Getting up at 1230AM by mistake, the clock blocked the first digit and I thought I was close to my 3AM wakeup call. I layed in bed trying to wait for the alarm to go off at 3AM only to see the clock change to 1AM. Agghh,my body is so confused what time I am in. Ohh well, at least I have two more hours of sleep.
I wake up at 3AM sharp, ready to go. I head to the airport by 430AM after a good coffee and fully configuring my backpack so that I could check certain bags with no worries if they got lost or never made it back to Colorado anytime soon.
The logistics of my flight change was not fully sorted out. I was confirmed on a 1230PM flight that arrived Miami at 5PM and was hoping to go standby on a 605PM flight from Miami, but it was too full to get me on it this AM. Optimistic at this point in my travels, I knew what I needed to do and thought it was easily possible. I needed to get on the 730AM flight to Miami and arrive around 12PM so I had enough time in Miami to go through customs and convince them to get me on the flight that night to Denver. It seemed easily doable.
Reaching the ticket counter at 5AM, I hit a couple ticket checkers that were still asleep and had no interest in switching me to the earlier flight. Asking the same questions over and over and perhaps being relentless, they offered to allow me to talk to the manager. After a short conversation with him, I was booked on the earlier flight and on my way to Miami. They last part was pretty easy and within a few extra minutes, I was on my way home. It was a great feeling. I thought about seeing Kristin, my dogs, my bed, the laundry machine, my mail, and just sleeping in the same place for two nights in a row. I can't wait to watch the Tour de France. It has been so tough to watch it over seas, let alone watch it in English.
I begin to start reflecting on my trip. Wow! I really did it right!!! The sights that I have seen will be remembered forever. Pictures will help me tell stories to family and friends. The conversations with people that I met will remind me how connected we are with everyone in this world despite speaking different languages or having different cultures. The cultures and different view points of places that I went will remind me the importance of traveling as an American to break down false believes about different cultures. I did not meet one American in South Africa. Not sure why, but I do believe that the more frequent positive encounters between Americans and foreigners, the better the true perception that each has of each other. Without travel, people form images from media, friends' stories and other potentially biased sources. I think that I had great impact on so many people just from listening to them and enjoying learning about them. It was fascinating to me.
Lastly, I see the hurt and pain that this world has. Separate from our current financial problems, I have been impacted by realizing how tough others have it on a daily basis. Watching a truckload of workers in Africa, ride in the back of a dump truck in Hurricane-like conditions, cold and dirty, sitting on top of eachother. I see them get dropped off at their homes, which consist of various colored slabs of aluminum with laundry and other wood support beams holding the aluminum slab up. I wonder if they have a dry towel to come back to, warmth for when it gets cold or where they shower when they work all day and sit in a dirty dump truck for 30 mins to an hour each way to work. What do they think about? What is it like to be in their shoes? Do they have hope? Or anger and jealousy towards others in the world? Although I don't have answers to how I can make an impact and help, I do hope that just my realization of a situation and awareness of a problem will create an opportunity for me to do my part in helping these others that I so strongly feel have a part of me in them despite our different circumstances.
I think that it will take me awhile to digest all my thoughts and experiences. I can't say enough about my hope for others to find ways to travel the world and see how other cultures' impact them. There are cheap ways and expensive ways to travel, but each person will never know how the other cultures impact them without actually traveling to these other countries themselves.
Thank you everyone for reading my blogs. I hope they were fun and inspired you to see some of the places that I went. I still have a bunch of updates to transfer from my hardcopy journal book and will be adding these in the next couple days.
Best regards,
Jeff
The Last Legs of my journey.... <: -(
Monday, July 20, 2009
Denver, Colorado, United States
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