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I’m back!

Well, I’m back from my 6 month trip around the world!  I saved money for 7 years, quit my job, sold or gave away most everything I own, and for the last 2 months trekked nonstop with a backpack and suitcase. The first 4 months I did short trips to Barcelona, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, visited friends and family I haven’t seen in years in some cases, and took my niece to Cedar Point for a weekend, then went to San Diego and Mexico.  After I dropped my cats off with my mom so I could travel nonstop, I went to London (day trip to Stonehenge, Bath, Cotswolds), Edinburgh, Scottish Highlands (including Loch Ness, Isle of Skye, Glencoe), Dublin (day trip to Cliffs of Moher and Galway), Paris, Venice, Rome (day trips to Vatican City, Pompei, Positano), Chiang Mai (including Elephant Nature Park), Krabi (day trip to Phi Phi Islands), Phuket, Bangkok, Tokyo, Kamakura/Enoshi Island, Hakone, Kyoto, Osaka (day trips to Nara, Himeji, Hikone), and Iceland (my mom came with me on that one!) There have been a lot of ups and downs, the more important ones as follows:

Pros:

–  Reconnected with family, old friends that I haven’t seen in years, and met a lot of fun new people.

– Visited places I’ve always dreamed about, and saw things I’ve always wanted to see while they’re still there.

– Tried new food, new desserts, new drinks…and yet, still lost about 5 inches on my waist probably from walking an average of 7-9 miles per day almost every day.  Usually uphill, which I still haven’t figured out the logistics in that.  If you go up you’d think you’d have to go down but it always seemed to be uphill!

– Saw new cultures and learned a TON of history including doing some ancestry research in England/Scotland/Ireland.

– Worked things out on my own whenever there was a problem and learned not to have a meltdown about the little things even if I wasn’t happy about it.

– Learned how to walk slower. Everyone in my family power walks everywhere and are masters at weaving through crowds, we also usually inhale our food rather than eat and enjoy it, it’s just the way it has always been.  I was walking around Chicago today and for the first time everyone was pushing past ME and I was seeing things I haven’t acknowledge in the 8 years that I’ve lived here.  Like, was that restaurant always there?  It looks neat, I never noticed it before…

Cons:

– I missed my pets so bad, I can’t wait to see them when I go to my mom’s for the holidays this weekend!

– The sheer volume of tourists is crazy!  I’m not complaining, since I am also one of those tourists and I think it’s amazing that the world has gotten to a point where so many people can enjoy it, it was just really surprising.  I used to live in Japan 15 years ago so a lot of my stops there were for nostalgia purposes and the number of people in places that had previously been practically unknown was shocking. The main concern I had was about safety, a lot of these places weren’t designed to hold that many people and those mega-tour buses are way too big in a lot of cases (I almost got squished by one!) I used to work at construction sites and we have OSHA in the United States and I think I got a few new gray hairs just from some of the safety related things I’ve seen.  I’m also an environmental scientist, so seeing some of the unhygienic things people were doing in some locations made me cringe. Bring a hand towel and hand sanitizer everywhere with you, for real! I would need an entire separate post to explain all of the people, behaviors, and safety issues though.  I’m putting this under “cons” but honestly this was one of the most interesting parts of the trip given my profession.

– I get why it’s hard for some people to understand how bad climate change is especially if they don’t travel.  It was really sad to see some of the locations because of all the trash and pollution, irregular weather patterns, damaged ecosystems, and changing behaviors of the animals. I already knew a lot about the impacts of the climate crisis, but some places really opened my eyes to how bad it’s truly becoming.

– Blisters.  So. Many. Blisters.  Even with broken in boots and moleskin and bandages.  I’m fairly convinced it’s inevitable.

– The scammers.  I managed to avoid them mostly, but one got me in Venice and it was so obvious I had to laugh after I realized it.  Rookie mistake!
Anywho, now that I’m back I’m going to spend the holidays with family then decide if I want to be a responsible adult and get back to work, or buy an RV and do an epic 6 month National Park road trip with my cats…

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Stirling Castle and Dublin Day 1

I got up and repacked my bags for my upcoming flight then left my car at the hotel and hiked uphill (of course, everything is uphill here!) to Stirling Castle. I passed by some cool old buildings along the way on cobbled roads with historic structures which were pretty neat. I spent a couple hours wandering the castle before heading back to my car and hitting the road to Edinburg. I’m happy to report that despite road construction and a bunch of obstacles, I made my way to the rental car return without scratching or denting the vehicle. Woo hoo! After dropping the car off I hopped on a bus to the airport and wandered around until Aer Lingus got us on a mud skipper propeller plane to Dublin. The flight was short and uneventful, which is always good. I checked into my hotel and was thinking about going out for a drink, but decided instead to hit the hotel bar for a cider and some Irish BBQ wings and chips. Tomorrow will be a busy walking day around Dublin!

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Scottish Highlands – Day 5 (Glenfinnan and Glencoe)

It was pouring when I woke up this morning, so instead of heading out early per usual I decided to stick around as late as possible until the rain let up. Then I went over to the viaduct where the Jacobite steam train goes by, and although I wasn’t planning on being there that late for the train, I figured it wasn’t too long out so I waited. But despite being there on time the steam train never showed up (although a regular one did). Ah, well. I had planned to take the gondola up the Nevis mountain range, but with all the rain I had already lost half the day so I skipped it and drove through them instead, passing by Ben Nevis along the way. I made my way to Steall Falls through Glen Nevis, and like everything here what looked like it would be easy turned into a 30+ minute uphill mountain rock climbing experience. But I made it to the valley and the waterfall was huge and gorgeous. There was a path that would take you right to the base of the falls, but to get there you had to cross a single wire bridge with two other wires for balance. It had been raining, and people far thinner and fitter than I were having to go very very slowly to get across, so I opted out and decided I’ll just have to come back here later when I’m not quite so fluffy.

After climbing down the mountain back to my car, I doubled back through the mountains and got on the road to Glencoe. It was back to pouring again by the time I got to the most scenic and majestic spots, but dang was it still pretty. I continued south, stopping every couple miles to enjoy the view, and watched the sunset over the mountains at one of the pull offs. At the sunset pull off there was a very nice German lady that I gave my camera to for a picture. She wound up being all into it and wanted me to do a “jumping” pose, she was so funny I kept laughing through it. It took like 3 tries but we got it good enough. Then I drove very stressfully in the pitch black dark to Stirling where I stayed in a spa hotel for the night. I wish I had more time in the morning, I’d have loved to engage in the “spa” portion, but I headed for Stirling Castle in the morning, and then it’s off to Dublin!