47

Today is my 47th birthday. Just like last year, and really every year I've been on this planet, I'm excited and grateful to still be here. Today is also the end of year two and the beginning of year three of my five year quest to see more of our world. As I did a year ago, I'm declaring the last year of my travels to be a success, although maybe not quite in the same way as year one. This one didn't break as many barriers but it was just as special if not more so in many ways.

Two years ago, I set a public challenge for myself. Generally that was to see more of this rock we call home than just North America and western Europe. More specifically, I set targets to make it to two new continents, visit either Alaska or Hawaii, knock Barcelona off my list and set foot in a place that probably would have totally freaked me out in the past. I got one new continent (Africa), Barcelona and a somewhere that might have freaked me out (Marrakech) in just my first year; this past year, I got nothing.

Well, OK, not nothing. Just nothing to get me more numbers. Last year on this day I speculated that my travels in my 47th year would fill in some gaps in my past and I concentrated on doing that rather than checking items off a list. I visited no new states and only one new country (Italy). If you want to get technical about things, I could claim the Vatican City as a second, although I ended up not blogging about it.

But I rediscovered the country of my birth and where my parents came from in a trip to England and did something I missed in school nearly a quarter of a century ago by finally doing the grand tour in Italy. I also made good on a promise I made myself five years ago by visiting the Everglades and finally made it to the head of the Statue of Liberty, one of my favorite monuments in the world. That all sounds pretty good and it was. I loved all of it.

The Greyhound Inn: a great place to learn some new vocabulary and have a couple of beers.

A lot of what I've done and seen has been written in this blog so I can remember it years from now but it's not all I've done on my travels. There was so much more that made living worthwhile, from the squid ink pasta in some tiny restaurant in Venice to seeing a Shakespeare play I could actually understand and find hilarious (The Comedy of Errors) as a groundling in London's recreated Globe Theatre. I've listened to Gregorian chant in the crypt of Florence's San Miniato al Monte; I've also listened to my cousin's husband's father teach my girlfriend Yorkshire slang while I sat nearby sipping on a pint of Sam Smith's Bitter. I've walked by wild alligators feet from my feet; stood to listen to the Pope for a couple of hours in St. Peter's Square; and walked across the zebra crossing with tons of other Beatles inspired lunatics near Abbey Road studios, none of whom were really doing it right. Not bad for 12 months.

So now it's on to year three. In the past two years, I've been to Europe five times; I don't think I'll be going back again this year to fill the pages of this blog. If I'm making predictions (and let's face it I have a lot of control over the outcome here), I'd say my 48th year and maybe a month after that will be spent exploring more of the United States. I'd love to pick up four or five more states in the next 13 months. Considering I've already got 41 in the books, that's going to be quite an accomplishment if I manage to do it.

I also plan to travel abroad on my quest once in the coming year. That trip will take me further east (by a bit) and further south (by a lot) than I have ever been before. But more on that in August. For now, happy 47th birthday to me. I'll be back on the road again soon enough.

St. Peter's Square, April 8, 2015. The Pope is out there somewhere.