It feels weird to be reflecting on my trip around the world when I am not back in the United States.  Before I left home November 29. 2007, I imagined my writing at this point would be amongst a pile of souvenirs, journals, photographs and videos in the company of my parents.  I would sift and comb through it all to try and sum up the journey of a lifetime, yet here I am sitting outside at a copy shop’s laptop across the street from a Colombian University in Medellin.  I have access to my two most recent handwritten journals, my blog’s archives, 17,000 uploaded photos on Flickr, 49 videos on YouTube, and all my personal memories.  It all sounds rather daunting, so I am going to put aside my perfectionism and simply write the next bunch of entries as stream of conscience.

And please feel free to submit any questions.  A popular one I will answer next week is what the contents are of my backpack now as opposed to when I so meticulously took inventory before leaving home.