So I’m back in Dubai and getting ready for my classes that start on Sunday. I really can’t believe that the summer is over and I am back to work. It seems like I was just starting to head out to Jordan not that long ago, but when I think back on all the things that I did and all the new places I saw, it actually seems a long time ago. Regardless, I’m back at “it” and with only a trip to India expected sometime in the next month or two, I’m pretty much ready for the new school year.

This trip was marked with some great times and some not so very great times. The great was seeing Masai Mara, and the not so great was not being able to complete my volunteering in Cameroon, and in between times were seeing Petra, swimming in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. I met a lot of nice people, and in Sofia I met a lot of mean people. Yeah, I know I need to get over it, but there’s a prof here that’s from Sofia and I’ve been teasing him lately about how mean the people are from his home town. ☺ I found out that Bucharest is probably the city to be if you’re into nice people, great architecture, and culture. Since every one that I met told me not to waste my time in Bucharest it was such and nice surprise what I found when I got there.

In many regards I saw a lot of aftermaths of war. In Beirut I saw so many building with bullet holes that I soon became oblivious to them. In Sarajevo I saw major destruction in blast marks, but in both cases I saw the resiliency of the people working to restore their culture. I saw what looked like bullet holes in buildings in other cities too, but not on the magnitude of Beirut or Sarajevo.

A friend asked if she could use the laptop that I use when I’m traveling and I said sure, so I prepped it for her by freeing up some space in my large hard drive. Not a problem, I’m happy to do it. The problem arose when I realized that there were the last round of pictures that I had yet to transfer to my desktop computer. So I ended up deleting about forty photos of the last two days of my trip. Specifically the photos were of the Ukraine. It sucks, but I didn’t do a lot of sightseeing there so the photos were mostly of things taken from the window of the train.

There weren’t a lot of people paying attention this year to my blog, and it wasn’t that much of a surprise. I’ve always said that the blog is my way to chronicle the journeys that I take on, and not for others. I want people to read it, but even if nobody comes to my web site I’d still keep my blog updated. If you were one of the few that followed along let me say thanks.

I don’t know if there’s much more to write about, but I’m no closing this blog just yet. I have to upload more photos and the videos, and I have a feeling that I need a little more time to reminisce about the summer before I close it out.