Home Sweet Home

One year and 27 countries later, we’ve finally returned home to Vancouver.  For the first few weeks here all we did was meet up with friends and family, trying to catch up with everything and everyone we missed.  After the bulk of that had been done, we were just trying to settle back into our normal life.  The excitement of coming home now has slowly faded, and readjusting to life back here was initially a little surreal.  However, in the blink of an eye 2 months in Vancouver has already passed.  Both of us are back working and into our normal routines.  Though a year around the world was an incredible adventure, we’re not the type of people who could stay on the road indefinitely.  And though the word ‘routine’ rarely has a positive connotation, we actually are very happy to be back. 

After everyone’s usual questions of “Where was your favourite country?” or “What was the coolest thing you did?” people inevitably asked how this trip has changed us.  That’s definitely a hard one to answer.  Neither Di nor I went on this trip to “discover” or “find” ourselves as being in our 30s gave us reasonable insight into the people we are.  We went mostly for the adventure, one that was ours to share.  Along the way we wanted to learn everything we could about, well, pretty much everything, including each other.  Obviously as we went we met some amazing people from all different walks of life who illuminated us on every subject imaginable.  A large part of this enlightenment came from other travellers, who became friends.  Our friends from back home, who became travellers for their time with us, were also contributors.  The locals we talked to and the experiences of their lives they were willing to share provided knowledge we could never find in a textbook or novel.  It’s safe to say that the more I learnt from the people we met, the more I realized how little I knew about everything.  And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  A brief glimmer into their lives gave me a hint of their point of view, a point of view that many times I had misunderstood previously.  Experiencing that daily really made me appreciate how there are many ways one can live a happy, meaningful and productive life.  And though different cultures, religions, values, families, friends, and unique personalities can influence what life path one chooses, I believe that most humans are really similar in their basic wants.  The majority of people crave happiness, friendship, a sense of community and belonging, and love in their life.  Though that really is oversimplifying I do believe that almost everyone on this earth wants those things, and thus we have more in common with each other than most of us think.

One thing I did start to fathom on this trip was the powerful effects of politics and economics on countries and their citizens.  This is easily illustrated by what is happening in North Africa and the Middle East, in countries we were travelling through less than a year ago.  The current wave of protests, rebellion, and regime changes in that region have a lot less to do with religion and race (as many misguided outsiders might think) and a lot more to do with poor government and lack of opportunities to improve one’s life.  Some of the nicest people we met on our trip hailed from the Arab countries currently in turmoil, and Di and I really hope that our friends there and their fellow countrymen will emerge from this situation with renewed hope in their futures and the futures of their children.

After watching the rays of the sun sparkle off the glaciers of Kilimanjaro, after watching a manta ray block out the light above us as it glided through the bubbles we just exhaled, after watching the Taj Mahal glow pink at dawn, after listening to a nomad sing songs under the Saharan sky, you realize that the world truly is a wondrous place.  I’m glad we named our blog “from wonder into wonder”, because that is exactly what our trip has been.  And though that list of wonders is far too long and simply impossible to write, I can safely say that I know what tops that list.  As corny as it sounds, sharing this time with Di has really been the most wonderful thing of all.

Thanks for reading our blog this past year.  I hope reading it was at least a fraction as enjoyable as it was for us to write.