In my last Reflection I was wishing you all to be careful for what you ask for. I want to share with you a reply I received from a friend who is on the list. She writes, "... Speaking of being specific about what you ask for - I put out to the universe that I wanted a big dark gentle intelligent male in my life and guess what I got. A black brindle mastiff. I guess I should have been more specific about my request. He is a beautiful dog though and so far in my life the best companion I have ever had has been a mastiff. ..."

One of the things I love to do is read. And, somehow, my favorite times for reading are either Saturday and/or Sunday mornings in bed, or when I am traveling. And, when traveling alone, I had plenty of time to read. In cafes, restaurants, and evenings in the hostels (when I was not socializing and partying, of course). I am a fast reader, and on this trip I read 23 books. The question, of course, is how does Simon carry 23 books with him, in addition to all the other stuff I have been carrying, when fully loaded (49 kg, which is 108 pounds)? Well, this is where the magic of technology comes to rescue. Welcome the Palm Pilot and a memory card. And Internet, where one can find MANY books in electronic format. I have downloaded about 85 books to take with me, among them the whole series of Harry Potter, Asimov, the Dune series, other science fiction, Hemingway, John Steinbach, Lewis Carrol, Tolkien, Nietzsche, and more. It was so easy - not to carry any extra weight, except for a spare set of batteries for my portable library. I have definitely appreciated it, both as a cyclist and as a backpacker.

Now that I am back, I am seeing and feeling - probably for the first time - that Vancouver is home now. Like it has never been before. It is an amazing city, even when it rains, full of many great people. Perhaps leaving a place for a while is what it takes to appreciate it more when we come back.

"If you ask people in, or coming back from, strange lands what their experiences are like they report that everything to them is real and vivid and they feel very alive. They report an experience of immediacy; a broad awareness of everything around them; and a feeling of being one with and responsive to the world. Together they constitute a state of consciousness called a sense of presence. It's the signature experience of strange lands." -- Gary Fontaine