Travel young man!

Growing up with a stack of my great grandfathers national geographic magazines and a dad who worked for an airline I got to experience far away lands in my imagination and a few times in reality. I can remember when we went to England and I was able to see touch and smell such history as the Roman baths and the cathedrals of London I caught the travel bug. The first big trip I managed on my own was to Brazil. I can remember I had so little money I had to book the trip on dec 31 1999 10pm, Yeah Y2K time everyone thought the planes were all going to fly into mountains or something so the flight was dirt cheep.

I left Canada with visions of white sand beaches, Ocean spray and an exciting time. Instead what I got was a month long lesson in how the world works when your really out there.

Here is the trip in point form.

Fly for 15 hours - ride a taxi with the girl I talked to on-line for 5 years - see what a poor family really lives in - Take a van 5 hours to the dirtiest poor community I ever saw - visit a beautiful old beach house - beach fun - see little girls digging in garbage for food - be asked by a very very old man for 1$ so he can have a cola then watch how happy he sat at a beach bar sipping that cola watching us play pool with wooden pool balls - spend a week finding out that you cant go in the ocean within a few days travel of a major tropical city as the water is polluted - visit a more run down beach house - return to Rio - see what traffic in a packed city is like - see 8 foot tall piles of garbage beside apartment - see bullet holes and blood on a brick wall - hike up a mountain to see a big statue and view Rio from above - find out I have an eye infection from the ground water shower at the second beach house - return home - go to hospital with bleeding eyes - get email broken up with.

Would I change a bit of it? Nope not even the bleeding eyes. Nothing can teach you the world like a little hardship. After all, this prepared me for my future travels and the joys to come.