Euros Ate My Dollars

Since being home and catching up with friends, family, and co-workers, we’ve made an unexpected discovery: everyone thinks that we spent our entire journey drunk.

The first couple of times I heard someone make a reference to our trip as a “drunken whirlwind,” I dismissed it as a joke. But then it became clear that everyone seemed to have a comment about the stark lack of sobriety during our eight months. After the nineteenth person chimed in, it was officially a trend. Confused, we tried to figure out where people would have gotten such an idea.

Looking back over our history of blog posts, I think I see what’s going on. Alcohol, in its many forms, does get more shout-outs on this blog than I had realized. And upon arriving in a new country or region, we absolutely made a point of sampling the local spirit of choice. Which tends to make for good stories, and in turn ends up on our blog.

When my mother told me that friends and extended family members were worried that I was being a bad influence on their children, I have to admit that I found the idea thrilling. Me? A bad influence? To give you some context, just know that my entire life has been a hopeless struggle against my unshakable social image: a nerdier version of Cory Matthews. And now, all of a sudden, you’re telling me that I finally get to be Shawn Hunter? I mean… I don’t even know what to say! Do the black leather jacket and devil-may-care attitude come standard?*

If I’d only known the new image I was cultivating back home, I probably would have blown all of my savings on liquor and hair gel. And started some bar fights to get some edgier material for our Flickr page. But the truth of the matter (whether good, bad, or disappointingly healthy) is that drunkenness was a luxury largely outside of our financial means. We didn’t sleep in crowded 12-bunk hostel bedrooms because we like playing Russian Roulette with the nightly possibility of contracting bedbugs. We did it because we were broke. Broke by American standards, which is to say that European beggars looked up from their tin cups to pity us with alms. And ever since alms were made obsolete by the euro in 2002, we might as well have been trying to buy wine with wooden nickels.

Which was cool with us. We’re not heavy drinkers anyway, and there was too much to see and do in eight months to spend our time passed out on bar floors. The reason I wanted to write this disclaimer is for the benefit of others who will come after us. If we have given the impression that the best frame of mind for exploring the world is a drunken one, then I think we have done a disservice. As someone who enjoys beer and wine, I would encourage like-minded travelers to sample what the world has to offer, just like I would encourage you to sample local foods and customs. But beyond that, plan on saving your alms for hostels, ferry rides, and bizarre puppet shows. You’ll be able to stay abroad longer, and as a bonus, you’ll actually remember your trip when you get back home!

But if, by some chance, you find yourself finally moving from Screech Powers to Zach Morris in the eyes of those back home… and you manage to succeed where I failed by making this realization BEFORE your trip is actually over… well, you know what to do my friend. And when you have to come home six months early because you blew all your money on speed, I’ll be the first in line at the airport to congratulate you.

*This paragraph caused an argument between Brittany and me over whether or not people will know who Cory Matthews and Shawn Hunter are. As part of the peace treaty, I am now required to say that these characters come from the hit television program “Boy Meets World,” which ran from 1993-2000 on ABC. And now I will also say that if you didn’t know who these characters were before reading this paragraph, you should avoid sitting next to me at weddings, graduation ceremonies, funerals, and any other event in which you are likely to be forced into awkward conversation with me. Because you won’t understand anything I’m talking about. Thank you.

A little while ago, Brittany posted an announcement that we’re now able to sell Euros Ate My Dollars T-shirts through a company called CafePress.

When the T-shirts went on sale, we didn’t have anything in the way of a product sample from CafePress. Since then, my beautiful, supportive, fiscally liberal mother ordered herself the black version of one of the T-shirts, and we’ve discovered that the color fidelity on the black shirt leaves something to be desired.

My mother called CafePress to complain that the colors looked muted on her shirt, and they are sending her a replacement in gray, so we’ll soon see how that looks. Until then, if you’d like to buy a T-shirt, I would recommend choosing one of the lighter colors.

And if you’ve already received a dark shirt only to find that the color printing proved disappointing, then please note that CafePress seems to be willing to make the issue right. Give them a call at 1-877-809-1659, explain the difference between the online product photo and the actual shipped product, and hopefully they will work as hard to fix the issue as they did for my mother.

Updates to come, as soon as we can get a lighter version of the shirt in for inspection.

It’s almost over. Sigh.

We reluctantly left our beach paradise, boarded our very last overnight bus, and arrived in Bangkok (for the third time) this morning. Today, we’ve done some last minute shopping, indulged in our favorite Thai street foods, and kept each other from flipping out as best we can. Early tomorrow morning, we’re boarding a flight that will take us to Tokyo. Then one to San Francisco. Then New York. Then Richmond. Four flights. Thirty-six hours. Yeah, it’s really going to suck.

I am giddy to be returning home. We absolutely cannot wait to see our friends and families. I’ve realized during this trip just how lucky I am to have such wonderful people at home TO miss. Thankfully, we’ll have many opportunities over the coming weeks to see everyone — weddings, graduations, birthdays… First up (as in NEXT weekend!), I’m honored to be a bridesmaid in the wedding of my dear friend/former college roommate, Allison, to Evan, who’s a pretty cool dude even though he went to Virginia Tech. I can’t believe we’re all grown up and getting married. Long gone are the days when I’d overhear Allison, alone in her room, making fart noises with her hands and laughing to herself.

Do you know what else I’m doing at home? I’m going to get in MY car and DRIVE it. I’m going to turn on the radio and be able to understand what they’re saying. And if I want to call someone? I WILL. I’ll reach into my bag, pull out my cell phone, and call them. Playing this scene in my head right now is blowing my mind.

On the other hand, I am desperately sad the trip is over. So much so that it makes me feel sick to my stomach whenever I think about it. I’m terrified that I’ll never be able to do anything like this again, and that I’ll forget all the things I came to learn were important to me over the course of these eight months. Mostly, I’m just going to miss waking up every morning with no idea what the day will bring.

Because we’re not ready to let go of our trip JUST YET, we’re going to continue posting from home in sort of a “Tales We Never Told” series. We also have many videos we never uploaded. So, stay tuned!

We’ll see you in Virginia…

We have (finally) added restaurant reviews to our Trip Planning section! It is incomplete, like most of the other sections, but thanks to the expense and irregularity of internet access around here, we’ve reluctantly realized we’re going to have to wait until we’re back home to update the sections completely.

Secondly, we’re excited to bring to you AWESOME EUROS ATE MY DOLLARS T-SHIRTS. We’ve been working on a logo since Greece, but only now getting around to doing anything with it. Combining my rockin’ computer skillz and Ben’s love of vintage video games, it officially makes us the least cool people you know.

Visit our CafePress store to check out the tees … we hope to offer more products in the very near future!

So I was browsing CNN.com the other day trying to catch up on the most recent election news from back home when I ran across this headline:

Booming Baht Makes Cheap Thailand Vacations Impossible

ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME??

Because he has extremely good taste and can recognize genius when he spots it, we were recently contacted by Eric from TravelBlogs.com to see if we’d be interested in doing an interview for the site. As if our blog doesn’t give us enough self-indulgent opportunity to spout off about ourselves, we excitedly agreed. If you want to read MORE about us (and the ups and downs of traveling as a couple), you can check out the interview here.