Thoughts on Russia

Christmas went well. My uncle came over for dinner with his girlfriend, whom we hadn’t yet met. I thought it was interesting to have a new person with us for Christmas dinner. I sometimes wonder what situations that are familiar to me would be like to an outsider, and I was pleased to imagine that an outsider would be happy with us and our feast. (Corollary: I worry a lot about what people think of me. Example: I shouldn’t have used the word “corollary” because people will think I’m a nerd.)

After dinner, my dad wanted to watch the video of the Christmas play that my sister and I were in a few years ago. Since our tapes weren’t labeled, we ended up going through (and getting sidetracked by) videos from our trip to North Carolina and the first youth group comedy night. Eventually, we did find the play, and we watched it. I forgot that everyone did a pretty good job with their acting (except for me because I played Santa Claus and had to wear a fake beard that kept riding up my face).

Yesterday, I went to the mall with my sister and our friend Kevin. I didn’t have a monthly calendar for next year, so I bought a calendar of vintage UF football game program cover artwork. I like UF football, and I like nostalgia. I didn’t even know there were programs for football games back in the day. Do they still have them? Are they only for the rich people in the boxes?

My friend Katja, or Katya, or Kate, who will be visiting soon, had a question for me about her native Russia. She wanted to know about my honest impressions of the country and how I imagine life to be like there.

The main thing that sticks out in my memory from what I’ve heard and read is that the police are said to be corrupt, and that they’ll stop your car and arrest you if you don’t give them money. Russia is also home to some illegal music downloading sites and some news sites with dubious stories. Vladimir Putin seems to be portrayed in the Western media as power-hungry, particularly since he’s become Prime Minister. So my overall impression is that Russia is a place where the rule of law is not taken very seriously. I think it’s also very cold.

I want to stress that I don’t have any ill will toward Russia or Russians. This is exactly the kind of answer Katja was looking for: maybe not factual but what I have been led to believe. I’m sure that Russia is a nice place to visit and that any of the bad things I mentioned, if true, are not too prevalent. If I went there, I doubt I would have to bribe the police, and it might even be warm. I know that some people have bad impressions of America (for example, South Koreans think our beef is all tainted due to maybe a single incident), but it’s really not a bad place to live (as long as you can get health insurance).

So, I’m curious. What impressions do my non-USA readers have about the USA?

Is it too late for a Christmas-related link? Read about Sweden’s tradition of watching Donald Duck cartoons on Christmas Eve. (Via waxy.org)

This was pretty depressing to read. I didn’t realize that rape was so common and that women were so… aware of it. Schrödinger’s Rapist: Or a Guy’s Guide to Approaching Strange Women Without Being Maced. (Via mcgees.org)

Christmas 2009

So I guess they actually did spend twelve days celebrating Christmas back in the old days. That must have been fun. We’ve had three, pretty much. It started on Wednesday night when my grandparents came over and we had surf ‘n’ turf for dinner. We don’t have steak a lot, and I’d only had lobster once before, but I can’t remember where. It wasn’t too long ago. The archives don’t help, but they remind me that the dinner was quite bovine and homarine.

Also on Wednesday, my dad found an 1897 Liberty Head nickel in some change and gave it to me. I’d grade it as Very Good to Fine or thereabouts. Coin collecting is an expensive hobby unless you can scavenge through a lot of change.

After dinner, my sister and I watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, which we had taped (omg you guys still use vhs vcr video casette tapes? what the heck) from a recent airing on the Disney Channel. Surprisingly, there were only three commercial breaks, and the credits were left intact. In fact, I don’t think anything was cut out from the film either. It was a Christmas miracle.

For Christmas Eve, we did the whole church thing and then went home and opened a few gifts. My dad got new cell phones for everybody. I’m evaluating mine and will let you know what I think about it later. Then we had another feast for dinner. It consisted of finger foods like wings, shrimp, and chips ‘n’ dips. What says “Merry Christmas” better than seven-layer dip? Maybe the desserts, but that’s it.

And today, it’s Christmas. The cell phone was my Big Present of the Year, but I also got some clothes and other things that are nice to have. Plus, I have more gifts coming in the mail from friends and family, so maybe we can stretch this Christmas out a little further. In a few hours, we’ll have dinner, which is the same as our Thanksgiving dinner because it’s too good to have just once a year.

And now, a special Christmas edition of Ask Jordon!

Shannon: Why exactly are you an atheist?

I didn’t ignore you, Shannon! I got this question months ago and have been working on a response. The result is a new page, Why I Am an Atheist. You can also find if you click on… can anyone guess? Yes, Articles! Good job.

I don’t have any Christmas-related links, so you’ll have to settle for these secular links that are destroying Christmas.

A song whose lyrics consist of sampled movie and TV quotes: The Golden Age of Video. (Via waxy.org)

Here’s another video with movie quotes: specifically, movie titles as spoken in the movies themselves. (Via waxy.org)

Whaddayaknow

If I’m not blogging regularly, it could only mean one of two things: either I’m busy or I have nothing to say. Well, it could be both, but I’m simplifying things. In this case, I am havin’ a blast. I got home on Thursday night. I spent Friday night with my friends and most of Saturday with them as well. Today was a family day; my sister and I went with our parents to get a Christmas tree.

So, whaddayaknow, it’s almost Christmas. As usual, I don’t really want much stuff. I asked my parents for (i.e., bought with their credit card) a Creative Commons t-shirt. The money goes toward a good cause, and I can use my chest to advertise it. Sounds like a winning plan all around.

From the Stuff-Nobody-Cares-About Dept.: I used to use my own Update Notifier for my Greasemonkey user scripts. Almost everybody writes their own, but I’ve gotten tired of having to maintain it and figured that someone else would probably do a better job, so I’m switching to usoCheckup for my scripts. It has some interesting features that are too boring to describe here.

And hey, whaddayaknow, it’s the end of the post already.

I’ve sleepwalked before, and I’m afraid of doing it again because it’s really creepy. Case in point: sleep-emailing and other strange occurrences. (Via The Presurfer)

Watch as a woman attempts 21 accents in three videos: 1, 2, 3. She’s pretty good.

Here’s an interesting column that appeared in a UF student newspaper this semester: Social Media Emphasize Individuality. The author argues that when people we don’t know very well pour their souls out in blogs and the like, it helps us understand that they’re more than meets the eye.

Thanksgiving Eve

‘Twas the day before Thanksgiving, and all through the university, people started putting up Christmas decorations and saying “’tis” and “’twas” a lot.

On Monday, I and some other folks from Get Carded (the student organ donor awareness group I’m a part of) went to some sorority houses to talk briefly about the benefits of organ donation. I had never wandered around Sorority Row, which is actually more of a neighborhood than a row, so it was all new to me. Also, I didn’t know that sororities (and probably also fraternities) allow just about anyone to come in and make an announcement during their weekly dinner. Yay for captive audiences.

Right after that, I accompanied my co-workers, Bonnie and Mark, to Wal-Mart Walmart to buy some toys for a needy child (and a gift card for his parents), as we had decided to do last week. A little boy is going to be very happy with the new toy trucks he asked for.

I think my professors should get into the spirit of the season by canceling classes the day before Thanksgiving. I mean planning not to have class in the first place. I e-mailed all of my professors last week, and they all said they would hold class as usual. On Monday, two of them changed their minds after finding out how many students were going to be there. Meanwhile, I had already made plans to get picked up on Wednesday afternoon. Le sigh…

Anyway, in a little while I’m going to my grandparents’, where I’ll be spending the holiday. I’ll get home either late Thursday night or on Friday.

Here’s a pair of Ask Jordon questions from my friend Justin.

Justin: Would you be willing to go on (another) expansive trip throughout Europe? I wish to backpack around the Mediterranean.

Not for a while. Though I had a blast this summer, my bank account also had a blast. As in, it, like, blew up. Okay, that didn’t work. I spent a lot of money is the point.

Also Justin: Would you consider telling Luke that I miss our friendship?

Sure. Luke, Justin misses your friendship.

Kind of cool, kind of creepy: a piano that “talks” by playing a bunch of notes that are extracted from a recording of human speech. (Via J-Walk Blog)

Every Beatles fan must hear this: analyses of the multitrack tapes of “She’s Leaving Home,” “A Day in the Life,” and “Come Together.” They’re originally segments from a BBC radio program(me). Hear different tracks isolated and even some stuff that didn’t make the final mixes.

There’s nothing to it

The Esperanto Club at UF kicked off its second year on Tuesday. Andy and I presented the story of our summer and how we used Esperanto.

The photo-within-a-photo you see there was taken while I was lining up to give a greeting at the Cultural Language Festival, which was part of the International Youth Congress of Esperanto in the Czech Republic. I’m on the far right; the others, from left to right, are South Korean, Togolese, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese. And yes, people from Togo are Togolese. I looked that up. (Hint to geography-types: if feel you have to add an extra letter when tacking on -ese, try a different suffix. I would have guessed “Togoan.”) Incidentally, Andy had at least one good conversation with the South Korean, and I later hung out with the Ukrainian in Berlin (also mentioned in the aforelinked post, which is extremely long and thus covers a rather long time period).

And apparently, this photo was published on the cover of La Ondo de Esperanto (The Wave of Esperanto), a magazine I used to subscribe to but, alas, don’t any longer. I’ll try to hunt down a copy.

In my last post, I discussed my ambivalence about eating Krishna Lunch on campus. In the end, I didn’t feel so ambivalent about it at all, and my sister and I enjoyed Krishna Lunch together yesterday. I think they have something different each day of the week. I hadn’t had Krishna Lunch too many times before, but I must have had it on a Thursday because I recognized the food: rice and some yellow stuff with salad and some sweet blueberry-flavored mashed-potato-looking thing.

This didn’t occur to me before, but I’m surprised that Aramark, the company that monopolistically runs all eating establishments on campus, allows Krishna Lunch to operate. It wouldn’t surprise me if Aramark had considered giving the Krishnas the boot—they do siphon off Aramark’s business, after all—only to realize that there would be rioting in the streets if students didn’t have their $4 “karma-free” plates. (I say “karma-free” in quotation marks because karma isn’t real.)

Also, I mentioned Krishna Lunch in 2006, when the price (technically, suggested donation) was a mere $3. It rose recently to little indignation.

For the nerds: song lyrics as pseudocode. (Via The Presurfer)

Art: the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States, spelled out on license plates from each state. (Via The Presurfer)

Brain damage

My right brain and left brain need to sit down and have a chat sometime.

Sometimes I’m caught having to choose between what’s logically sound and what feels good. It doesn’t have to be anything big; even little things can tear me to pieces.

For a while now, my parents have been giving me scratch-off lottery tickets as small gifts. Playing the lottery is a bad idea if you want to win. It is a system designed to make money; otherwise, it wouldn’t exist. As I’ve been more and more concerned about saving money, I asked my parents to stop buying me lottery tickets and to maybe give me the money they would have otherwise spent on the tickets instead. Of course, I regretted it as soon as the words came out of my mouth.

But scratch-offs were fun, they said. They didn’t sound too happy, so I backpedaled. I had wanted to categorically reject all gambling because it’s a bad idea that makes people lose money, but I compromised myself because my emotions got the better of me. I feel like I should be able to say, “Please don’t buy me lottery tickets, do something useful with your money instead,” but on the other hand, I want my parents to be happy. Also, seeing if you’ve won can be entertaining, and the proceeds of the Florida Lottery fund education.

There are always two sides to every issue. Why do they both have to have merit? It only makes life more difficult for those of us who want to make principled decisions.

And then there are the Hare Krishna types who serve lunch at my university. Krishna Lunch is considered an institution because they’ve been doing it for many years. People like the food, and it comes at a competitive price. Every day around lunchtime, students line up on the plaza to be served while Hare Krishnas play their Hare Krishna music and chant Hare Krishna.

I’ve had Krishna Lunch once or twice. It was pretty tasty. I might like to take advantage of their cheap lunch offers more often, but I’m concerned about who I give my money to and what it says about me. I’m obviously not too keen on giving my money to a religious organization because then they have that much more of an ability to spread their religious nonsense.

In my research, I’ve found that Krishna Lunch is a nonprofit, which puts me at ease somewhat. But there’s still another issue that I think is important. I feel that if I’m caught with one of their paper plates full of unidentifiable food, there should be some kind of disclaimer above my head stating that I don’t necessarily endorse the beliefs or practices of the organization.

I guess I might as well go through with it; I don’t think anyone would judge me. I should be more concerned about whether I would judge myself. And I did eat at a Chick-fil-A recently, which is like giving money to a church (and getting a crappy sandwich and delicious fries in return). But what would you do if you were me?

Less money, mo’ problems.

Slate asks: Why Do We Call Galileo Galilei by His First Name? (Via J-Walk Blog)

This chart could be handy for me now that I’m dabbling in buying perishable food: The Table of Condiments That Periodically Go Bad. (Via All About Me – And Then Some)

Movin’ on up

When The World of Stuff sleeps for a week, it means big things have happened… probably.

On Wednesday, my friend TJ had a party for his birthday and the end of summer. At his request, my sister and I brought seven-layer dip, which I had for my quasi-party the week before. TJ’s was fun, but I got really tired before everyone else and went home instead of spending the night. Besides, I had to get up early the next day to start packing.

On Saturday, we made the move to Gainesville again. My sister had already moved most of her stuff to her new apartment, but since she was bringing her clothes this time, there was hardly any room for my stuff and my dad had to rent a small trailer. Yes, I’m blaming it on the clothes.

But no matter. I was excited to be moving into an apartment after spending two years in the dorms. My parents helped me move in, and then we went to the store for some important things like food. I had a meal plan my first two years in college, but I don’t now. I also don’t have actual dishes or cutlery (just paper and plastic, respectively), but that will probably change soon as I go shopping for stuff.

I sealed the deal for this particular abode with my then-current roommate back in January. My friend Andy, who I went to Europe with this summer, joined in as well. There was room for a fourth person in the apartment, but we ended up not finding anyone to join us, and they didn’t assign us another roommate. We’re locked out of the fourth bedroom, but we don’t have to pay extra or anything.

The curious can see some pretty, pretty pictures of the apartment complex on its web site. I might post photos of our place eventually, but it’s still kind of a mess, the lighting is bad (for photography), and my camera is starting to crap out after traveling around Europe in my pocket. I have a feeling it’s going to be like the nimble old guy who retires from his lifelong job and then dies two months later.

Of course, some of the first things I checked out in my new apartment were the cable and Internet services. They’re provided by some company called Pavlov Media. The Internet service seems pretty decent. The speed is good; they have an SMTP server; they don’t block or throttle BitTorrent (I checked). However, not all is warm and fuzzy. There have been some times when my connection has been slow or nonexistent. Also, Pavlov Media practices DNS hijacking by redirecting nonexistent domain names to its own advertising-laden pages. To prevent these pages from loading, I added the line “0.0.0.0 lookup.pavlovmedia.com” to my hosts file. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s very easy to implement.

Also, there’s something wrong with the cable jack in my room; every channel is fuzzy. I hope it gets fixed soon. I’m afraid my complaint will get bounced back and forth between the cable company and the apartment management.

My decision not to take out loans this year means that I’m more responsible for my finances than ever. I spent probably half of my savings on my trip to Europe. That means that I’m going to be cheap throughout the foreseeable future. I can feel it happening already. Turning off a light here, refusing a trip to a restaurant there… it kind of sucks, but that’s what you’ve got to do, I guess. I’ve been heeding reader Kirsten’s recommendations to read Get Rich Slowly, The Simple Dollar, and Wise Bread. Some of their articles aren’t directly relevant to me, but I hope the rest will at least enter my brain subconsciously.

Overall, the new place is comfortable, and I’m hoping we can get it looking nice and spiffy to reflect that. Once that happens, and once I actually get some pots and pans and start cooking stuff, things should be great.

Oh yeah, classes. Yesterday was the first day of school. My classes aren’t too bad, which is good because I’ve had some rough semesters in the past. All of my professors seem pretty chill. For my computer science major, I’m taking linear algebra, statistics, and data structures and algorithms, and for my business minor, I’m taking microeconomics (the lectures are recorded and posted online; they’re also funny). Yes, I’m fully aware that two of my CS classes are in fact about math. After this semester, all of my CS classes should pretty much be related to computers. Does that mean I’m getting a bad education? I don’t want to know.

For the first time, I have no classes on Tuesdays or Thursdays, so today, I pretty much got to chill (and watch economics lectures).

As Unix turns 40, The BBC has a short article about its early history.

Darker futures

My sister and my mom were away on Saturday, so I spent time with my dad. He took my grandmother to her hair salon and then took me to a place nearby. I was in need of a back-to-school haircut.

It was a small, old-school barber shop where men could be men. There was a TV with NASCAR on. The barber was smoking despite the “No Smoking” sign and said that we could have a beer or a soda if we wanted. He did a good job with my hair. His name was Rob, a fact I’m only taking note of because I might want to go back there. The price was fairly reasonable.

After that, we went to a new diner called Nelson’s. It’s run by a guy my dad used to work with (and his name is Nelson). I should have expected that the place would be all ’50s style and that our waitress would be named Candy, but I didn’t. Anyway, the food was good.

On the way home, we went to Blockbuster and rented It’s Bad for Ya and The Dark Knight. That’s some feel-good viewing right there. But it was fun to spend a night in and watch movies (with popcorn, to boot). I should do that more often.

Florida’s Bright Futures scholarships pay for students’ college tuition based on their academic performance. Like many others’, my tuition is 100% paid, and I get some extra money for books. Even though that sounds pretty good, I’ve still had to borrow money for housing and meal plans. Spending two years in one of the most expensive dorms really made the difference. I wasn’t even familiar with the concept of having leftover scholarship money deposited into your bank account, but it seems that this happens with most people.

So you can tell how pleased I was to get this in my inbox yesterday:

Dear Student,

The Florida Bright Futures program has undergone recent changes that will affect you as a recipient. This email is to ensure that you are aware of these changes, which are effective for the 2009-10 year, and understand that they apply to all students, “new” and “continuing”. Please carefully review the information contained in this email.

1. The Bright Futures program will no longer pay 100% or 75% of your tuition and fees, but rather a fixed amount per credit hour. If you are a Florida Academic Scholar your award will be $126 per credit hour. There is no longer a stipend that accompanies this scholarship….

It concludes with, “Have a great year!” Yeah, I’ll have a great year now that I have to worry about money more than ever in my life. Apparently my fine university used to charge $125.91 per credit hour, but it will now be charging $145.76. The amount they’ve offered me for Bright Futures isn’t going to cut it. Fortunately, I have another scholarship, so I should have $599.36 left for whatever else I need, any unforeseen charges notwithstanding (and they probably are withstanding). Probably all of that money will go toward textbooks, and voila: I still won’t have anything for my own bank account.

In eighth grade, I was taught how to budget (or at least make pie charts). I’ve never needed that skill. Even today, I don’t. But rather than borrowing money for school ($[imagine your own number here],000 is enough), I’ll now try getting by on the money I make at work and dipping into what’s left of my savings if necessary. So, for the first time, I’ll have actual income and actual expenses. I’ve crunched the numbers on those too, and it looks like I’ll be lucky to break even. When rent, utilities, and this web site are all said and done, I’ll have about $3.84 per meal. Why do I have to eat 90 times a month??

But really: how can I make some money on the side? eBay and craigslist are calling out to me.

Okay, a few posts ago I linked to a rendition of the Super Mario Bros. theme by a printer or something. If you thought that was neat, this is going to blow you away: “Bohemian Rhapsody” as performed by old-school electronics. (Via waxy.org)

In the style of bash.org, here’s a database of nerdy limericks.

For a while now, YouTube has had a system in place to automatically silence or delete videos containing certain copyrighted musical works. It was only a matter of time before a curious netizen would try to see how he could game the system. How much can you transform a song before it’s unrecognizable to YouTube? See the interesting results.

Return to form

Well, now what?

During my trip to Europe, I spent so much time writing for this blog that I thought I had almost forgotten how to write normal posts. You know, ones that don’t include 18 pictures or chronicle everything you’ve done over a period of several days in minute detail. Ones that have how many links at the end? Two? Three now? Is that too many? Whatever. I come across a lot of cool links. (I actually did forget at one point.)

Before the trip, I had messed around with panoramic photography, aided by Hugin and Autopano-SIFT. During the trip, I made sure to take panoramic pictures whenever I saw something particularly breathtaking (or wide). Well, they wouldn’t be panoramas until I stitched them together, but you know what I mean. Now that I have free time (and a reasonable amount of processing power), I’m making them. You can see woefully tiny versions in a dedicated Facebook photo album that I’m continuously updating. Maybe when I’m done with all of them, I’ll put them on this site. Maybe. (I get charged for exactly how much storage and bandwidth I use at all times.)

I’ve also spent the past few days playing Peggle at TJ’s house (again) and having dinner with some relatives I don’t often see (again). Apparently a lot of my relatives have been reading this blog as well. The ones without computers have been reading the print version courtesy of my dad’s laserjet. The attention wasn’t just on me but also on my second cousin Jared, whom I hadn’t seen since he was yea high. Turns out he’s the lead singer of a band back home in Minnesota. Pretty cool. (Minnesota or the band? Probably both.)

Random observation: I just realized that my last post wasn’t my first called “Back in the USA.” The automatically generated post slug (“back-in-the-usa-2″) in the URL tipped me off, so I got curious. Although I rarely leave the country, I wrote about my friend Kevin being back in the USA after a trip to Honduras in 2005. The title of my last post was a reference to the Chuck Berry tune of the same name, continuing my streak of (mis)appropriating song, movie, and book titles; schoolyard rhymes; Olive Garden dishes; and other familiar phrases.

Just as I’ve written about my trip to Europe, a BBC correspondent writes about what it was like to spend eight years in the USA.

Dead At Your Age is a site that can tell you what famous and accomplished people you’ve already outlived. Here’s what it says for me today:

You are 20 years and 27 days old today.

That’s exactly half the life of somebody famous. In another 20 years and 27 days, you will have lived exactly as long as Vitas Gerulaitis. He was a tennis player who won 24 singles and who, with Bobby Riggs, lost the 1985 Battle of the Sexes match who died at the age of 40 years, 54 days of carbon monoxide poisoning.

(Via The Presurfer)

Somebody programmed some sort of laser cutter thing to move around just such that it plays the Super Mario Bros. theme. Well done. (Via waxy.org)

Back in the USA

And now, the exciting conclusion of my European adventure.

On Thursday night, Andy, George, and I went to see the West End production of Chicago. I had no idea that we were right in the West End with theaters scattered all over the place, but the theater was just a short walk away (with a gelato shop in between). The show starred Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child, but I obviously wouldn’t have known that if George hadn’t told me. I had never seen the movie, but I enjoyed the show. The orchestra was on the stage, and the conductor interacted with the characters, which I thought was pretty clever. The songs were catchy too.

After the show, for our last dinner in Europe, we went to an Indian restaurant called Tandoori Nights (which a Google search reveals is actually a common name??). Well, it wasn’t George’s last dinner in Europe, but it was mine and Andy’s. After that, we returned to George’s dorm room on Drury Lane (yes, the Drury Lane on which the fabled Muffin Man is said to live). I was ready to go to bed in anticipation of a long day.

On Friday morning, Andy and I got our things together, thanked George for his hospitality, and made our way to the airport. We took the Gatwick Express, the same train we had taken from the airport two months ago. Even though it was pretty expensive, it was fast and direct. And we didn’t have very much time to look into other options.

At Gatwick, Mark was waiting for me, just as I’d hoped. My cousins in Croatia had given me a bottle of liquor as a gift, so I was going to give it to 21-year-old Mark so he could take it into the country (I mean, as a gift for him to keep). He had been waiting there for a while, but I’m glad he was patient. Otherwise, I think I was just going to chuck the bottle.

With the alcohol out of the way, I wasn’t too concerned about the other things I had to bring into the country: a bottle of olive oil, which was also from my cousins, and some stroopwafels that I had bought from a vending machine in Amsterdam two days before. I had been infatuated with the sweet treats ever since my friend Kevin brought some home from the Netherlands a few years ago. I had wanted to pick some up for myself and everybody back home, but while I was in Amsterdam I wasn’t in the mood to seek them out. Luckily, I happened to spot some in a vending machine right before I left for London.

We got through everything relatively easily (we didn’t even have to take our shoes off for security, which apparently might have been a mistake) and soon found ourselves waiting in the terminal for our flight back to the USA. The three of us were worried that Dan wouldn’t show; he and Mark had split up back in Switzerland and weren’t staying in the same hostel in London. But Dan did arrive, so the four of us had some time to recount our individual adventures.

Soon, it came time to board the plane, which I would not have been looking forward to at all if it hadn’t meant I’d be going home. The plane took off about 40 minutes late, and I managed to keep myself entertained by watching movies (I Love You, Man and The Boat That Rocked) and imagining how great it would be to be home.

Somehow, the plane landed in Orlando a few minutes early. According to my watch, it was getting close to midnight, but the sun had never gone down during the flight. I imagined that the jetlag would be harder to get used to this time because it wouldn’t be as simple as skipping a night and then sleeping a lot the next night. But jetlag or no jetlag, I was glad to be back.

Of course, we had to go through customs and all that first. I got quizzed about my trip to prove I wasn’t a terrorist. The fact that I had been gone for so long and had visited so many countries and brought back food was apparently too much for Customs and Border Patrol to let slip by. But I showed them I was legit, and that’s when I parted ways with Andy, Dan, and Mark. I had a working cell phone for the first time in two months, so I called my parents to let them know I was there.

They were glad to see me; I was glad to see them. I was also very tired. They drove me home, but we stopped for dinner along the way at the Outback Steakhouse in Vero Beach. It was right about there that I realized how great it was to be back in my own country: in a familiar place with familiar food. Those who are about to call me an ugly American should keep reading.

My sister was there when we got home. I showed everybody the stone souvenirs I had brought back from Croatia, as well as the olive oil, the stroopwafels, and some trinkets from Italy. Then I went to bed. Of course, it was not only wonderful and amazing to be back home with my family, but it was also awesome to be back in my own bed after two months of traveling.

Since then, I’ve gotten to see some family and friends. I spent Sunday night at TJ’s with Nick and some other friends. It was an overnight thing, though, which I was glad about. I think going to bed at 04:00 and waking up at 12:00 helped get rid of my jet lag. I’m still getting tired sort of early and waking up sort of early, though. Last night, I went to a family dinner with some relatives I don’t see very often. They had lots of questions about the trip, and apparently many of them have been reading this blog too. Between spending time with family and friends, I’ve been relaxing as I typically would during the summer. I’ve also been working online.

Europe ’09 by the numbers:

• Days: 67 (May 26 – July 31, 2009)
• Countries visited: 14 (United Kingdom, France, Spain, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium)
• Places I slept: 21
• Times I stayed with family members: 2 (Andy’s relatives both times)
• Times I stayed with friends: 3
• Times I stayed in hostels: 2
• Times I stayed in hotels: 3
• Times I stayed with Esperantists or at Esperanto events: 12
• Sleepless nights on trains: 3
• Sleepless half-nights on planes: 1
• Days I traveled without Andy: 17 (25%!)
• Number of currencies I ended up with: 8 (pounds sterling, euros, Croatian kunas, Slovak korunas, Russian rubles, Belorussian rubles, Czech korunas, Hungarian forints)
• Number of times I mentioned to people that I collected coins and banknotes: 3
• Photos taken, December 25, 2002 – May 24, 2009: 4,178
• Photos taken, May 26 – July 31, 2009: 4,002
• Total size of photos: 6.5 GB
• Most photos taken in one day: 411 (June 28, in Rome)
• Videos recorded: 13
• Total size of videos: 248 MB
• Average length of videos: 0:14

So, boring statistics aside, what are we to learn from this trip? I was hoping that going for a two-month adventure would leave me feeling more adventurous. It has, but not for the reason I thought. It was Andy who showed me that you can’t be uptight about everything. I can’t count the number of times he said, “Let’s do it; the worst that could happen is that they yell at us.” And you know, we didn’t get yelled at very much. It was an eye-opener.

Before I left for the trip, people had told me a bit about Europeans, but you really need to go to Europe to understand them. The impression I got everywhere was that they’re content with having less than Americans. They’re fine with their small cars and their tiny apartments, and they don’t see why they should have dryers when they already have clotheslines and the sun. The US has long been the land of plenty, and that has shaped who we are as Americans; Europeans, living on a continent that has been ravaged by war and political strife, are more down-to-earth.

Things are different there, but I wouldn’t say that Europe is, in general, better or worse than America. It’s just different. Europeans like their water gassy and their milk creamy. They love soccer and the 24-hour clock. Those are things that I don’t think I could get used to (except for the 24-hour clock, which I’ve always been a fan of and have now decided to use in writing). In the US, we may have crappy schools, overfilled prisons, and drug laws that don’t work, but that doesn’t mean that our country isn’t great. If nothing else, it’s great because we are and always have been filled with potential. The American Dream and all that stuff. It’s all here.

Some people have asked me if I would live in Europe. Everything I have and everything I know is here in the US, so answer is obvious. But still, I’m glad to have had the trip of a lifetime, and if I could do it all again, I would. Europe ’09 taught me more about the world than any book could; the stories I have really are priceless. Every day, I learned something new and did something that I might never do again. So, sometimes the only way to really learn is to be adventurous. After all, the worst that could happen is that they yell at you.