II

Like everything I mostly do, have done or will do: this blog is long overdue. Combine this personal trait with some crazy times, drunken times, exhausted times, fighting times and times of joy – well, that doesn't really leave time for writing and thinking about home. I find this to be sad, but nevertheless true. Traveling from one place to another without much time to think about what you're doing, besides the moment itself, is a very unique, powerful and fun experience. Days fly by and you lose yourself in the rush of traveling. During our trip through the USA I more than once caught myself wanting to leave one place for another when we were somewhere for an extended period of time. That was mostly only 3 days. The soundtrack in my head went: faster, faaaster, FAAASTERRR! No down-tempo music in the world could slow that tune down.

However, your body can only take so much battle and approaching our limit of 3 months traveling in the USA, things surely slowed down. Meaning that we stayed in one place for more than one week. Considering we were couchsurfing, the drinking didn't slow down at all. Seattle and Portland are bookmarked on my liver I'm afraid. After hitting our last American destination, Portland, making a loop across the west coast, we headed towards Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Arriving in Vancouver we could hardly believe how many miles we had done and we both had a feeling of relief: “finally, we're here”. Having no place to stay though, that first night proved to be eventful as well. Posting a last minute couchsurf request, without much hope, we got saved by a girl living in what she described as an art studio. Well, knowing only one thing about the city of Vancouver, through stories and music, we ended up in the one place that I vowed to never visit: East Hastings. If you have never heard of East Hastings, look it up on youtube. There are no words to describe that street.

Now you know what I'm talking about I'll ask you kindly to click the following link and listen to the amazing song dedicated to that particular street: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kfkUUkEGtc. Don't worry, it has no crazy vocals!

So, reading the address the girl texted us I instantly started laughing with great concern in the back of my mind. The one thing that separates us though, me in that moment and you the reader right now, is that I had no idea how the street actually looked like. You can only imagine the expression on my face when we were walking through that street with our 25 kilo backpack full of valuable stuff, making us a perfect target for crime. We didn't find the house right away and we started freaking out, but then out of the blue a girl across the street yelled for us to come over. It was the couchsurfing host. We talked to her for a bit and while we were talking she unlocked an almost unnoticeable door, showing us her art studio. In reality it proved to be a squatted building, housing a family of rats. At that point we both were glad enough to be off the street and safe, on the first floor of the building. That night we slept on the floor. I was comforting myself with the thought that rats wouldn't bite my face off because I'm a loud snorer. I wasn't too sure though and hearing rats crawl behind the walls while I was taking a dump didn't really help. Luckily, we made it through the night safe: accompanied by the drug addicts barking and yelling at each other the entire night. The day after, we met up with a friend of ours who we got to meet in San Francisco. Eventually it became apparent that she was leaving Vancouver and that's how we got to rent her room. Having our own place, close to the beach, during the summer time, has been a blast.

We met loads of cool people, had some crazy house parties, swam naked at night on more than one occasion, chilled on the famous nude beach of Vancouver and just had so many beautiful days doing things young people do.

Having traveled for a short time I can tell you that traveling can be harsh and wonderful at the same time. I felt I was exchanging a part of my identity for something different, undefined, that transcends me as a person. The overwhelming beauty and greatness of nature is a big part of that experience. People who share their homes with us and are so kind and giving make me feel humble, wanting to return such friendliness to others. But at the same time I'm confronted with the fact that not all of those acts are so unselfish as they seem to be. A few people want something in return, in whatever practical or abstract form that might be. However, my sense is that in this case the positive beats the negative, and I feel content about that.

The personal challenge that I face is that I'm wanting to change myself for the better, discarding the old and embracing the new, without losing the good during that process. Real positive change doesn't come that easy, even if we want it to.

I believe Montesquieu was exactly thinking of traveling when he wrote:

“False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.”

Ben