Euros Ate My Dollars

Our first week abroad, we made a rookie mistake. We let our dirty laundry pile up. It wasn’t until we were officially out of underwear that the thought occurred to us that, oh yeah, I guess we have to do laundry here. So, naturally, we packed our dirty clothes in plastic bags and hiked over to a laundromat we’d seen in the busy new town of Chania. There, we made the unfortunate realization that the use of their washing machines cost eight euros (12 bucks) per kilo. On our budget, that was the price of about four meals. Yikes.

We were even more dismayed to find, upon our return, that to dry the clothes would cost an additional eight euros per kilo. To put this in perspective, say you wanted to wash and dry five pounds of clothes. It would cost you forty euros or about SIXTY DOLLARS.

Which is why, on one sunny afternoon, we found ourselves heaving bags of soaking wet laundry through Greek city streets, back to our room, where we hung them out to dry.

Obviously, going forward, we adopted the tried-and-true backpacker routine of manually washing our wardrobes. Eventually, we honed our hand-washing skillz to perfection. For the benefit of fellow travelers, I’ve decided to share the process, in ten steps.

Step 1: Pretend that the hostel’s bathroom is clean. Find a sink.

Step 2: Fill the sink (or bathtub or bowl) with water, some sort of soap (laundry detergent is a luxury; it’s far too heavy to cart around. Shampoo or body wash work just as well), and your dirty clothes. You’ll need some sort of sink stopper (you can get a universal stopper at a travel store, though they never work great). A dirty sock works just as well.

Step 3: Walk away. Entertain yourself for about 15 minutes while you let your clothes soak (more, depending on level of stinkiness [FYI, according to spell check, “stinkiness” is not actually a word]). Try not to forget about your clothes until the next morning when you wake up, walk into the bathroom, see your waterlogged wardrobe sitting in a puddle of stagnant water — actually, stagnant red water, thanks to one shirt — and then for the next six months have to wear clothes that all have a pinkish glow about them.

Step 4: Come back. Stare at the sink full of filthy clothes with loathing. Question, not for the last time, why you chose to travel far away from your comfortable home with washing machine.

Step 5: Get your hands dirty. Swish around the clothes for a while. Scrub each item individually, concentrating on Problem Areas (i.e., armpits, stains). Apply additional soap as needed.

Step 6: Rinse! Run each item under the faucet (a shower head is particularly good for this) until the water runs out clean, and not soapy.

Step 7: Wring the excess water out of the item. Now, most proper hand-washers will tell you not to do this, as it stretches or misshapes your clothes. But seriously people, these clothes are going to be ruined by the end of your trip, no matter what you do. Embrace it.

You want to know why I’m pro-wringing? ‘Cause the most annoying part of doing laundry by hand is drying your clothes. That is, they don’t. It can take DAYS for soaked clothes to dry.

But never fear — Brittany’s come to the rescue once again! I have a little trick that hastens the drying process.

Step 8: Spread out a towel on the floor. Place the wet clothing item on top of the towel. Roll up the towel/clothes combo. Whack your boyfriend with it a couple of times. Very important.

Step 9: Wring, squish, squeeze, sit, stomp, have fun! Do whatever you can to that towel burrito to get as much water out of your clothes, and into the towel, as possible. Work out all your aggression! Sing while you do it. Sorry, it’s required.

Step 10: Hang up your clothes, wherever you can. Outside is always best. We brought a portable clothes line with us. If you hang clothes indoors, in a non-air-conditioned, unventilated room, they’ll pretty much never dry. If you can, time it so your clothes can hang out overnight. You’ll be wary of leaving your clothes outside overnight before you realize that no one wants to steal your dirty, hand-washed underwear anyway. Also, get used to wearing damp clothes.

If you’re clothes are still wet by the time you have to pack up and move on, for the love of God, pack them in a separate, plastic bag! They will stink to high heaven otherwise. Oh, borrowed hair dryers also work for emergency drying.

Ta da! You did it! Your clothes are (kind of) clean!

If ever you find yourself in a hostel, scrubbing your unmentionables in a small sink using hand soap instead of detergent, and hanging them to dry on the railing of your bunk bed in a room you share with eight people, you’re officially allowed to call yourself a backpacker. Be thankful that you don’t have to do your laundry in a river, like most rural residents of S.E. Asia.

Important Tips:

• Do NOT, for your own sake, let your dirty clothes pile up. Every couple of days wash a few items. Trust me, it’s much, much better this way. Manually washing an entire load of laundry is not a fun way to spend an entire day.
• Realize that pretty much no matter what you do, you’re going to stink. It’s cool. So does everyone else! Your definition of what’s “acceptable to wear” is far different while traveling than while living at home.
• And as a “treat” to yourself, splurge once a month or so and let someone do your laundry for you in a proper machine, no matter what the cost. ‘Cause, trust me, you’re never going to feel truly clean wearing underwear you hand-washed in a sink.

And finally, two items a traveler should never, EVER be without:

1. Tide stick
   
2. Febreze! For the uninitiated: Febreze is a miracle liquid that eliminates odors in fabrics. It pretty much allowed us to do laundry half as often. I know, disgusting.
   

Sweet, sweet modern luxuries.

All too often during our travels, we often found ourselves stuck on cramped, smelly buses for unusually long stretches of time. And whenever the iPods gave out and motion sickness prevented reading, we turned to entertaining ourselves by constructing “Top 3″ lists. Top 3 countries for natural beauty, Top 3 ice cream joints, Top 3 scam artists… you name it. We continue to create and tweak these lists now that we’re home, but simply arguing with each other over the best choices has grown dull. We’ve reached a harmonic consensus on too many selections, and we know we’ll simply never agree on certain others. Time to shake things up! And what better way to do that than post some of our Top 3 lists right here for your inspection and consideration? So, if you disagree with any of these brilliant selections, we expect to hear about it. Just know that you’re definitely wrong.

Top 3 Places to Build a New Life
1. Chiang Mai, Thailand
2. Aix-en-Provence, France
3. Chania, Crete, Greece

Top 3 Big Cities
1. Rome, Italy
2. Prague, Czech Republic
3. Contested. Brittany says Paris, Ben says Barcelona.

Top 3 Foodie Countries
1. Italy
2. Thailand
3. Greece

Top 3 Beers
1. Kozel Dark! (Czech Republic)
2. Beerlao (Laos)
3. Leffe (Belgium… yeah, we got it in France)

Top 3 Naturally Beautiful Countries
1. Laos
2. Greece
3. Spain (Andalucia clinched it)

Top 3 Most Frustrating Places to Travel (not that we don’t love ya, anyway…)
1. Vietnam
2. Paris
3. London (We spent FIFTY BUCKS on a round-trip metro ride. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?)

Top 3 Street Foods
1. Gyros (Greece)
2. Rotee, aka “pancakes” (SE Asia)
3. Fried bananas (Thailand)

Top 3 Friendliest Peoples
1. Thai
2. Portuguese
3. Australians (And we didn’t even go to Australia. THAT’S friendly.)

Top 3 Best Architecture
1. Barcelona, Spain (this is why. Also this. And the lobster.
2. Rome, Italy
3. Paris, France

Top 3 Ruins
1. Knossos (Crete, Greece)
2. Angkor Wat (Cambodia)
3. Pompeii (Italy)

And finally, some supplementary statistics…

# of times pickpocketed: 0

# of times Brittany got yelled at in a foreign language: 4

# of toilets Ben clogged with his self-proclaimed “giant American poos”: infinity

After the dozenth person told us we needed to attach a Canadian flag to our backpacks while traveling around Europe, I became curious. How bad would it be? Why do I have to pretend I’m not American? Do Europeans really hate us that much?

In short, no. Most people we met were able to separate any feelings they may have towards the American government from their perception of its people. That said, George W. is widely mocked. More than that, he’s a laughingstock. We rarely introduced ourselves as Americans without getting a comment or two about Dubya – to the point where I wanted to start every conversation with, “Hello, my name is Brittany, I’m from the United States, and I DID NOT VOTE FOR HIM, thankyouverymuch.” (Oh, there was also this guy).

We obstinately refused to wear maple leaves on our luggage, and we had no major problems. Sure, I encountered lots of people that were surprised I wasn’t a gun-toting, lawsuit-happy, Bible-thumping, socially-conservative cowboy. They can’t help it—their media depicts Americans that way. And I was more than happy to assure them that, no, I promise, we’re not all like that. We met a few people who treated us disdainfully or dismissively. We, in turn, dismissed or ignored them.

But there was ONE guy…

During our tour of Halong Bay, our group—a mix of Australians, Canadians, Irish, English, Malaysians and, of course, two awesome Americans—stopped on a beach to have a picnic lunch. The conversation was pleasant and fun, aside from an irritating British man at the other end of the table who would loudly state well-known facts as if he discovered them. “Did you know that the skin is the body’s largest organ?” he’d say proudly in a hoity-toity British accent. “Yes, I read that in a science journal.”

We largely tuned him out, and talked to the cool Aussies and Canadians around us.

There was one moment, though, when there was a brief lull in conversation. Mr. Science Journal took advantage of this opportunity.

“I mean, I can understand voting Bush into office once, because how could they know?” he said, his voice heavy with condescension. “But the fact that they re-elected him really makes me call into question their intelligence and what kind of people they really are.”

No one said a word. Aware of the presence of two Americans (well, everyone but him, who hadn’t bothered to talk to us), everyone looked down nervously, avoiding our gaze. An awkward silence fell.

Eventually, Ben broke the silence:

“God, I hate Americans,” he said.

The table burst into laughter, with the exception of Mr. Science Journal. In Ben’s words, “I think I succeeded in making an ass out of THAT guy.”

There’s very little you can say about America that will offend me. While I have a certain degree of national pride (cue the Star Spangled Banner), I have enough of my own criticisms to appreciate that other people might be critical of my government as well. But this guy’s personal remarks and unapologetic generalizations rubbed me the wrong way. It was the one instance during our trip that I had to suppress the urge to defend my country.

Before I end this, I want to tell one more anecdote that will leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside about Uncle Sam.

Back on Crete, we met a Danish dude named Nikolaus, who’d spent time in Florida, where he had family. His first impression of the States, he told us, was confusion over the extreme number of rules we have; rules that seemed silly to him. No, you can’t walk here! That would be trespassing. And God forbid you show a beer bottle in public!

“It’s like you fear all the time!” he said. “Americans are scared. What are you afraid of?”

This perception was accentuated when he visited the local Walmart to register for a fishing license. He’d brought his passport, his visa, and several other travel documents and forms of identification. However, because he didn’t specifically have an American driver’s license, the Walmart employee would not issue him a fishing license.

Irritated, Nikolaus argued with and questioned her, but she wouldn’t budge.

“She would not use her brain!” he said, getting annoyed as he remembered it. “She just followed the rules without thinking!”

As he was about to storm out angrily, Nikolaus noticed racks of guns lining the wall. “So I can’t get a fishing license,” he said. “But, if I wanted, could I buy a gun?”

“Well, yeah,” the employee said. “Of course.”

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.

We met new people virtually every day of our trip. It’s the best part about traveling, actually. We had some amazing experiences with amazing people.

Meeting so many new people from around the world, you become adept at quickly identifying who you’ll get along with, and who you want to avoid. On the other hand, long-term travel forces you to broaden your outlook when it comes to friendship. Sure, you may never be friends with a person in “real” life, back home, but when they’re the only fellow English speaker in your vicinity, you bond immediately. And people often surprise you. It’s just another reason traveling opens your mind in unexpected ways.

At our hostel in Prague, we met a guy named Toby, whom I’ve always wanted to write about. I loved Toby. It became clear right away, when he plopped down in the seat across from me at the downstairs bar with an awkward, “hello, mates,” that Toby was our kind of people.

A 19-year-old, floppy-haired Australian on his gap year between school and “Uni,” he was the antithesis of all those annoying elitists you so often encounter in travel circles. Everyone would be sitting downstairs in the hostel pub discussing the various sights and experiences of Prague we’d witnessed that day. Then Toby would pipe up with his daily adventures: he’d slept all morning and surfed YouTube all afternoon. That was it. When fellow hostelers would stare at him quizzically, or disdainfully, he seemed not to notice. He’d just say, “yeah, I saw this wicked video…”

He did this every day. And he didn’t apologize or make excuses. We’d come home from our explorations to find Toby in bed, in front of a computer screen, or scrounging up some food from the common kitchen. In his pajamas. And we pretty much hung out with him every night.

On the evening of our last full day in Prague, we came bustling through the front door of our hostel, frost-bitten, laden with Christmas presents, and running late. “You check game times, I’ll get the boys!” I shouted back to Ben, as I ran up the stairs.

We’d made sketchy plans the previous evening to attend a hockey game with Toby and his travel buddy, Owen. I’ve never attended a hockey game, ever, but the fervor surrounding hockey in the Czech Republic matches the fervor surrounding “football” in the rest of Europe, so I though it was a good place to experience the sport. In fact, one of the hostel receptionists got into a surprisingly heated debate with her friend over which sport was the “national” sport of the Czech Republic.

“TOOOOOOBBBYYYYYY,” I yelled, banging my fists against his door. I’d been standing there for five minutes, pounding the heavy wooden door, my screams echoing through the halls of the hostel. “TOBY! OWEN! I know you’re in there! GET UP!”

Finally I hear a groggy moan: “Who’s there? Bugger off, mate, wouldja?”

“Toby, it’s Brittany, would you open the door?! We’re going to a hockey game, remember? You’re coming!” I heard Owen slowly climb out of bed, shuffle over to the door and turn the lock to let me in. Toby rolled over in bed and put a pillow over his face.

“But I just got in bed!” he whined.

“Toby! It’s six o’clock at night! You’ve been in bed all day!”

“Nuh uh!” I hear his muffled voice arguing from underneath the pillow. “I went out to the bakery and then got on Facebook some, too. I only just got in bed for a nap.”

“‘Just got in bed’ when?” I asked.

“I don’t know. ‘Bout three, I suppose.”

It took much yelling and pillow-throwing from Owen and me to get Toby out of bed. He finally stumbled out, promising to meet us downstairs. He showed up with a parka thrown on top of his pajamas.

As usual, we hadn’t planned well. Turned out that the hockey tournament venue was about an hour train ride outside of Prague. The effort to get there, coupled with the additional expense, our inevitable tardiness, and sub-zero temperatures outside, quickly deflated our excitement. I may have been convinced to go if someone in our group was particularly enthusiastic about it, but we didn’t really keep Toby around as a motivator.

“Want to get some food then?” Toby suggested. Since I’m always game for food, we agreed.

We stepped outside of the hostel, bundled up so tightly that only our eyes and noses poked out from beneath our wool hats. Only then did we realize that we didn’t have a destination in mind. We stood there for a moment, shivering, discussing our options.

“I guess there’s that pizza place next store,” Owen suggested.

“Yeah, but I think that’s closed for the holidays,” I replied.

“I think a lot of restaurants are closed tonight,” Ben said.

“You know, I’m not even hungry,” Toby said, after a bit of self-reflection.

“I’m not really, either, actually,” I agreed. “I guess… let’s just go to the grocery store to get some food for later or something?”

And so, in an anticlimactic turn of events, we ended up walking to the small, local supermarket to pick up some dinner for later. There, Toby was able to once again prove why we liked him so much. He bought a honey pomelo. Because while we shopped for sausage or potatoes or other authentic fare, Toby, in Northern Europe in the middle of winter, shopped for tropical fruit.

Later, when we got back to the hostel, we sat around the large, oak table in the warm kitchen, sharing Toby’s pomelo.

And then Terrance walks in. One of Toby and Owen’s roommates was a Canadian guy whose name I can’t remember as I intentionally tried to erase the knowledge of his existence from my brain. So, for now, I’ll call him Terrance.

It was clear early on that Terrance was NOT our kind of people. He was a one-upper: no matter where you’d been, he’d been there too and done it better. He went out of his way to establish that he was so much cooler than you: he knew all the best beers, the best drinking games, the best local bars. Most annoyingly, he kept coming up with lame excuses to mention his sex life. Now, to people with a maturity level beyond that of a twelve-year-old boy, it’s painfully clear that anyone who talks excessively about their sexual experience to strangers has never actually had any sexual experience at all. That didn’t stop Terrance from inventing games that allowed him to divulge disgusting details no one wanted to hear. “Yeah, there was this girl in college,” he’d say to the uninterested crowd. “And one time we [insert graphic sexual act he’s never experienced but learned about from the porn he buys off the internet]. It was HOT.”

The first night he’d hung out downstairs with us, he’d excused himself early to go “do some work.” When people didn’t seem to be making a big enough deal out of him leaving, he paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Yeah, I can work from abroad… you know, anywhere I want… [still no reaction from the crowd]… my company gives me all this fancy equipment…I’m a web designer… yeah, I know html code… important stuff…” he trailed off as he realized no one was listening, and stormed upstairs. It was a good thing, too, because if Ben hadn’t been there, trying to calm me down, I was about to go off on Terrance in a big way.

Terrance had walked into the kitchen as we were trying to formulate our plans for the evening. We’d thus far avoided the numerous massive nightclubs in Prague, but the general consensus was that the Aussies wanted to celebrate our last night in the city at a popular nearby club. So once again, we donned our many layers, and set off: me, Ben, Owen, Toby, Terrance and a couple other people we picked up on our way out the door.

I’m not a loud, techno-music-loving nightclub kind of person. And Ben’s even less so. As in, it takes some serious peer pressure to convince him to step foot in one. Still, Kross Klub immediately impressed me. The entire club was outfitted in a hardcore industrial motif: whirring car engines hung from the ceiling and rotating gears lined the walls. As opposed to one gigantic space, the club was a maze of small rooms, each with its own bar and music. We wound through narrow staircases, suddenly popping through a door to find ourselves on a dance floor with a DJ spinning trance music and a huge screen on the wall flashing the words TAKE LSD. Other rooms were quieter, just a string of tables and a black-lit bar.

In one such room, we chose a small booth in a corner and squeezed in. Shortly after we sat down, a shifty-eyed Czech man slid up beside our table. “You want to smoke some drugs?” the man whispered in a heavy Czech accent.

We looked at each other, nervously. Sure, we all agreed. ‘Cause you only live once, right? So we made a hasty exchange. The next thing I remember is waking up, freezing and half naked, in the dirt on the side of a road – my feet frostbitten, all my belongings gone, alone, with no idea where I was and how I’d gotten there. And this, my friends, is why you DON’T DO DRUGS.

Just kidding. In case our parents are now worried that they’ve raised children who make Bad Decisions, I’ll tell the truth. We sat in the club, talking for a while. When I couldn’t convince any of the boys to dance with me, I pouted. We eventually left, walked back to our hostel, tiptoed into our room so as not to wake our roommates, and fell asleep in our bunk beds. So there you have it. A boring ending. FINE.

The next morning, we woke early, stocked up on medovnik from the local bakery, and ran to catch the bus that would deliver us, 24 hours later, to Barcelona.

There is a bittersweet part to meeting new, awesome people everyday: you have to leave them. It’s something I never quite got used to—saying goodbye to people that meant something to me with the full knowledge that I’ll never see them again in my life. So even though it breaks my heart that I can’t just call Toby and meet him for lunch on a whim, it’s heartening to know that people like him are out there in the world. Especially since returning home, where I’m bombarded on a daily basis by the media giving me new reasons to believe that people are evil and life is scary, the people we met on our trip help me remember that people are good and life is fun.

So, here’s to everyone we met during our eight months abroad. You rock. Thanks for making our trip, and my life, better.

The one thing I could never figure out during our entire trip was what it would feel like to finally return home. I knew we were both looking forward to it. Because while traveling around the world is unspeakably amazing, there is also no substitute for the feeling of being surrounded by family and friends. Who speak English. And now that we’ve been back for a couple of weeks, I can say that coming home after eight months to everyone we love was one of the highlights of travel experience. With their help, we’ve been doing our best to grab this bull called Culture Shock by the horns, sleeper-hold it into submission, and ride it straight into a swimming pool full of cattle prods. Here’s a tutorial…

1. NASCAR

Three days after we landed, NASCAR came to our home city of Richmond. I think the Richmond race is a big deal in the NASCAR world, but I don’t know for sure because I know absolutely nothing about NASCAR, racing, or cars in general. It’s certainly a big deal for Richmond. Something like 100,000 people head for the track, and spend as many hours/days/weeks as possible tailgating before the race. When our friends called to invite us to come along, how could we refuse? Especially when it became clear that no one had any intention of buying tickets for the actual race… everyone was simply going for the tailgating. Righteous.

You may or may not know this, but Richmond was the capital of the Confederate States of America. Which may seem like nothing more than an interesting bit of trivia at first glance, seeing as it hasn’t held that distinction for 150 years. But not so for many Richmonders. When the War of Northern Aggression was temporarily suspended in 1865, Richmonders immediately began readying themselves for their inevitable counter attack. Strategic preparations continue to this day, including affixing Confederate flags to pick-up truck antennae, buying cases of Milwaukee’s Best Light on sale at Food Lion, and riding backwards on a wooden roller coaster called The Rebel Yell. Just let those Yankees try something!

But on one day out of the year, Food Lion is empty, the Rebel Yell is silent, and there is a startling shortage of Confederate flags on the highway. Amazingly, I never made the connection until last weekend: that one day is race day. And it’s a good thing the Confederate flags aren’t out trucking around, because we need every last one we can find to properly blanket the racetrack parking lot. Can you imagine if we managed to allow Dale Jr. flags to outnumber the Stars and Bars? Sacrosanct!

Like I said, I know nothing about NASCAR, so I spent my day eating grilled meats and trying to pick a favorite racer. It was a tough choice until fate introduced me to the merchandise trailer of Greg Biffle. My only criterion for a favorite racer is that his name be satisfying to holler at the top of my lungs in a Southern accent. Biffle, your name is music to my ears, even over the din of a morbidly obese woman in a miniskirt being hungrily spanked by her boyfriend behind the port-a-pottys. And I speak from experience.

2. Pot Luck Surprise Parties

We’re lucky to have friends who threw us a surprise “welcome home” party the Saturday night of the NASCAR race. Of course, at this point, we should just call it a welcome home party. The surprise bit went out the window when Brittany’s sister Lindsay called me to ask me to bring some of my mom’s famous hot crab dip to the party. And drinks. And napkins. Surprise!

The party was great, and it also constituted another one of those “you’re not in SE Asia anymore” moments. We have Chick-Fil-A chicken nugget trays? A vegetable and dip spread? DRINKABLE WATER FROM THE TAP? Traveling in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam was such a different experience than traveling in Western Europe. When I think about the newfound appreciation I have for this horn-o-plenty called the United States, I’m so happy we were able to devote the time we did to exploring these countries. I am, of course, also happy about our time spent in Thailand, but there’s a distinct line between Thailand and its neighbors. That is, Thailand has Mr. Donut.

3. Fishin’

For all the fun I poke at Richmond NASCAR fans, I do have my own deep fried Southern passions. First among these: fishing. Not deep sea fishing or whatever other shenanigans people with too much money (Yankees!) have gotten themselves into. I’m talking about walking down to the lake with a pole, a tackle box, and some nightcrawlers from Bob’s Bait Shop. I’d been itching to get back to fishing ever since our first days in Greece, and this past weekend, Brittany and I finally scratched my itch.

The important thing, of course, is simply going fishing because it feels like HOME. And it doesn’t really matter if your girlfriend catches five fish and you catch zero. Nope, it really doesn’t. Really really doesn’t.

Other things that matter include catching a fishing pole on the bottom of the lake (this seriously happened, somehow) and the overall experience of patronizing Bob’s Bait Shop.

Yes, Bob’s Bait Shop flies a Confederate flag. Yes, Bob’s Bait Shop sells fake deer for target practice. Yes, Bob’s Bait Shop buys your old swords and guns. And yes, Bob’s Bait Shop’s parking lot is home to a super-size pick-up with the following license plate:

In other words, welcome home!