Last Night

So I'm sitting here in Rome, listening to Journey as I try to put everything together in my head that this trip is finally over. It's really pretty mindblowing.

So, in 3 and a half months, we've seen:
Seattle, Portland, Lake O, Los Angeles, Venice Beach, Claremont, San Francisco, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Dartmouth, New York City, Boston, Jaco Beach, Montezuma, Santa Teresa and Playa Carmen, Tamarindo, London, Oxford, Edinburgh, Fez, Tangiers, Seville, Granada, Barcelona, Avignon, Paris, Amsterdam, Geneva, Florence, Munich, Fusson, and Rome.
We stayed:
with Zach, with James and Ben, with the brothers of AXA, with Berger, with Kayte, at Hotel De Haan, at Hotel Lys, Casa Zen, JC and friends, with Weiss, with Kennedy, with Rob, with Bill, with Mackenzie, with the Ouazzanis, at a random hotel in Tangiers, at the Oasis in both Seville and Granada, with Jason and Mark, a random bed and breakfast in avignon, the Bastille Speria in Paris, Hotel Annemarie, with Merten, at the Hotel Relais in Florence, Wombats in Munich, and Freestyle in Rome.
its been a while huh

I'm amazed at this trip in so many ways... what a statement of friendship. Friends from all parts of my past came through to help us, spend time with us, and rekindle the types of relationships we always used to enjoy. We made new friends through and through (dayna arena, liz, pete and emily, the guitar guy at oasis, david, erin and sarah, Jeff and Dan in Tamarindo, and many others...).
At this point I'm going to give a big shoutout to Antal. We did a full third of our trip with him in Costa Rica, without problems and with a ton of good times. Our surfing brother (and teacher) and one of my best friends. Much love brother, see you soon as possible.

One thing I learned about traveling is that you meet a ton of people you're never going to see again, they are just faces that slowly get lost in your memory. You can have great experiences with them, certainly, and they can certainly make things interesting. One of my favorite things to do, though, was to make up ridiculous life stories and convince them of things. On this trip, I was:
- A CIA Agent
- A world class mountain climber
- From Minnesota
- From Texas
- A Porn Star
- 38
- 24
- 18
- A Fluent Chinese Speaker

haha I'm sure there are more too. These are just the most memorable. Great times.

Anyways, I'm going to try to avoid being too emo right now. I have a long day of traveling ahead of me tomorrow, and I'll be exhausted. It will take some time to fully come to grips with all this. I do feel sad to a certain degree, but it's time to come home. I'm really looking forward to my family and friends. I have stories and experiences for a lifetime. To think of the things I'v'e accomplished before my 21st birthday, it fills me with hope for the future. I really believe I can do anything I want in this world, and that the chains that would bond me and prevent me from achievement can melt in my hands if I choose to make them. Some might consider this viewpoint arrogant-- it probably is-- but if you were to say "you don't think the rules of the real world apply to you?" i'd probably say "I don't think the rules of the real world apply to anyone". Our abilities are endless and, so long as we maintain the perspective and priority that values our family, our friends, and our time far more than our money, our possessions, our glorification and gratification, then we can do nothing but limitless good for the world.

which, by the way, is quite a big and amazing place.

Love you all more than I can possible describe,

A