sum it up

It's so easy to get sucked right back into hometown life.  I've been home for two days and already all I want to talk about is how beautiful all my ladies are, what my favourite drink is, and how much I like Rihanna.  Kelowna definitely has its positive points, but I think I need to say something to sum up being away.

Firstly, let's have some stats.  During our four months away, we flew through fourteen airports in ten different countries.  We travelled by car, truck (both in the cab and in the back), motorbike, scooter, bus, mini-van, horse-drawn carriage, foot, bicycle, ferry, boat, tuk-tuk, quad and plane.  We visited seven countries and flew through three more.  We met dozens of new friends from every continent on earth, including dear Pedro from Antarctica.  We learned to say thank you in five different languages and learned that grinning means the same thing everywhere.  We fell in love a dozen times with as many boys and broke just as many hearts.  We had, in short, a stunning kaleidoscope of a trip.

If I have a piece of advice for any of you, it's to get out of wherever you are.  It's sometimes hard to tear yourself away, but it just needs to happen.  Buy yourself a ticket without thinking too much about it.  Go to South America, to Asia, to India, to Eastern Europe.  Go by yourself, go with your best friend, go with all my love.  There's nothing any of us need more than somewhere.  You grow up and out and into yourself travelling, and I think there's nothing each of us need to do more than that.  Just go.

So if you've been following me for the course of the trip, thanks.  I hope you enjoyed it, and I apologize for all the swearing.  I'm touched that you all bothered to keep reading, and those of you who passed the name of this blog along to friends rock my world.  If you got anything out of all of this, I hope it was that you need to go travelling too.  So thanks again, friends.  I love you all!