Back to "Real Life"

So it's been one week since I arrived back in the states. After Jer left, I spent my last day in Buenos Aires doing a whole lot of people-watching, eating, and time-killing. I even went to a movie in the afternoon. I definitely could have explored more of the city, but I felt that my world traveler hunger had been satiated and I was ready to return to the world of the familiar. After so much guidebook reading, bus riding, hostel reserving, etc etc, I was ready to go home, eat a huge burrito, and relax in my La-Z-Boy. The trip was the perfect length, since I just started to feel all of this at the very end.

Looking back on the trip as a whole, I am simply amazed at how well it all went. I'm really proud of how Jer and I managed to "improv" so much of the trip, yet still see everything that we wanted to. We connected the dots between cities that seemed un-connectable, endured countless hours of bus rides, and hiked for miles through rough terrain. All of this we did together, and not once during the whole month did we ever get sick of each other! That's pretty rare to have a friend like that, andI feel so lucky to have had such a great travel companion.

I've had some mild culture shock over the last week. Adjusting to the office life has been a challenge--mostly the "sitting still" part. However, I am really happy to be back. Gabriel García Márquez summed up my feeling pretty well in his poem "Viajar". Below is the last stanza, with my translation after.

Viajar es marcharse de casa,

es vestirse de loco,

diciendo todo y nada

con una postal.

Es dormir en otra cama,

sentir que el iempo es corto.

¡Viajar es regresar!

To travel is to leave the house,
to dress crazily,
saying everything and nothing
with a post card.
To sleep in another bed,
to feel that time is short.
To travel is to return!

Indeed, the returning (and reflecting) part is really what makes the travel experience so wonderful.

--Dave

P.S. A small subset of the 2200+ pictures that Jer and I took are now online here: http://picasaweb.google.com/argentinadventure