6 Months!!!

Six months ago, an Australian backpacker began a journey, an oddyssey if you will. After months of careful planning and prudent saving, he was about to finally realise a childhood dream, experiencing the vast cultures, sights, smells and wonders that belonged to the continent of Europe. After checking in and finding his seat, he knew that, finally, he was doing the one thing he'd been single mindedly working towards for the past year. He let out a relieved sigh, breathing out the old, and then opened his lungs up for the first breath of his new life...

Then I dropped my ipod on his head as I bumbled into my seat, sweating profusely from the stressful events leading up to me barely sneaking through immigration on time, and then proceeded to drink my weight in gin and tonics before popping a sleeping pill, laugh at people who weren't there, and then falling asleep with my head firmly resting on his shoulder.

OK, so maybe there's a little bit of dreamy McBackpackers idealism in me, and this trip has been something of a lifelong dream, but as those of you following my blog must have realised by now, this hasn't exactly been an adventure designed around me 'finding myself', more a trip designed to suck every last bit of youth from my body before it decides it's had enough and propels me face first into full blown adulthood. I've adopted the phrase 'Quarter Life Crisis' to describe this trip, and I think it's quite apt. Just like a mid life crisis it's involved splurging all my savings into something usually associated with people about ten years younger, there has been a drastic career change, and I've been indulging in a lot of self delusional fraternising with women far my junior. However I think the quarter life crisis is something far more socially acceptable, and I think the concept could really take off. I mean, there's no wife or kids to worry about, so starting afresh in a new career doesn't mean I pursue a new dream while my kid forgoes extracurricular activites for a few years. Also, I've found that the age range for backpackers these days is anywhere from 18 to 35, with most people travelling for extended periods aged in their mid twenties (why are you laughing...28 is so mid twenties). And most importantly, my body has not yet begun to visibly age, meaning should I have any success with the beautiful young ladies, there's no grey pubes or wrinkly old balls to worry about (yeh, George Clooney aint so dreamy now is he).

To prove that the quarter life crisis really is a worthy pursuit, and to give a bit of an update on how I am at the halfway(ish) mark of my trip, I thought that a progress report would be ideal, and so here is the world's first voluntarily completed progress report (cue everyone closing this tab in their browser).


QUARTER LIFE CRISIS PROGRESS REPORT

Project name: Caedyn Stinson

Project Age: twentyish

Have any health concerns arisen for those involved in the project?
Surprisingly, I've been keeping pretty healthy. I'm pretty sure it's down to the multivitamin I take every day, as I've been living off primarily cheese and bread. I've only had the odd cold here and there, and even travelling to Morocco where they keep the meat hanging in the streets for days at a time didn't take me down (although I'm pretty sure it really diversified my parasite collection). Asia (especially India) could cause some dramatic changes to this aspect in the second six months of my trip.

Is the project keeping to its planned budget?
Surprisingly yes. I started with about $AU20K and after six months have spent about ten. This is especially good news considering I've been to all the most expensive countries on my itinerary (Scandanavia) and will spend a majority of the remainder of my trip in Asia. This bodes very well for when my mates join me towards the end of my trip in Vietnam. We can now buy lairy suits and cruise around on scooters like a camp mod squad like we'd always dreamed.

Will the project be delivered on schedule?
Errrmm, probably not. But in a good way. Originally I was thinking 11 months, but I realised that would bring me home in time for the beginning of winter in Australia. I also thought there'd be no way my budget would last that long and was actually planning on going into a bit of debt to make Asia happen. However now I've been thrifty, I'm thinking about going to Egypt, Israel and Jordan (three countries currently experiencing unprecedented levels of peace) before heading to Asia, or failing that, just taking a far more leisurely pace through Asia, and arriving home some time closer to the end of winter.

Does the project have an aim yet?No. Well yeh, sort of. But no. When I started this trip, I had just left a job that I really enjoyed, but didn't love. I was happy doing the extra yard for my coworkers because they were awesome people, and they were all really driven and passionate about their work, however I was never personally driven to put in the extra hours. I think work is a lot like oral sex. If it's done with passion it's the most wonderful thing in the world and you are happy to put in some over time and really get your hands dirty. But if it's just done for money, you find yourself just watching the clock, and you tend to do the bare minimum required to get the job done. And so one thing I've been hoping for on this trip was a career epiphany. And I'm happy to say I've had one!!!.......just about every week of the trip. So far I've decided I'm going to do sports medicine, sports medicine research, sports journalism, political journalism, war correspondence, policy designer, work as an ambassador, write a bond film, and for a brief drunken moment, open a bar with Jarrod where there's a secret menu that only locals know about which means there's happy hour every hour so long as you're in the know and no dress code or waiting line out front if there's room inside, and a kebab store INSIDE THE PUB!! So at least I've got some options...

Have any you come across any novel discoveries?
So far on my trip I have discovered the following:

* Women aged 50 to 65 are the pedestrian version of volvo drivers wearing hats. It doesn't matter what religion, culture, race or nationality, this holds true world wide. I have logged some serious miles walking around the cities of the world, and a lot of those miles were with a quite sizable backpack on. Because of this you are occasionally at the mercy of the politeness and awareness of other pedestrians, and for the most part people are very courteous and considerate. But there's something that snaps in a womans brain around the time of menopause that makes them just storm on through every and any situation. I've been three quarters of the way down narrow alleys where only one person can pass at a time, and have then had to back all the way up because a lady had momentarily become aspergic and was so focused on her destination that retreat was an inconceivable possibility for her. I can't count the number of times where I've seen whole crowds of people stopped while two middle aged ladies stop and chat, or check their maps in the middle of the walkway instead of stepping off to the side. And my personal favourite, human tailgating. The one where you're standing in queue and the lady behind you is so close to you that your glasses are steaming up from her breath, because something in her brain has told her that there is a correlation between proximity to the checkout and the speed with which she'll get served, and so she's milking every inch she can get, even if it involves grinding the customer in front of her. I've heard a lot of calls recently for cyclists to have number plates. If that's the case then we also need them on pedestrians so we can get these menopausal lunatics off the road.

*There is nothing more valuable for a traveller than a shower. As long as a bed has no major structural flaws (or stains) then it's fine. But the difference between a really good shower and a utilitarianly adequate one can really make the difference. For example, I've stayed in a few hostels where I have been absolutely freezing. However, this has been bearable when you have a shower where your can stick yourself in and thaw yourself out. However there are so many places in Europe where they have hand held shower heads and no curtains. Nothing sucks more than being freezing cold and having to squat down and use the hand held shower head to warm one part of your body at a time, ensuring that your remaining 90% is frozen. Even one of the most dire travel scenarios, the french/turkish/squat toilet sans toilet paper, can be fixed with the availability of a good shower!

*I probably should have taken some sort of self defense course before this trip. I've had a couple of times where I've been walking with all my worldly possesions on my person through places notorious for crime (coughcoughBarcelonacough). I actually have a nice little flick knife, courtesy of my friend Ethan, which I carry in my pocket during these scenarios, but I'll be damned if I know what I'd do if it actually came to needing to use it. I don't really care about most of my possesions, just my photos and to some extent my passport. I wouldn't die to save my stuff, but if someone tried to jack my cameras AND my backup harddrive, I could see myself going fairly psycho. But I doubt it'd be too effective. Right now my tactic is something I learnt from my Spanish couchsurfing friend. If someone goes to mug you, start barking and biting the air, while waving all your limbs wildly in the air and shaking your head from side to side. If they still try to mug you, then I guess they just wanted it more.

*If you want chocolate in Europe, go to the coldest parts. If you want beer in Europe, go to the slightly warmer parts. If you want wine, go to the warm parts.

Have you evolved at all or picked up any new skills or techniques?
To be honest I don't think I've changed that much. Maybe it's like when you have a newborn and can't tell how much they've grown because you see them every day, and when I return you'll all be appalled at how much of a pretentious, 'worldly', wanker I've become. But judging by how quickly I fell back into the usual routine with Jarrod and Helen when they were here, I'm pretty much the same guy. As far as skills go... I still suck at languages, but I now know how to say 'hello', 'thank you' and 'sorry' in many tongues. I've also learnt how to pick pocket (more on that in my honeymoon blog). I can now use my camera on the manual setting. And I think most importantly by blog writing has gotten exponentially gooder.


OK, I think I've gotten as much milage out of that whole performance review thing as I can. I guess the main things I wanted to say is that it's been six months, and I'm still as excited as I was on day one. Arriving in a new country is still as daunting and intriguing as it ever was. I've gotten good at travelling without becoming immune to the awesomeness of it. I am in the lucky position at the moment of having the recurring epiphany pretty much every day that this is exactly what I want to be doing in my life right now, and that no matter how many major decisions I may have screwed up in my life, I got this one spot on. I do miss all you guys a tonne, and I wish I had three or four lifetimes so I could devote a proper amount of time to all the people who are important to me and still have time to do all I want, but I don't (unless the Buddhists are right....and I really hope their not, it'd just make them even more unbearable). So I'm going to continue cramming as much of the world into this trip until I'm broke, and then I'll go back and be a good son/mate before probably doing it all again.

I'll try and get my blogs for Morocco and my honeymoon up as soon as possible (although this blog may have tipped me over to the side of complete self indulgence so I don't know how many readers I'll have left). It's hard to find time to write when there's a brand new city out my window, but I think I'm going to buy a mini laptop so I can write on bus trips, because I really like writing these blogs, and I'd kind of like to write them a bit closer to the actual events (although the stories seem to become far more fantastical with age). And finally, if anyone ever has any questions about travel plans, places to visit, or even if they need advice on how they can do their own quarter life crisis, I would be more than happy to help, I seriously love it. Actually I could see myself doing that for a career. Hostel owner...tour guide...travel agent...tour company owner...travel guide writer.... Pfft, just add em to the list I guess.

Caedyn