and a couple of waterfalls here and there. 

The view from our porch in Baru, Costa Rica

My favorite airport was the Singapore airport because it had TV, foot massagers, and shiny bathrooms that had a screen asking how good your experience was. It also had a pool and movie theaters that we didn’t use. And last but not least my favorite walk was any one that we got to swim in the waterfalls along the way, because I don’t like to hike, but I do like to get wet.

Hiking trips are fine as long as you can get wet.

When you add it all up I really enjoyed the trip. It’s true. And I also know it was a great experience, but I am still glad to be home.

-Josh

Chloe (age 12): We went to so many exciting places on our trip around the world. A few of my favorites are Samara, Bali, Morocco, and Italy.

In Samara we got to hang out on the beach, play in the waterfalls, and best of all we got to learn how to surf.

Chillin' at home in Samara, pina colada style.

I also loved getting to go to Bali. I loved snorkeling, and saw so many exotic fish in the crystal clear water. But the most fun parts about the snorkeling trip were the little squish jellyfish, and getting to ride on a side bar of the boat. The other thing I loved about Bali was our hotel in Ubud. They had an amazing amount of space with big beds and comfortable pillow chairs. They brought breakfast up to your room every morning, and the food was delicious. I always got a cheese jaffle, a fruit bowl and a smoothie.

Bali snorkeling

Breakfast in Ubud in our room

Next up comes Morocco where we got to ride camels! The orange sand dunes were such a pretty contrast to the blue sky. And the camels were so friendly. It was amazing to get to watch the view go by while you were sitting on a fuzzy camel. The craziest part of the ride was when you got on and off the camels. They would sit down so it would be easier for you to get up, but then they would just get up on their back legs lurching you forwards and then get all the way up. After I managed to stay on while the camel got up, we all set off for our tent in the desert. I decided to name my camel Fuzzel because he’s a fuzzy camel. At the very end of our trip we hiked up a dune and watched the sunset.

The camels were super friendly.  Except dad's, his was aloof  (he's at the top of the pic)

Lastly I loved Italy because of all the beautiful views, the amazing gelato, and all of the famous sights. A few of the best views we had were in Amalfi and Lake Como. Both of which overlooked the water. We also got to see many of the places I had learned about in school, which made it very exciting to see in real life after envisioning them. Some of them were Pisa, Pompeii, Rome, and Venice. Lastly they had amazing gelato in all sorts of flavors. Just to make it better, it was all over the country. I’d say we had some almost every day.

Chloe took this shot of our night gondola ride in Venice

I am so glad that we got to go on all of these wonderful adventures on such an extraordinary trip.

-Chloe

Steve (age 93): OK, well that was fun.  Now it’s time to hear from an adult.  Carol? You got anything?  No, I didn’t think so.  OK, forget the adult perspective.  You’re stuck with mine.  Though I’m still not yet feeling profound.  How about a few lists from me just as I asked the kids to do?  The most frequently asked question is “What was your favorite place on the trip?”  As Josh indicated, that is too broad a question to answer.  So I’ve narrowed things down a bit.  My top three in each category.  Please note: these opinions are solely my own.  You've heard from the kids.  Carol will have her own opinions.

My favorite countries (if I really have to choose):  1. Costa Rica    2. Italy   3. Thailand

Favorite big cities:   1. Barcelona    2. Prague   3. London

Favorite smaller cities:    1. Bruges, Belgium    2. Lucca, Italy    3. Ljubljana, Slovenia

Favorite spots in which I’d vacation again in a heartbeat:  1. Amalfi Coast, Italy   2. Lake Como, Italy               
      3. Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

Friendliest people:    1. Cambodia    2. Costa Rica   3. Austria

Best natural scenery:   1. Swiss Alps    2. Italian Amalfi Coast    3. Costa Rican Waterfalls                                      Honorable Mention: Skocjanske Caves in Slovenia

Best ruins:   1. Angkor Thom, Cambodia    2. Ek Balam, Mexico    3. Castles of England & Scotland

Best museums: 1. Musee d’Orsay, Paris   2. Van Gogh, Amsterdam  3. Churchill, London

Best food:  1. Thailand    2. Italy    3. France

Biggest surprise (the good kind):  1. Slovenia    2. Cambodia    3. Malacca, Malaysia

Best one-time experiences:  1. Sahara Desert overnight (camels!) in Morocco                                       
      2. Elephant care in Kanchanaburi, Thailand    3. Island hopping in Thailand

Places I’d most likely enjoy living:  1. Samara, Costa Rica    2. Haarlem, the Netherlands                       
      3. Harrogate, England

Best castles: 1. Neuschwanstein, Germany  2. Carcassone, France   3. Alnwick, England

Best chocolate: 1. Belgium    2. Switzerland   3. nobody else deserves to be on this list.

Coolest wild animals:  1. Costa Rican monkeys   2. Thai elephants  3. Mexican coatis

Smarter than the average American

Coatis are so cute that you want to take them home with you

Favorite accommodations: 1. Augill Castle, England   2. Samara Rental House                                      
 3. Hotel in Ubud, Bali  4. Tree-house in Rancho Mastatal, Costa Rica   5. Cozy cottage, Cotswolds

Best churches:  1. Sagrada Familia, Barcelona    2. Notre Dame, Paris   3. St. Peter’s, Vatican City

Best (not in ruins) temples:  1. Japan   2. Thailand   3. Bali

Worst places for breakfast:  1. Japan   2. Japan   3. Japan

OK.  That’s enough listing.  If you didn’t get your question answered, you’ll just have to ask it out loud.

So here is what I learned about traveling.  First, if you speak English, then there is no language barrier anywhere, anymore.  An occasional translation app. might be necessary only if you aren’t near a big city where you can always find someone who speaks English.  So the world is that much smaller.  Plus, with Skype and cell phones and the internet, you never really have to leave home behind when you travel.  Everyone back home can be along for the ride.  You are always able to communicate and so the whole idea of travel is much less scary than it once was.

Second, unless your children are not typical American children, they might not do so well with lots of moving around, and they probably won’t care about seeing the things you want to see.  So you probably shouldn’t bring them along on your trip unless they are old enough to be left with their electronic devices in the hotel room so you can enjoy a nicely alliterative sight-seeing stroll sans the sass.  When we finally gave up on trying to bring a little culture into our children’s lives and just took off and enjoyed the town without them, everything got a lot easier and more fun.  Now that isn’t to say that Chloe and Josh saw nothing but the inside of apartment rentals.  We dragged them on many an adventure.  But when we just wanted to explore a new town, once we didn’t feel compelled to have them in tow, all was much easier.  They saw plenty.  But we got to see even more!

Third, less is more.  But more is more too.  There is no wrong way to do it, but it works best if you do a trip like this in lots of different modes.  We all loved staying put in one place more than moving from place to place every other day.  Even it meant seeing fewer hotspots, we got to really enjoy the ones we saw if we stayed put for a while.  But on the other hand, once you are already there, thousands of miles from home, you will want to see as many new sights as possible.  Who knows when you will get another chance?  And every town has its own character.  Every sight is worth seeing once.  So rather than changing accommodations every other day, establishing a home base and taking day trips is worth the extra driving, especially if it means sticking to a place with a good kitchen. A great example for us was staying in a house in Lucca, Italy for a week, we were able to make day trips to Pisa, Florence, Tuscany, and the Cinque Terre region, without ever having to repack.

Fourth, traveling light is way underrated.  The less stuff you have, the more energy you have.  You can always burn all of those clothes you wore for seventy-three straight days when you get home.  Less is definitely more in this area. 

Fifth, big cities are amazing.  But little towns are better.  This is rather obvious in Costa Rica and in Asia, where most of the big cities are either dumps or simply nightmarishly crowded (Singapore stands out as the exception here).  But even in Europe, where people dream of heading to Paris and Prague, I still think the best parts are the little towns and the countryside.  The smaller the town, the more friendly and accessible are its people.  Being a tourist is one thing.  Being able to relax and communicate with the natives is far superior to that. These smaller towns were where I think we really got the most out of the trip.  The kids were always happier on a farm stay than in a cramped apartment in the city.  Come to think of it, so were Carol and I.  The mood was more relaxed and life felt more like how real people actually live in these other parts of the world.  In the big cities it could often feel like a social studies field trip to points A through Q on a tight schedule, and hence more touristy, less world-traveler-ish.

Our little town in Western Austria where we met the most wonderful people and actually spent quality time with them.

Having dinner cooked for you in a local's home beats any restaurant, any time. 

Our little Italian elf, in whose house we ate the fabulous dinner above, cooked by his daughters. 

Finally, one should never underestimate the power of a treat to get one’s children, or one’s wife as the case may be, to take that extra metro ride to see that one last tourist attraction.  “We can get a gelato right after we see the Trevi Fountain!”  “We can go out for pizza instead of eating in if you come see the Arc de Triomph with me!”  It works almost every time.  The only side effect is that you gain fifteen pounds in a matter of weeks and have to spend months afterward working it back off.  But it is so totally worth it not only because you get to see the fountain or the arch, but more importantly because the ice cream always tastes so good after you've put in that extra effort!

Belgian chocolate was a particularly good motivator.

OK.  Enough travel drivel.  When do we get to dig deep, here?  The real questions people have asked involve what we learned about life, about ourselves, and about humanity.  Surely an odyssey such as this brings great wisdom?  “Let’s have it!”, you demand.  “Where’s the beef?”

One way of answering those questions is to be honest with ourselves about whether we fulfilled our goals for the trip.  Well, we set out with the modest goals of (1) learning a little Spanish, (2) volunteering a bit of our time, (3) becoming closer as a family, and (4) seeing things we couldn’t even begin to imagine before they happened.  So how’d we do?  

(1) We learned very little Spanish, because everyone in Costa Rica seemed to speak English, so falling back on that was just too easy. Even if we asked a question in Spanish, we’d get a reply in English. And they don't even speak Spanish in Barcelona, so no luck there.  Oh well.  We did spend a lot of fun time with "Learn Spanish!" apps.

(2) We never ended up volunteering with any organization because we couldn’t find a program that didn’t also charge us an arm and a leg for doing so. We had time and energy to spare, but no surplus limbs to speak of. It really shouldn't be so hard to volunteer. I know they are trying to make sure you are serious before committing to you, but often they'd ask for thousands of dollars to afford you the opportunity to lend a hand! And since we wanted to remain flexible with our time, the options were slim pickings.  Perhaps on a future trip we will make volunteering a first priority and will arrange the trip ahead of time with that goal in mind.

(3) I think we all feel as though perhaps we were a little too close together as a family, often sharing a single room for days in a row.  Most parents dream of getting to spend more quality time with their family, until they actually get to spend that much time together and then they start counting the days until school starts again.  We saw quite a bit of each other. Mostly that was a good thing. I’m sure we’ll cherish those memories in thirty years or so. But it is really nice to be able to close the door on our offspring every once in a while. That said, I do feel closer to each of my family members than I did before the trip, so "mission accomplished".

(4) Finally, we saw many things that would have been unimaginable if it weren’t for the History Channel and Animal Planet and the National Geographic Channel.  Don’t get me wrong, we were still wowed and inspired enough to blog about them, and photograph them ad nauseum.  And our memories will last a lifetime, but there were few surprises outside of the earthquakes on our first day.  The problem here was not with the trip itself, but rather with our overly lofty expectations.

So we didn’t really meet too many of our specific goals.  But that’s okay, because we accomplished things we hadn’t even set out to accomplish, right?  Absolutely, yes.  

• For example, I overcame my fear of pushy street vendors.  That’s huge, right?  Sadly I only managed to replace it with an entirely more embarrassing fear of the bovine variety (see England post).  
• I learned how to surf, not well, but I can honestly say, "Yes, I surf."  On the other hand, judging from my play yesterday, I completely forgot how to play tennis in the interim.  
• I got through both the seventh and the fourth grade curricula with my kids.  Huge!  In the process I learned that I never, ever want to home-school my children again. Thirty sarcastic, unmotivated teenagers in a lab are a whole lot easier to deal with than my own kin. 
• I checked a whole bunch of places off of my bucket list.  But now that I know how cool some parts of the world are, my list is longer than ever.  
• I got to spend almost every waking hour of over three hundred days with my beloved family. But that meant I had to spend almost every waking hour of over three hundred days with the same three people who probably wanted a break from me even more than the other way around.

Was there nothing I learned or accomplished that comes without a “but”?  I refuse to come to the conclusion that all of this wasn’t worth it! No, that’s definitely NOT the point.  It was absolutely worth it. I don't know if my tone is coming across correctly here.  I'm not trying to convince myself of anything.  I am 100% convinced.  I'm just having a hard time conveying it.  I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. Well, except the home-schooling stuff. I have no regrets regarding this trip. It was epic. It was awesome. It was so mind-bogglingly incredible, that I have no words to describe it. I just don’t feel like I am a new person for having taken it. Sigh. 

OK.  Personal growth occurred, no doubt.  Just not to the levels I'd hoped.  But I still have to get profound or I am doing you, my readers, an injustice.  So I’m not giving up on this post just yet.  Bear with me for just a little bit longer.

What I learned about humanity is worth a paragraph or two.  We were shocked by how much more worldly the average person is in comparison to the average American (say, me, for instance).  Europeans travel internationally about ten times as much as Americans. And they are very well informed.  Heck, not just the Europeans.  One pool guy at a hotel in Bali asked Carol if Arnold Schwarzzeneger turned out to be a better governor than Gray Davis. I’d be willing to bet that over 90% of Californians couldn’t tell you who Gray Davis is. We don’t even know if Indonesia has a king or a president, much less how politics work in Bali.  How the hell is this pool guy up on California politics? He has never left that island! 

I have never bought into the idea of the superiority of America as a nation above all others.  Maybe that was true in the 1950’s.  Maybe.  But I’m dying to know what we’ve got that most central and western European nations don’t, other than bass-ackwards gun laws and health care laws and election rules and so on and so on.  I guess this trip opened up my eyes even a little more as to the reasons other nations do not take Americans very seriously.  We mostly just do not have a clue what it is like outside of our own country.  Preconceived notions are usually ill-conceived.  America definitely does not have the upper-hand when it comes to freedoms and human rights and morality.

I also learned a bit about happiness.  I’ve never been too ambitious as far as wealth goes.  Heck, I chose a teaching career.  But I’m still an American and I still have about fifty times more stuff than I really need.  Costa Rica often wins worldwide for having the “happiest” people on average.  This is determined simply by international surveys asking people to rank how happy they are in a bunch of different ways of asking that one basic question.  What are they so happy about?  Most of them live in what we would call poverty in the U.S.  They have no things to entertain them.  They have very little variety in the foods they eat.  Their wages are so low that they cannot afford to travel.  I’m surprised they can even afford their food.  And yet, they all smile all the time.  They are about as friendly as people come.  They don’t let circumstances affect their mood, rather they impose their good mood on the circumstances, thereby changing their environment.  Four months of living “La Pura Vida” wasn’t enough to transform me into Mr. Sunshine.  But it certainly was a healthy dose!

We also learned something from the people in Cambodia.  I don't know how happy they are as a generalization.  I have no data.  But I do know they were unbelievably friendly.  They would go 1000 miles out of their way for you like it was less than 10 feet.  And talk about living in poverty.  Broken down shacks in shantytowns of dirt and dirty air were all they had.  Still, nothing but smiles and warm welcomes and genuine heartfelt humanity exuded from their beings. Perhaps on some level they knew that we were bringing our money into their economy and so therefore helping them in some abstract way. But there is no way you fake that level of gratefulness and friendliness every day of your life. These people could teach us a lot about what it is to be human.

What else did I learn about myself?  How else am I wiser?  Well, I admit that there was a touch of fear of the unknown when we set out on this journey.  But now that I think on it, perhaps that fear is a part of being alive and taking risks.  No risks, no fear, but also no gain.  So I guess fear can be a good thing.  The mere existence of the fear means that we are moving in new directions.  We did what most people only ever dream of doing.  In a way, that means we overcame our fear.  That’s growth, right?  

Everybody is now asking me where I stand with my career.  It is an honest, good question to which I have no answer at present.  I don’t quite know where I stand.  But I prefer to think that I’m not standing at all.  I like to think I’m moving.  Even now that the trip is over, I’m still in motion.  I don’t know quite where I’m going, but neither did I know that for much of the trip, as we planned most of it on the fly.  And that turned out pretty good, so here’s hoping that approach continues to work.  I am a bit fearful still about where I'll end up, but that is just because I’m not done taking risks.

Another poignant question that gets asked daily is whether I’m happy to be back.  Well, the easy answer is yes, for the sake of sanity, since my children could not go another day without their friends.  But if my family was still game, and if we still had the funds, I think I’d rather still be out there exploring the world.  It is such a big place.  When you highlight the countries that we visited on a map you barely cover five percent of the landmass of the Earth. What's more, of those countries that we did see any part of at all, we probably saw less than 1% of each (well, except Costa Rica; we would only need another year to cover that tiny country).  There is so much more to see that I feel I’ve barely begun.  And seeing is only the half of it.  Experiencing is another thing entirely.  I’m not sure we experienced as much as we’d hoped.  Somebody, maybe Oscar Wilde, maybe Oscar the Grouch, once said something about experience being not just what you’ve seen, but rather being what you do with what you’ve seen.  I’m still working on that.

Well, that's really all I've got.  Socrates, I am not.  I can't even deep think when I'm wearing scuba gear.  But I've done my best to record my thoughts along the way and hopefully it has been worth the read. Perhaps my family and I have inspired you to begin your own adventure sometime soon. Just be sure to blog about it so I can be the one to live vicariously next time!

Our neighbors sure are happy we're back.

Thanks for reading.  Hope you enjoyed the blog as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Adios,

Esteban