Our last day.  We woke up and took the metro to Vienna's City Airport Train (obviously, named the CAT :).   They have a few Austrian Airlines counters at the CAT station, but we couldn't check in (something about being a flight to the USA).  We took the 20 minute ride to the airport ($12pp) and waited for a little while in the Austrian Airlines lounge before our flight.

The 9 hour flight went by pretty quick - we enjoyed movies, drinks, and reminiscencing about our trip.  180 days (if you don't count the days we stopped in Philadelphia).  It's quite a long bit of time, but it feels like the 180 days went by in a blink of an eye!   Of course, we can remember back to climbing the volcanoes in Guatemala, the first activity of our trip, as if it was yesterday.   To list all of the activities between then and now would be pointless (that's why we have the journal :), but of course, the most popular question - what's our favorite - needs to be answered.

Our Top 5 Favorite Countries - all places we're likely to visit again in the future:
  1) India
  2) Vietnam
  3) Thailand
  4) Peru
  5) Southern Chile (Mario) / Turkey (Jaimie)

Runners up include Tanzania, South Africa, Cambodia, Hungary and Nicaragua.

As far as our favorite pics, we've put together a few of them on http://www.blueoceanstudios.com.   However, it's only through the first 3/4 of the trip, and we haven't had a chance to update the animals portion (coming in the next few weeks).  If you're interested in purchasing photos (they can be blown up to as big as poster size), you can do so via the website.  If there's one you'd like but not on the website yet, just let us know which one (the file name) and a size. 

But beyond the best and worst of our experiences, lies a vast playground of fun.  Some say traveling the world is an experience of a lifetime.  We're not sure what that really means - we hope to travel the world a few times (granted, probably not all in one stint like this time :).   Seeing the places we have seen has opened up our mind to yet more and more places to add to our future travel list. 

We want people to realize that traveling doesn't have to be expensive.  I think the hardest step to take is more just the decision to pack up your career for a while and tour the world.  It's funny, many people think it costs too much to travel - few realize it can cost very little and still be a lot of fun.  We spent less than $100 a day for 2/3 of our trip, and we lived pretty comfortably.  Near the end, we did visit some more expensive countries like Sweden, Russia and Austria.  You could probably spend less than 1/2 the amount that we did if you don't mind staying in hostels instead of hotels.  Of course, even in the hotels, we had some bad room experiences.  The bad rooms probably sounded worse in writing than it really was for us - we didn't let it ruin our great experiences.  Of course, the plane tickets were our biggest expense, but you can also get around this by doing more overland traveling (something most around the world travelers were doing).  It seemed like everywhere we went, we always ran into a good handful of people doing exactly what we were - taking 6 months off (or more!) and touring the world.  These kinds of travelers were both young and old, and from all corners of the world.  If you liked our blog, maybe traveling the world is for you :)!

As far as how life changing this trip was, it's hard to say.  We saw so many beautiful places we've only seen in movies and TV, we've met people and saw how they lived from the richest standards of living, to the poorest.  We've broadened our culinary experiences beyond our expectations (Mario added avocados, eggs, coconut, mushrooms, beans, soup, and olives to the list of foods he eats!).  We are now closer to understanding that man-kind has been around for over 100,000 years (a pretty profound thought if you really think about how fast the world is changing now).  We've earned insights into culture and human interaction that we didn't previously understand, and experienced civilizations that seem to be operating back in time 100's of years.  We learned to use the metric system and we've greatly improved on our unofficial sign-language as a mode of communication. :) No doubt, we've both learned a lot more of patience skills, something that might be useful in our next adventure(s).

We'll have to wait and see how our daily lives will have changed much from this trip.  Of course, for the next few months, we're going to appreciate all the little things we missed, that truly make the United States the best place to live.   From security, to clean water - the United States standards are impressive - it's not surprising so many Mexicans illegally join the team.   While we got very little (almost none) anti-American sentiment, we did run into a few non-Bush supporters, and anti-Bush posters or T-shirts.  The biggest complaint that we saw was from citizens of countries who could afford to travel, but were unable to obtain a Visa to come to the US.  We're not sure if this was the situation before 9/11, but it was disappointing to know that we can travel freely through other countries, but many can not have the same opportunity to see what the US has to offer.  In our minds, the more that you meet the people from other countries, (rather than simply hearing about them from the media and political craziness), it's easier to create bonds and greater understanding of their cultures.  And by the way, Americans really can't complain about gas prices that much, as many countries we visited are paying more per gallon even though they struggle 10 times harder to earn a single dollar!

Personally for me (Mario), I can say one of the biggest changes in my perception of the world is my appreciation of Islam as a religion, and not an enemy of the state.    It's unfortunate we hear about Islamic militants all the time, as opposed to simply extremists associated with a specific group.  I understand the confusion that the militants fight for Islam, but being Muslim doesn't mean you want to or have to fight.  It's unfortunate the human need to form stereotypes, and a bad one at that, especially since we don't have a large Muslim population in the states.  I'm happy to have a better understanding of the Islam culture. 

Another unfortunate aspect of American society is our centralized focus on just the US.  I know we're a big country, with the strongest economy, but there's a lot else going on in the rest of the world.  I'm sure its due to demand by the people, but it's very annoying how CNN America and BBC America only focus what's going on in America - with very tiny highlights of a few international events (and then only when it concerns America).   We've noticed this before when we've travelled internationally, it just sunk in more since we traveled for so long.   I don't have any recommendations for changing this (since even the 100's of channels on DirecTV don't include CNN International), other than maybe recommending to our readers to check out http://www.cnn.com/international once in a while, instead of just CNN's US Edition :).

I'm sure we could write for hours about our thoughts on American culture vs. the world, political corruption around the world, economies, my amazement that exchange rates are based on supply & demand rather than equivalent goods,  etc.  But maybe we'll just save these thoughts for discussion over a beer when we see you next :).

Most importantly for us, is to say thanks to everyone who helped make this possible.   To our friends, families, and fan clubs who commented: Thanks for all of your funny, friendly, and encouraging comments.  They made the trip so much more fun, and while we didn't have time to reply to them directly, hopefully we'll be seeing each of you soon and can answer all of the questions in person :).   

A special thanks to Tom and Jax who took care of the mail, finances, our cats (Cal and Indy!) and also made it out twice to join us on the journey!, to Kelly/Katriona and Kim/Gary for taking care of the house (sorry for the midnight wakeups Kelly!).   Another special thanks to our very committed readers who read every day - we know who you are!!   Your enjoyment in our travels kept us going with our journaling, capturing the fun and not so fun moments forever, and we tried to post daily to keep you entertained.   To our cats, for keeping their website so we can see them while we were gone (see http://www.trcross.com/Calindy/calindy.htm) :).  

Thanks everyone!