Shake it like a Polaroid Picture

"Where are you from?"
"How long you been here?"
"Where are you coming from?"
"How long are you staying for?"
"How long are you traveling for all together?"
"Oh, by the way, my name is Kai."

So this morning as I woke up in Morocco at 530am to make the ferry crossing, only to miss the bus that would have taken me out of the quaint Spanish coastal town of Tarifa, I realised that I have now been on the road for more than 12 weeks. Impressive, no? So as I was sitting on the beach contemplating actually making out to finding the internet cafe, my mind was overacting, while at the same time drawing a blank. Then it came to me. Traveling alone helps you meet many people, but you find yourself telling the same story day in, day out. So, this week´s topic is:

HIGHLIGHTS

It seems strange to do a highlights issue having only done just over half of the trip and having so much more to see, but since I've already cleared out a bunch of space on my memory card on my camera, added photos to Facebook, and already made three cds of photos, I guess it´s fitting to do so on my "non day-to-day" website. So where to start?


France. The highlights of this month began the first time we set up the tent. Wild camping is...well, wild. After testing out our legs in a short three day trek in the Val de Loire. The goal of the entire Europe trip for Dale and me was to do something
that most people just don´t do, while at the same time hitting all the spots normal people would as well. The first time we got the tent up was a really amazing feeling.

"Normal people have normal stories." - Luth Roose

France 2. Actually making friends for the first time. Sure, the company of one person can be rewarding and enjoyable, but at the same time, can leave you without new topics to discuss. The first time the Swedish bunch came out and said "hey, we´re going to the bar, you wanna come?" we couldn´t help but cry out with glee..."yeah, I do." BBQing is also sweet, but that topic´s been covered.

"When Chuck Norris jumps into a pool he does not get wet. The pool gets Chuck Norris." - Markus, though he did not make it up, made us laugh for minutes

Spain. Obviously, the Camino is uncontended when it comes to the official highlight of the trip. In fact, that´s hands down probably the coolest thing I´ve done thus far. I think about the camino all the time and am forever grateful that I had the time and opportunity to do it.I walked up a mountain the other day in Morocco and the views were unbelievable, but there´s just something about walking for 30some days in a row that blows day hikes out of the water. Obviously the people we´d met and the things we saw won´t soon be forgotten and the running of the bulls was also pretty cool to be a part of. Tons of parties along the way, including an unforgettable performance by Los Ronaldos, a Spanish high energy blues rock group in Leon and learning random german words with no way to actually use them in a sentence, ie. Ha-schneidemachine.

"Chicks don´t HAVE to be hot to love them...but it helps." - Dale Vaughn

Portugal. I was in Portugal for nearly two weeks all together, mostly spent on the beach just outside Porto. Though booze cruises and pub crawls in Lagos, port tasting and riverfront dinners in Porto and being offered fake hash right in front of cops in the streets of Lisbon are all cool, the best part for me going into to Portugal was the fact that crossing over the Spanish border, there was a sign that said "Portugal". Walking from France into Spain there wasn´t so much as a Bienvenido. All that happened was that the signs changed language and having not practised in about 5 and 2 years, Dale and I, respectively were confused beyond all belief.

"What, do you think you're tough or something?" - everyone who saw our packs

Morocco. Walking up a mountain by myself. But also going on public transit, which actually applies to almost every country I have been to. I always scope out the crowd as we get onto the bus, or the train and usually you can spot at least one of two backpacks which don´t cry "local". A fun game to play is the "who´s not a local" game as you walk down the street. It´s more fun with two people. But when a bus ride is more than about an hour, you can usually assume that at least most people around you are not making a daily commute (save for maybe the bus driver), which means they are probably on vacation, or WERE on vacation, at the least. But the biggest difference between their vacation any my vacation has one overlying factor, which is that when I looked around on the ferry this morning, almost everyone was wearing clearn clothes...something that only takes place in my dreams. Today, actually, I´m doing pretty well, sporting "clean" (washed) socks, brand new underwear, and a shirt that I´ve probably only worn for two-half days. My shorts? Are relatively clean, though relative is, well, (compared to the last three weeks on the camino I went without washing them) relative. But who´s counting?

"Girls like guys who look like they USED to have muscles, right?" - Consensus between Dale and Kai

But highlights aren´t always main events. Some highlights can come from meeting other people from your own country, say from Ontario, who really have it out for Alberta and you get to duke it out politcal ideological difference that that neither of you can really control at this point in time. It´s times like your last night in a country when you find yourself arguing the importance of teamplay in North American sports, defending baseball and American and/or Canadian football, against the overbearing international presence of futból, and even though you love playing both of those sports, couldn´t care less about what other people think of them.

So with all of that being said, and much more to be found out, I guess I´ll have to let this one go for a while. Thanks to eveyrone who still reads this thing. Though I do it for myself as a way to keep my mind active, it really means a lot to me that people actually care about what I have to say.