First let me backtrack a bit to let you know what I've been up to and how I've been doing re-adjusting to home.
These last two months, I've kept busy with friend and family commitments, getting to know my almost year old nephew Andrew, (when I left he was basically a lump on a blanket, now he's taking steps!) a couple of weekends of snowboarding, settling in to Charlottesville, DC United games and going out and making new friends.
My Nana, Violet Burtt, turned 100 in March and we had a great family and friends party for her. She made the local papers and a TV news crew showed up so that night, there she was on TV - dancing to "Y-M-C-A!" Really. She had a great time, but was a little tired after all the excitement. Friends have come down from DC to visit and we've explored C-Ville's nightlife, hit some wineries and gone hiking on the Appalachian Trail. I even joined the local scuba club! I also spent a week baby-sitting my six year old nephew CJ (we had lots of fun breaking my sister's rules, please don't tell her!) and ran a 10K last weekend. Whew, I've been busy!
Life in the states is a bit weird and I've really felt a little out of step. I am continually astounded by the choices we have - multiple strip malls each with basically the same stores over and over again. You spend so much time in third world countries assessing where to get things you need and mentally marking them for future reference, ("hmm this store has a brand of shaving cream I recognize, or a cookie I might try,...") yet when I do that at home it feels almost silly. Driving was weird too - when I first got back on the road I felt like I was flying when I was really almost always 10mph under the limit. And if you know me, I tend to NOT be under any limit ;) Also, the things we worry about as a culture seem less important to me now - I've seen some poverty and pain, people in desperate situations, damaged environments and poor outlooks. We in the western world and especially in America don't always realize how truly lucky we are just to be fortunate enough to live here in the midst of such prosperity and opportunity. Not everyone here has it easy or perfect, but even the poorest person has chances for survival that millions of people around the world couldn't dream of. I realize we all have essentially won a genetic/geographic lottery by being born in America, and it has changed my view of things quite a bit. Makes it kind of hard to worry about J Lo's baby pics, who is still on American Idol, or what some politician's advisor said about somebody else.
I've really missed the diving - I haven't been in the water since Zanzibar and man, am I dying to get wet! So when my German friend Theresa (you might remember her as my dive buddy in Thailand,) told me she and a friend from home were heading to Sipadan, on the Malaysian part of the island of Borneo, the wheels started turning in my brain...
At first I was a bit reluctant, after all, I've already been to Malaysia and wouldn't be earning a new passport stamp for returning. "Wait a minute," I realized, "how silly is that - turning your nose up at a trip to one of the greatest places for diving on earth because you cannot tick off a new country on your mental map of the world? Get real!" So I looked at my schedule (open) and finances, (grim but WTF,) and made it work. Now my friend Wellington is coming along so I've even got someone to travel with, (finally.)
So here's how it's gonna work - roundtrips were expensive so when I noticed a cheap one-way fare to Bangkok I jumped on it, planning on working out how to get home later. So I've got a little over three weeks in Malaysia where we plan to do lots of diving in a couple different areas, go rafting through the jungle, visit an orangutan sanctuary and maybe climb a mountain (though after Kilimanjaro, that's not really high on my list...) Next, I had to decide what route to get home. If you read my blog from last August, you might remember that I realized that by traveling west around the world I was actually getting a day younger. Well I decided to knock another day off my age and come home in that direction. Now I just needed to decide where to stop - I played on kayak.com for a while, tracking airfares, and dreaming about destinations. I checked fares to Munich, Krakow, Dubai, Istanbul, Prague, Moscow, and finally found
a really cheap one to London. Hey, I've never been before so it appeases the passport snob in me, and I've got some friends there I can hit up for tour advice (and maybe a couch or two...,) so the choice was pretty easy. Now I've got 10 days in the UK and am still deciding what to see. Not doing so hot on the couch hunt so far, but I've got a trusty Risk Steve's in hand and we'll just have to see what pops up!
I don't have a fare home yet, but I plan on being back around the 12th so that I'm here for my sister's birthday and also a week ahead of school.
Yup, that's right, I said school. I'm taking summer classes locally in C-Ville to get ready for Grad School in Marine Bio. This summer are Chemistry and Bio2 (plus labs,) so wish me luck as I embark on a completely new stage of my life. I'd love to do more work with turtles but really, anything involving the amazing life to be found in the undersea world is so exciting.
Boy, it feels good to be writing to you again, I hope you keep reading and enjoy the next chapter of my journeys...
Stay Wet,
Clement
