Salt Lake City

One of my favorite parts of traveling is coming home. After a thirteen hour direct flight from Amman to Chicago, a four hour layover, then another three hour flight across the US, I finally arrived back in Salt Lake City. I love coming home. Whenever I travel, and especially when I travel in third world countries, I always come home with an appreciation for everything that makes life better in the United States. I love being able to drink water out of the tap. I love that our streets are clean and that public bathrooms are sanitary and don’t cost money. I love that government officials and law enforcement officers take pride in helping the community rather than just looking at their jobs as a way to extract money from people. I love that there is justice in the United States and that opportunities are better here than they are just about anywhere else in the world. Life is good in America.

With thirty-four hours between the time my flight landed and the time grad school starts tomorrow, I had a lot to take care of today. In a nutshell I ran a whole lot of errands and spent a few hours backing up my pictures and getting them ready to print off. I also got onto iTunes and found some of the South African songs that I blasted in the Toyota Yaris while road-tripping two weeks ago.

The Epic trip already feels like a long dream. So much happened during that eighty days and I saw and experienced so much that I just need some time to mellow out and let it all sink in. In the meantime I’m sure that grad school will keep me busy… and thoughts about future trips. I think that an overland trip from Sweden to South Africa could be pretty cool. Maybe I’ll be able to pull that off after I graduate in 2010…