New Places

Is it strange to blog about my trip to Southeast Asia after it already happened? I never even finished writing about Australia: arriving in Sydney in the cool winter air, spending the day in the sunshine in the gardens and by the harbor, running into Avery near the ferry station in a small suburb of the city, eating fresh spring rolls and grilled cheese on the rooftop of our hostel; or about my trip to New Zealand when Kelly and I left Sydney together: flying over the green islands near Auckland at sunset, visiting volcanic islands and bird sanctuaries, the cliff-hugged coast at Dunedin, and the snow-capped mountains of Queenstown. And there have been so many places in between: a small, Bavarian town in Germany; the extravagant palaces of Austria; the Matterhorn in Switzerland; a small, quiet beach and mangrove-lined river in Jamaica; the cloud forests of Monteverde, Costa Rica; the beaches and Gulf of Mexico in Sarasota; the city sidewalks of London; the white cliffs at Dover; the cobblestone streets of Canterbury; the pebbled beach at Brighton; the craggly mountains of Snowdonia in Wales; the bioluminescent bay in Vieques, Puerto Rico.

I’ve been so lucky to have traveled to so many places, and that’s what I created this blog for: my journeys to new places. So I’ll continue it, just skipping a little bit in between, and write about my most recent trip—my Southeast Asian Odyssey, which has left me $2,000 in debt to my mother and no closer to finding a job, but filled and exhilarated by the experience.

I suppose my adventure began before I arrived. On February 1st, flying some 30,000 feet up in the air, I was conflicted about my feelings. My sadness at leaving Scott had somehow quelled much of my enthusiasm for the trip, and I was waiting for excitement to arrive. As dusk turned into the deep blue that lingers for only moments before night’s blackness arrives, I looked out the jet’s window to see Greenland below me. It felt like I was so low in the sky, but it was just because the mountains were so big. Completely white, and bright amongst the shadowy blues of the night, the snow-covered mountains lined dark rivers and snowy beaches. Icebergs dotted the black water, and icy glaciers filled gorges. Though they move slowly, I could tell from above the patterns in which the masses of snow and ice flowed. It was so peaceful, the night sky and bright stars perfectly matching the dark water and wintery whites.





How lucky I was! On my way to visit a tropical region—rainforests, beaches, reefs, hot cities—I looked down upon a quiet winter landscape, more beautiful than any ice or snow I’d ever seen. There’s something about seeing a new place that makes you realize, at the same time, both how large and how small the world is.