I know I am a bit behind on my main posts, but I am sitting here in my hostel the eve before my flight to New York and I have a lot of thoughts that I have been adding to twitter on occasion but in general think I need to do a brain dump of my thoughts before heading back to North America.

I’ve now been on the road for just over 2 months and I cannot believe the time has gone by this quickly.  I can’t believe Boston is next week or that I managed to run 336 miles while backpacking across south east Asia or that I managed to keep a 6:30am – midnight sleep schedule mostly in tact during the course of my travels.  There have been a lot of people asking if I am travelling alone and where that may be true in ideal, it is not true in practice.  I have spent very few moments alone and have always had a small crew of people from all over the world to hang out with.

From the first day in Ho Chi Minh, with our 4 person rad motorcycle crew (Baily, Annie and Mateo), to Scotty and Audrey, to Melanie and Alex, Marie and Mickael, to Andrei, to Antoine, to the Thakek scooter crew (Leonie, Cherrise, Nina and Adrienne), to emily following me around most of SE Asia, Anna, Will and the the Thailand crew who I haven’t even introduced yet.  All of these amazing people from all over the world have shared their stories, lives and problems with me and even though we only hang out for a few days before moving on, I have already made plans to visit some of the people in the near future and also at Oktoberfest.  I am starting this rant with the people because they are really the ones who have made this trip what it is.  There have been some really cool hostels that didn’t really work out because I didn’t happen to meet anyone there and then there were also some that were a bit on the sketchy side, but were very memorable because of the people I met there.  I have spent very few nights alone and in most cases, I have chosen to spend them alone to recharge and do some logistics.

If you have been reading the blog, then you know that there have been countless experiences, random encounters, highs and lows but the stories and experiences I will have for the rest of my life AND I AM ONLY TWO MONTHS IN AND 5 COUNTRIES.  I had the opportunity to reflect a lot in Thailand since most of the travellers were mostly vacationers and not backpackers, so in talking to them I got to reflect on some of my amazing experiences and count my blessings that I get to be on the road for several months at a time instead of only a few weeks.

I really enjoy the fact that age really has no bearing while traveling and even though I am typically at least 5 years older than the people I am hanging out with, nobody cares and being 30 means nothing.  The crew I have been hanging out with in Bangkok have been 18 and 20 years old and their life perspectives are very different, but we still get a long so so well.

I could go on and on, and I feel that this post will get really ranty really fast so I will continue booking my flights for the next several weeks and then get some much needed sleep.  I have still been taking a lot of photos and videos so at some point, I will get the time to put some videos together, but that might take a bit of time.

As an update to what the next few months look like, this is how I forsee them right now.

New York – Boston – Hong Kong – Korea – Japan – Taiwan – Ottawa – Vancouver – Cross Canada road trip!!!! – Toronto – San Diego then who knows.

I am going to try and do Japan, Korea and Taiwan in 1 month which might be difficult but we will see.  I am headed back to Ottawa for my cousins wedding on June 8^th, then plan to fly to Vancouver, buy a shitty car and then drive across Canada for three weeks before returning to Toronto for Alessia’s wedding on June 30th.  Then fly to San Diego for an EBBR beer weekend, then fly LAX to somewhere in the world.

My boss gave me a 3 month leave of absence from my job, just in case I didn’t like traveling.  That runs out on May 5^th and as you can see, I don’t think I will be going back to work any time soon.

I guess I should go back to spending money on flights now. I’ll probably post a few main blog posts when I get to New York as I have 20 hours of flights to look forward to in the next day or two.

Oh yea and the Leafs are playing Boston in the first round of the playoffs and there is a very good chance that I will be going to the game on April 14^th in Boston.  That is if I can find someone to go with!  Go Leafs Go, Boston Bound etc etc!

North America tomorrow, I can’t believe it.