Hey everyone,

The drive across Texas on my last day of traveling was pretty uneventful.
Lots of flat scrubland and a zillion Dairy Queens. We briefly stopped in
San Antonio to visit the Alamo. An interesting place but, like Pearl
Harbor, it's place where a lot of people died and quite depressing.

Between San Antonio and Houston, it got dark pretty quickly. I saw the
biggest, pinkest moon I have ever seen rise up from the horizon and into the
blue-gray twilight.

We finally made it into Houston, got off the freeway, and turned into my
neighborhood. Things began to look uncomfortably familiar. Suddenly, I
could think of a zillion other places I'd rather be.

That's when it hit me. My trip was really over.

We pulled up into my driveway and parked. I never felt as motionless as I
did at that moment. It was over.

When I walked in the door, my brother got off the phone to greet me and my
Mom came running into the room. They were happy to see me, and I was happy
to see them. Sylvester, my cat, didn't seem to care.

I unpacked my stinky suitcase and the ten boxes of photos, souvenirs, and
brochures that I had sent home while traveling. I went through my mail and
found a postcard from Victoria, one that she had sent while she was still
traveling in Australia. And a complimentary New Year's Day edition of the
Las Vegas newspaper, kindly sent by Janice at the Las Vegas Beacon-Journal.

When I look at the photos and souvenirs, I can't figure out where it all
came from. I see photos on top of a glacier or on a tropical beach, and it
feels like I'm looking at someone else's photos. I find a receipt or a
crumpled napkin or a coaster, and I wonder how it ended up here. I try to
remember what it was like to be there, but it's strange. It seems like my
whole trip was all a dream, like it never really happened. None of it seems
real.

Over the next few days, there was the mad rush to catch up with all of my
old friends who I haven't seen in over a year. A few of them have gotten
married, a few of them have found religion. It's interesting to see how
they've changed.

Everyone's asking me the same questions. Here are some answers:

Q: Did you watch Survivor in the Australian outback?

A: Everyone's asking me this! No, I'm not interested. A bastardized,
American TV version of the Australian outback is not nearly as appealing as
the real thing.

Q: Why did you take this trip?

A: Because I could. I had no job or family obligations back home, and I had
enough money saved up.

I've had a depressingly boring New Year's as far back as I can remember, and
I wanted to do something crazy for New Year's 2000. And for some strange
reason, I've always wanted to go to Australia. So I figured this was the
perfect time to go.

I only planned to be down there for a couple of months, but after getting
down there, I loved it so much that I didn't want to come home. I decided
to see and do as much as I could while I was down there, and it grew into a
huge adventure.

Q: How could you afford a trip like this?

A: I have been saving money my whole life. It adds up. Also:

1) Having some money set aside for me when I was young certainly helped.
2) Having a Bar Mitzvah always helps.
3) Trading stocks while I traveled (with mixed results).
4) A couple of dear friends were kind enough to show their appreciation for
my e-mails by sending me a small donation in the mail.

But now I'm broke. My money pretty much ran out as I drove through Texas.
I wouldn't have been able to afford another week out there.

Q: Was it worth it?

A: Absolutely. I haven't stopped to figure out how much this adventure
ended up costing me because I don't want to know. The whole experience was
priceless. It's easily the best thing I've ever done.

Q: Would you do it all again?

A: In a second.

Q: Did anything surprise you?

A: Yes. When I was planning my trip, I was thinking that I'd have to stay
in motels (I didn't even know what the word "hostel" meant) and take taxis
everywhere. I was thinking that it would be mostly an independent effort,
and that it would be difficult to get around. After all, there is not much
of a backpacker culture here in the US, and I assumed it was the same
everywhere else.

When I got to Australia, I was amazed at how many other young people were
doing what I was doing. And a whole culture has spring up to support them.
There are youth hostels everywhere, and it's easy to get around. Cheap
buses and organized tours in every direction. It was very easy to slip
right in with the rest of the backpackers.

Apparently, this backpacker culture exists all over the world except in the
US. It's a shame that nobody here really knows about it.

Q: What was your favorite place?

A: Hard to say. How can you compare the blazing Australian outback with a
hike across a glacier? How can you compare the thick air of a rainforest
with the ocean breeze of a tropical beach? I've been to so many different
places that it's hard to single one out.

If I had to make a choice, I'd pick Australia. There are so many beautiful
things to see, and the people are so great.

Q: What was the high point of your trip?

A: My fondest memories are of New Year's 2000 in Sydney, skydiving and
surfing in Byron Bay, smoking my first joint in Noosa, touring Tasmania,
living in Perth, watching Olympic baseball in Sydney with Liam, hiking
across Franz Josef Glacier, snorkeling in Aitutaki, and relaxing on
Beachcomber Island. Peeing into the Grand Canyon was also pretty cool.

Every reality check was a high point. I'd be standing at the Sydney Opera
House, or looking at the strange stars of the Southern Hemisphere, or taking
a walk across the red sand of the outback, or walking through a tropical
rainforest, or taking a big breath of thick mountain air, or listening to
chirping native birds, or standing on the beach with my feet in the water,
or walking down the street and seeing my reflection in a store window, or
sitting in the back of a bus half-asleep and driving through the middle of
nowhere, and it would hit me.

"I am so far away from home. I'm seeing things I've never seen. I'm doing
things I've never done. And I'm doing it all alone. I'm a very lucky guy."

Q: What was the low point of your trip?

A: Thinking I'd run out of money and have to cut my trip short, losing three
months worth of photos in the mail, buying a shitty jacket from Westco,
getting ripped off by a fat Hawaiian, New Year's in Las Vegas with an
under-age ex-girlfriend, and being forced to say goodbye to all of the great
people I met along the way.

Q: Were you ever sad or lonely? Did you ever want to come home?

A: Yes. Backpacking is exhausting. After a while, I got sick of waking up
early to check out and get on a bus, booking tours, and introducing myself
to people. All the beauty started to get a bit repetitive. All of the
exotic rainforests, majestic mountains, and pristine beaches started to look
the same. I was no longer appreciated the things I was seeing or the
activities I was doing. That's when I knew it was time to come home.

Q: Are you glad you went alone?

A: Yes. Complete independence. I was free to do whatever I wanted,
whenever I wanted, with whoever I wanted.

Meeting people was something I have never been good at, but traveling alone
forced me to learn how to do it. I was drawn to other backpackers traveling
alone. They were the most interesting.

People traveling as a couple often had a difficult time staying together.

Other backpackers traveling in a small group were able to pool their
financial resources and share booking responsibilities. But they tended to
be a bit more exclusive. Instead of making the effort to meet new people,
they would enjoy each other.

Q: Did you meet anyone special?

A: Yes. I met a lot of great people. But I only got to be with most of
them for three or four days before saying goodbye. I'd like to see them
again some time.

Q: What were Australians and New Zealanders like?

A: Australians are a lot like Texans, very genuine and friendly. When they
found out I was from Texas, they all asked me the same questions:

1) Do you have a gun?
2) Have you ever shot a gun?
3) Has anyone ever pulled a gun on you?
4) Do you wear a cowboy hat?
5) Do you wear cowboy boots?
6) Do you drive a pick-up truck with a confederate flag on it?
7) When are you gonna figure out who your president is?
8) Are you a Texas ranger like Chuck Norris?

New Zealanders are also very friendly but a bit simpler and more isolated
than Australians. They also insisted on spelling my name "Geoff".

Q: Did they like your accent?

A: Yes. A few of them were impressively able to hear the Canadian (I was
born in Canada). But the way they talked was much more interesting.

Q: Is there a difference between Australian and New Zealand accents?

A: They are very similar. Most of the time, I have trouble telling them
apart.

Australians say:

fish and chips = feesh and cheeps
chick = check
no = noy
few = fyoy
thank you = thank yoy
Nikon = Neekon
Subaru = SuBAHru
people = payple

Not only do they have a cool accent, but they also have cute ways of
shortening words to keep things simple:

breakfast = brekkie
mosquito = mossie
afternoon = arvo
electrician = sparky
Australian Rules Football = footy

And a few of their words are totally different:

gasoline = petrol
pants = trousers
cans = tins
elevator = lift
bathroom = toilet
lots = heaps
beets = beetroot
wobbly = wonky
genuine = fair dinkum
green papper = capsicum

The New Zealander accent is slightly different from Australian:

fish and chips = fish and chaps
six = sex
chick = check
my bed is wet = my beed is weet
special = spicial

New Zealanders talk a bit more like surfers. They say "sweet as" and "cool
as" and use "bro" to refer to friends. And they end each sentence with
"hey" the same way Canadians do with "eh".

New Zealand English is a bit more American. I didn't have to alter my
vocabulary so that they could understand me like I did in Australia.

Q: What strange things did you eat?

A: Vegemite (yuck), a kangaroo stir-fry, egg on a hamburger (the McDonald's
McOz and Kiwiburger varieties). I decided against tasting green ants in
Kakadu.

Q: What did you miss while you were away?

A: Bagels. Turkey.

Q: Was anything stolen from you? Did you lose/break anything?

A: I had some shampoo, a couple of CDs (U2 and Sheryl Crow), and some money
(the fat Hawaiian) stolen from me. For someone who traveled with a laptop,
a nice camera, and a bunch of lenses, I was pretty lucky.

I lost a leather bracelet while whitewater rafting down the Tully River and
a box full of photos and souvenirs disappeared in the mail. A pair
sunglasses slid off my head and into a gorge in the Karijini. I also lost a
lens cap while kayaking around Abel Tasman National Park and dropped a
polarizer for my lens somewhere near Joshua Tree National Park.

In Byron Bay, I discovered that my waterproof watch wasn't really waterproof
and crushed a pair of sunglasses in a door.

When I got home, I brought my poor camera that has been dropped down a
canyon, drenched with a rum and coke, tossed into a rainforest, dunked into
Tasman Bay, and knocked against countless bus seats to the camera store to
see if it could be revived. Turns out that it's not cost-effective to fix
it. I'm kind of sad. I've taken so many pictures with that thing.

Q: Any regrets?

A: Yes, actually:

1) not kissing some random chick Woodstock-style on New Year's 2000
2) not getting a video of my sky dive in Byron Bay
3) not eating green ants in Kakadu
4) sending a box of photos and negatives in the mail from Perth
5) growing a pathetic mustache
6) allowing myself to be duped by a fat Hawaiian guy
7) not getting to the top of Mauna Kea to stargaze
8) not getting to Stewart Island, New Zealand
9) not getting to Maui while in Hawaii
10) taking my under-age ex-girlfriend to Las Vegas for New Year's

Q: Are you happy to be home?

A: Yes and no.

It's nice not living out of a suitcase or checking out in the morning. It's
nice taking a shower in a clean bathroom. It's nice playing baseball again.

But now I'm slipping back into same lifestyle I had before. The excitement
and unpredictability are over.

Q: What has changed back home?

My cat seems fluffier. The shrubs around the house have grown a bit, and a
few new restaurants have sprung up around my neighborhood. My brother and
sister each had a baby.

A lot has happened in the last year. Yeltsin resigned, a Russian sub sank,
a Concorde crashed, the Yankees won the World Series (dammit!), U2 has a new
album, and we have a new president.

Q: How have you changed?

A: My trip was more than sight-seeing. It was a time to explore the rest of
the world, see what's going on around me, learn who I really am, and figure
out where I stand in the world. I think that's very important.

I'm wiser. I have the confidence to be myself. I've learned a lot about
people, especially girls. And I've learned that people are pretty much the
same everywhere. Some eat peanut butter, some eat Vegemite. But deep down,
we're all wired the same way.

I dyed my hair blond and grew a goatee (my friends say my new look "works"
for me). They also say I look a bit leaner and that my legs have gotten a
bit bigger. I guess all that walking and mountain-climbing really paid off.

Q: What are you going to do now?

A: Get a job and save up enough money to move and/or travel again. I might
also collect my e-mails and photos and write a book about my trip.

I've just finished updating the web site with photos from the last leg of my
trip. I also added a lot of pictures and a few bungy movies to the older
sections. Take a look:

http://www.anythingbaseball.com/oz/

I've been home a month now. The dust has settled, and things are back to
normal. I'm already slipping back into the same responsibilities,
relationships, and problems that I had before my trip. It's like I never
left. Life goes on.

Thanks for being there.

No Regrets.

Jeff