It's Over!

Well, time for something new

After 9 months and 21 days, 8 bulls, 4 continents, one speeding ticket and enough km travelled to make me question where home is I'm back in the land of Dzido: Mississauga.

Here's the last travel photo of me getting out of the train statio in Toronto which sums up the trip pretty well: Dzido in the dark looking confused/tired/not-quite-there but still managing to pose for the camera.

Taking the 12 hour train trip up from NY gave me sufficient time to think over the last 10 months, much like I'd done on the flight over from Europe. I feel like the entire last month has had the constant theme of 'leaving my quasi-home'. My van in Sydney, my travel base of Europe, Britt in NY. So am I home now? I'm in a familiar place. I'm surrounded my family and friends. This could be close. Ny can be home too if I make it so. So could Sydney I guess. Can I just make home whereever or is everything just going to be a temporary home? I feel like a ship that's cast off all the moorings and little seamen holding on to it and is floating out in the ocean trying to figure out which way north is (north is money) and I'm trying to convince myself that ANY decision is better than no decision at all

Enough of that stuff. I thought about the past 10 months in less philosophical terms too. In terms of best memories, there are a couple:
- cheating death in front of bulls
- living the surfer bum's life in Byron Bay for a week
- racing around the world through numerou countries over 72 hours
- changing plans faster than possible to get a surprise visit in London
- skiing with the entire fam in Austria

etc... I know there's more but maybe I should just write a book about it. Down and Out in Sydney and London? Catchy title

I started writing this article because I just finished pulling everything out of my bag. Here it is lying on the floor, limp and finished with nowhere to go. Beside it is my dirty laundry that had been hiding in the bag, and will now probably be incinerated.

Bigger than I thought

It's a giant city with no end in sight. Seriously, how many different things can you find in this place.

I've walked around NY a bit on my own since Britt has had classes during the day. Went to ground Zero, which was a strange experience. It's interesting because really there isn't anything to see there's so much construction going on already. Yet you still walk around and can't help but look up and picture the things falling down. And during all of his people are all running to work and back around you. It's the strangest kind of 'memorial' so far because its in the middle of everything.

Accidentally went to Times Square too, when I got lost on my way to the library. That's right, library, I'm now a member of it. Trying to get my citizenship through the back door.

Besides that I've chatted with some firemen and went to see a ballet (a ballet?!) version of Edward Scissorhands which was Soooo cool. Realy fun to watch. It's like I said to one of Britt's friends, if you put anything cool (Edward, Transformers, SPiderman) in ballet form, of course it'll be cool....it's so different!

And so in 24 hours I will be officially ending this trip on my way home. This is going to be a weird summer, who knows what's going to happen.

New York!

Slight delays, slight sickness, 26 hour travelling, and I'm in Ny!

Here's a little update about the ski trip from last week. With my travel time finishing faster than an adequate analogy, I'm getting more and more nostalgic and look back on the fun things that have happened.

When we were in Austria skiing, my brothers and I decided to do some hors-piste and started trekking past the ski lifts, up to the peak of one of the mountains in the area. The long and treacherous (until we found the shortcut) and the view up top was fantastic. Bascially, we'd walk up from the top of the chairlift until we got to the peak of the mountain, at which point we'd break out a celebratory beer or coke, some chocolate and then continue skiing down.

The best part was one of the overhangs of snow that we found at the top. Victor, being the loving brother he is, saw this long drop from one of the icy edges of the peaks and convinced my little bro (thomas) that he should jump it. All the while, Vic knew very well that he wouldn't dare do the jump himself, but what better way to see something funny than to convince younger sibl;ings to risk their lives.

After much ridiculing, Thomas was convinced to go and took off down the mountain, landing the 12ft jump on his pack in a big 'poof' of snow and skiis. It was hilarious. After we saw that the jump was safe and broken bones were minimal, we all took turns jumping off and climbing back to the top, slowly carving out the side of the mountain.

My high point came when I attempted to stun onlookers with a 360 only to have my ski clip the edge of the mountain face as I took off. Completely thrown out of sync, I ended up falling on my head with a girlish scream, before walking back up and trying again

Time to visit this huge city

Airport Hopping

Heyyy....5 hours later

Checking my emails with a few hours to kill at Heathrow. Weird thing is being at the exact same computer that I used for my first Australia race update months ago (which, for the record, I owned). Jeez, I'm already getting nostalgic

Next update will be from America! Time to change the blog name again