Being Home

Adjusting to life back at home was tough. We were warned that the worst culture shock of this trip would be returning home, and it is true.

The scariest person that I saw on this whole trip was in the Houston airport, while I was transferring flights on the way home. He was wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots, denim jeans and a red flannel shirt covered by a Bud Light/Nascar jacket. He had a huge cross on his belt buckle. This was a 250 lb “Cowboy for Christ” type of guy. I don’t mean to slam Christians, it is just that hicks scare the shit out of me. I actually got up and moved to the other side of the terminal. Overreaction? Probably. But the fear was real!

I have heard stories of people going into deep boughts of depression after returning from SAS. I didn’t have anything that bad, but I definitely was lacking motivation for a lot of things. It was a real struggle to buckle down and learn about “maximum shearing stress theory” and other engineering curriculum. It just seemed very insignificant after what I had just done.

Having a cell phone and a constant schedule was also a shock. The computer and television are constantly trying to suck me in, and it is hard to resist.

The hardest thing for most people is not being able to be understood by people back at home. After such a powerful experience, everybody comes back very different, but things at home are still the same. People ask me about my trip, and they listen for about 40 seconds. Then their eyes glaze over, they start looking around, and change the subject to Paul and Suzan’s breakup or the new computer. It is hard when you realize that you are different now, and nobody gets it. I have been a bit of a lone wolf for most of my life, and I don’t need to constantly be understood, so it is not that hard for me to keep it to myself. I am also lucky to have met great friends on the ship that go to UCSB that I can talk with when I need to.

I was worried a bit when I saw how quickly I started to fall into my old habits. But after a while I realized that I will not be the same person I was. The old routine is so easy to follow, but it isn’t the end of the world. I have a new idea of who I want to be, but it doesn’t change over night. I don’t care how many new episodes of Lost or Sopranos you put in front of me, the flame that is in my belly is not going out! Things are good, and will only get better.

It Really Happened!

Look at the route. Unbelievable.

Why You Need To Go On Semester At Sea

This trip changed me. It has been the most significant event of my life, and I will never be the person I was before I left. I still have a twisted sense of humor, love burritos and all that stuff, but the way I see things is different.

My lifestyle on the ship was completely different from back at home. I had no phone, no television, and limited access to the internet. Besides planning for our next traveling adventure, I didn’t think much farther than my next meal. My daily routine went something like this: wake up and go to breakfast with Tyler and Taylor and partake in our daily iron colon challenge (we ate 5-7 boxes each of All-Bran which has 50% of daily fiber, you do the math), then I would go to class for a bit, and then spend about four hours laying in the sun by the pool. Then I would work out, and partake in whatever activities where going on that night or watch movies with some friends. It was so relaxing, and my mind really was at ease. My life was centered around friends and simple pleasures like reading a book and laying in the sun. Everyday I would wake up excited to go lay in the sun. Life was so simple, and so enjoyable. It is amazing what life can be like when all distractions are completely gone. Shedding all of the garbage of daily life makes you realize what really is important and what is not.

The community on the ship was amazing. When you go through experiences like these with other people, you become very close, very quickly. Even people that I didn’t travel with felt like close friends. Though we couldn’t really explain ourselves, we all understood each other. Every person I passed in the hall I shared a big smile with. The vibe on the ship was so awesome. This family we created and the way people treated each other was incredible, and something that I want to apply to my future relationships.

Every country that I passed through gave me a completely new way of looking at the world. My perspective changed and grew week to week. I was a very different person Between Egypt and Turkey than I was between China and Vietnam. Truthfully, I can’t even remember how I used to think before this trip. My whole world was a little bubble in Southern California, where I had my social life, and spent my time racing motorcycles and going to school. That was it, and those were the only things that I thought about. I knew there was a big world out there, but it wasn’t real to me. I feel like a chicken that has just hatched from an egg. Really, my world has grown that much. And it has made me think about big questions, about my place in the earth, and who I am. I won’t find my answers anytime soon, but at least I have started looking, and I am truly grateful that my eyes have been opened like this.

At the core, people are all the same. Once you get beyond looks, customs, religion, language, when it all boils down to it, I shared the same laughs and smiles with people in Burma and Egypt that I do at home. We are all humans and we are all in this together. I also learned that it is the relationships between people that matter, people and things on their own are nothing. To be able to connect with people that live completely different lives than me has given me faith in humanity. Things may look bad sometimes, but there is a tremendous amount of good going on everywhere.

Last Night On The Ship

Our last night before landing in Florida, we had a pub night and a dance on the seventh deck. Right as the music was about to shut off around midnight, the sky opened up and it started pouring rain. Hundreds of us ripped of our shirts and started dancing in the rain. When the music shut off everybody just started yelling and jumping in the rain. We stayed out there for at least a half hour, in the rain, yelling at the top of our lungs. We were letting out all of the pent up energy from everything that we had been through in the past three months, things we did and didn’t understand, and the power of what we had just experienced. That kind of experience can never be fully expressed; the only way you can let it out is by jumping and screaming until you lose your voice.

After things settled down, I went and sat down alone on the back of the fifth deck. It was still raining and I was just watching the water go by, at 20 miles an hour, as it had for the last 100 days, all the way around the whole planet. This is the first time that the magnitude of the journey hit me. I had being greatly affected by every place I had been, but until the end, I had never taken a step back and looked at the trip as a whole. Picturing our planet floating in outer space, and knowing that I had traveled around the whole thing by boat, I realized how few people get to have that experience, and I realized how huge our planet really is.

The next day we landed in Florida, and just like that it was over.

This Is What Happens To My Enemies

Towards the end of the trip Tyler and Taylor started barging into my room at random times to “body-rock” me. Basically they would burst through my door and punch me in the stomach/ribs/kidneys until I started crying and screaming, and then they would run back to down the hall to the safety of their room. One particular night, they came into my room while I was out and changed the background of my computer to a fish-like rendering of a phallus that was composed on Microsoft Paint. I had only just discovered their artwork when they came bursting into my room and gave me a brutal beat down, which they filmed. And then again five minutes later they returned to pound on my bruised ribs even more. At his point I said enough is enough. I had over-packed big time, so I had multiple tall cans of shaving cream stashed under my bed. Locked and loaded, I marched down the hall, kicked in their door and emptied both cans into their room as they scattered and screamed like scared little girls. The whole time I was yelling, “How you like me now? Bitches!!!” I felt like the Terminator, it was glorious. That was the last I saw of them that night, as they had a big mess to clean up. Here is a picture of a demoralized and defeated looking Tyler, shortly after payback has been served.

Ambassadors Ball

Ambassadors Ball was the big prom night on the ship. It was another chance to dress up nice, eat well, get drunk, dance, and have a bunch of fun. There was a huge chocolate Taj Mahal, which was missing a lot of pieces by the end of the night. Bottom is me after a few drinks with my favorite crew member Adrian, perfecting his shocker technique.

My Take On Europe

Before I traveled, I never understood the term “the West.” Even after taking a history series called Western Civilization, I still didn’t get it. This trip gave me the unique perspective of hitting Europe from the backside, after having spent two months in the Far and Near East. Coming into Europe with an Eastern perspective was very strange. I finally saw why Europe and the United States are lumped into the category of “the West.”

Back in America, lots of ignorant people couldn’t tell you the difference between Japan, China, and North and South Korea. “They’re all the same” is something most of us have heard. These countries are extremely different, but they are all so different from America that they can’t be distinguished by people who haven’t taken a closer look. As I learned, this can also work the other way.

Over the past three months, I had gradually transitioned to an “Eastern” way of thinking, mostly out of necessity. In most places I visited, buses don’t run on time, life goes slowly, and plans change quickly. People think collectively and place importance on family, and people for the most part seem satisfied with their lives. I learned to chill out, be flexible, and appreciate the small things. Being back in Spain was a sensory overload. I was not ready for the rampant consumerism. My first day in Barcelona I saw a designer T-shirt in a store window for 100 Euros and I got nauseous. That is more than most people in Burma make in a month. Truthfully, Spain felt like I was back in the U.S. The language was different, and there are small cultural differences, but the lifestyle is the same. Everything is developed, clean, expensive, fast moving, and not as personal. People are only worried about themselves, and there are all the symbols of status: clothes, watches, cars, and all that stuff. Not a single local was interested to see us in Spain, they just wanted to steal our stuff.

I do not dislike the “West” or America, it is just a completely different way of life and a different way of thinking. It is how I have lived my whole life and how I will live back at home. My point is that you are not going to learn much about the world or yourself by traveling to Europe. I had one hell of a time there, and it really was the perfect ending to this voyage. The Europe backpacker circuit is cool and really fun, but is mostly centered around partying. Did it shift my perspective on life? No. Just keep this in mind, if you want to travel and learn you should check out some place really different.

Barcelona Sunset

Our last night in Barcelona, a few of us took the subway to a church that was on top of the hill behind town. We ate cotton candy and climbed up to the top tower of the church, right under a huge statue of Jesus, and watched the sun set over Barcelona.

Where the Hell Am I?

A few times on this trip I have woken up from a nap and not known where I was. Spain marked the first time that I was awake and conscious and lost track of where I was. Coming out of the subway on our third day, I couldn’t remember what country I was in. I didn’t remember where I was going or where I had come from. It was really weird to walk up onto the street, and for ten seconds, not know where I was. After traveling for so long, my mind just stopped trying to track where I was and accepted that any given hour I was at some place new and different. This happened to me a second time in the subway and once upon waking at the hostel. You know it has been a long trip when you start forgetting what country you are in!

...And We Get Robbed

Towards the end of our stay, Ashley and I fell victim to these people. It was about an hour before sunrise, and we had just left a small jazz club. We bought a bottle of wine and were wondering around the streets. We ran into Steve and Michelle for a bit, and then took a seat in one of the alleys. We were drinking our wine, talking, and enjoying the peace and quite, when a really scary looking black dude comes running around the corner right at us. “Coca!” he yells, “You want coca!” Ashley told him to get away and then he grabbed at her legs. I shoved him off and he took off running down the street. We didn’t realize until we left that had snatched her camera from between her legs. I also found that my camera was missing, picked from a Spanish guy that had put his arm around me a few hours back. It gave me a pretty sick feeling.

Most everybody that I know that has been to Barcelona has gotten something stolen. Things disappear so fast around here it is ridiculous. You have to keep your stuff close and tight and never let your guard down. Better yet, just don’t carry anything but a few euros with you.

Creepers

Now I’ve heard from plenty of mothers that nobody you meet after twelve has good intentions, and there are certainly a lot of undesirables out at night in Barcelona. After the soccer game, Evan and I were walking around, and we ran into four Brazilians and started talking to them about the game. One of the girls was getting high off of a rag that smelled like paint thinner. She kept huffing it, and then she tried to kiss me. She may have been trying to pickpocket me, but it grossed me out. They then tried to sell us some cocaine, and we parted ways.

There are a huge number of pickpockets on the streets. They are not subtle at all. They walk up to you and grab at your belongings with no shame. There are also hookers all over the place, and they also are not subtle either. I had one come up and ask if I wanted something I can’t repeat here, and then grabbed my junk in front of all my friends.

A lot of the sketchy people come across from Morocco. I was told by somebody that Morocco is safer than Spain now because all the riff-raff is in Barcelona.

Nights in Barcelona

Most of what we did in Barcelona happened at night. At all times of the night people are out and about. The first night we got there, Chad, Ashley and I went drinking with our Australian roommates and some Canadians. After a while, one of the Australians busted out his camera and showed us a video he had secretly taken during some hanky-panky with the French chick in the bunk next to mine. He was quite proud! As we were walking back around 3 am, there were people that were just going out for the night. Most nights we stayed out until the sun came up. Late afternoon siestas were a must. This is definitely not a sustainable lifestyle for me, but it was great fun for the week we were there.

One night I was alone buying a falafel, when all the sudden two guys tackled me in the middle of the busy street and started punching me. It turned out to be Tyler and Taylor, who had flown into Barcelona, after some time in Madrid, and randomly ran into me on the street. We celebrated this coincidence by buying a six pack from a guy in the street and making it quickly disappear, shotgun style, on the sidewalk. Nobody cared.

We didn’t have any plans at night. We would usually start out at a bar, and then wander out eventually. We would split up, run into each other throughout various parts of the night, and wander around the back alleys. The streets in Barcelona are perfect for exploring. The way the stone streets and buildings glow at night makes it feel like a dream.

We would buy bottles of red wine for 1 euro each, and drink them as we walked. One night Even, Tyler, Ryan and I happened upon an acoustic guitarist playing in an alley. His Spanish guitar echoed brilliantly off the walls. We just sat and soaked it all in for about two hours, drinking wine, talking with him, and enjoying the moment.

The streets were addicting. We didn’t want to leave, so we didn’t. We left our watches at the room, and just went with the flow. I didn’t have a care in the world except for what was around the next corner.

Freakshow

Street performers lined Las Ramblas up and down both sides of the street. There were some pretty creative characters. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Gondola

Nathan, Megan, Ashley, Dustin, Chad, Steve, and I wandered down to the beach mid-day. After loitering around for a bit, we all piled into a new cable car that stretched across the harbor to get a good view of the city. It scared the living crap out of me. But the view was very nice.

Graffiti

The maze of dark alleys crisscrossing the blocks behind Las Ramblas is covered with bright graffiti. This is not the crap gang tagging we have back in LA. This is really good art work. The contrast of the bright paint on the grey stone streets and walls makes it even better to look at.

Jazz

There was a month long jazz festival going on while we were in Barcelona. Ashley, Chad, Steve and Dustin and I went to watch a performance in a club on the other side of town. Tyler, one of my best friends on this trip, is an awesome saxophone player and has given me a better appreciation for music. I was even doing the little high frequency head shake thing that jazz listeners do.

Espanol

Communicating in Spain was easier that I could have imagined. I was pretty amazed that those high school Spanish lessons I took five years ago in high school where still back there in my brain somewhere. It just took a bit of alcohol, and I was talking Spanish like nobody’s business. I even had a convo with a cab driver about Turkey’s entry into the EU. Crazy stuff. And then I would sober up and I couldn’t speak Spanish anymore. Moral of the story? Drink lots of beer.

More Architecture

I started following my map to various sites, but quickly ended up putting it away. A map is not necessary in this city. There is amazing art all over the place. I would look around, see something fascinating that caught my eye, and before I could ride the two blocks to get there, I would see something else and get derailed. Everywhere from parks to buildings to overpasses to benches there is amazing design work to be discovered. Riding a bike through Barcelona is a non-stop three hour eyegasm. I felt like a little kid in a Dr. Seuss book.

La Sagrada Familia

If you are into art and architecture, you need to go to Barcelona! The city was basically one big canvas for the architect Gaudi, whose work is fascinating. In our third day in Barcelona, I rented a bike and set out to explore all it had to offer.

The first and most obvious stop is the Sagrada Familia, a huge church that started being constructed in 1882, and isn’t going to be finished for another 30 years. The detail on this building is unbelievable. Not a single inch of this huge structure has gone untouched. Some parts look as though the building is alive, much of it appears to be melting, and other parts seem skeletal in nature. It seems dark and nightmarish, and beautifully dreamlike at the same time. I can’t even imagine what was going on inside Gaudi’s head, and how he could think up this stuff. And then to communicate it on paper for others to build, seems almost impossible to me. I was completely blown away by this building, as well as by much of Gaudi’s other work.

Futbol

This whole voyage, the one constant that people in every country have wanted to talk about was soccer. I have never been a fan, but being in Barcelona we had the opportunity to see FC Barcelona play Vila Real. These are two Spanish teams playing in the Spanish league.

The night we arrived in Barcelona, we got to see the cops break up a small scale riot caused by local soccer fans in a post game celebration. People are crazy about soccer, and this got us pretty excited. We all bought some Barcelona apparel and headed for the stadium.

I’ve never watched much soccer, but seeing it in person was a completely different thing. These guys are incredibly conditioned athletes, and I couldn’t believe how hard they could sprint over and over, all game long. The stadium was packed and the fans were awesome. The old man behind me kept yelling “Burro, Burro, Hijo de puta!” whenever the other team would make a move. At the end of the match we were treated to an amazing goal scored by Ronaldinho, who I recognized from a poster on the wall when Jeff and I were drinking with those old dudes in Kurdistan a few weeks back. He was passed the ball from across the field, bounced it off his chest and then turned, flipped, and bicycle kicked it perfectly into the corner of the goal. Bravo!