Well, I guess I am still on the same trip I have been on for the since 2001 when I started traveling, as I could, after a study abroad in Guadalajara, Mexico got me interested in seeing the world and learning about this fabulous planet we live on. Although not all I have seen is pretty. I have been taking longer stays in certain places than when I was younger when I used to just fly through places. I have, with age, had to slow down, and now as a result, I get to know places better. My traveling has not always been easy. I have been homeless, as I am niow, a vagabond, a backpacker staying in hostels and sometimes where I could aford it, living in hotels.

I am 41 now and not as young as I was with the energy that a younger person has, but I have more knowledge and ideas about a grand trip around the world I am planning to begin this summer; I hope, if all works out well. At the moment I find myself in San Diego, where I am from. I grew up in Coronado, the island that forms the bay, well, it is not really an island anymore after there was a stip of land constructed to connect it to the south bay. But it is still called an island.

I have been at a Veterans homeless tent here for about 4 and a half months now, just down the hill from where I went to university and private high school. It has not been easy all together. There is a serious meth problem tat the tent and in this part of town with the homeless here and many people return drunk or high, making a scene or causing problems, especially at night. It is also not easy sharing limited space with 200 other people. We get breakfast and diner provided. It is not the best food in the world but I am lucky to be able to have a roof over my head and the ability to save some money to continue my traveling while there. Also, time to plan where and how I will go about the next fases of my travels. I have saved a good $3,000 already, but I used it to pay off my student loan debt to Washington State University, so I find myslef with like 86 bucks in the bank right now. I would like a little cusion before taking off on another "escala" as they say in Spanish or "stage" of my travels.

I am a coffee shop just down the street from the tent right now. This is my first time blogging, and I guess I will see how it goes. I would like to make some money doing it, but I am afraid that if I have too much money I will not take the kind of trip I want to. Although a little extra money would be nice. I have heard people finance their trips with travel blogs, I want to be just scaping by, and thus having experiences from the bottom up, seeing things from a street or poverty level, at times, so as to have an experience where I see how the other half, which is really like over 95% of the world live. Also, I like the good life and plan to put some monmey aside to live well at times, especially in some inexpensive countries where I can enjoy myslef.

I plan and would like to talk about my 4 1/2 months in Tijuana in this blog, as it is that I am stationary, and it is a travel blog, to start out, and it was part of my travels being there. Also, I would like to talk about my current situation, which has to do with traveling as well, and other things, regarding how I ended up in a homeless tent, with a lot of people who travel, but as homeless here in the US. Some who lost their appartment or house and have been homeless travelers.

I am just a 30 minute trolly trip from Tijuana and plan to go back there before I leave San Diego. I had a fabulous time in Tijuana before moving to San Diego and I would like to write a bit about my previous travels as I spend the next couple months here in San Diego.

I am a veteran of the US Navy, I was in the Navy for a year, round about after I dropped out of the University of San Diego, only later to return. I wanted to go to SeAL or special forces traing, that is why I joined. I injured my leg in boot camp and never went to the training I wanted to and was honorably discharged for medical reasons. I receive a pension. I have had this pension since 2010. I have been relying on this to finance my travels since then. It is around a thousand dollars a month.

I am nolw listening to some Chicano rap, Chicano being a Mexican American, in case you did not know. Chican Rap Volume 44 on youtube. It is good practice for my Spanish to listen to music. Which I often do, raio stations from Tijuana. I also listen to talk radio in Spanish to learn more while at the tent. I speak Spanish pretty well for a gringo. But, I have a long way to go to be fluent. You know.... the more you know the more you know you don't know. I have been studying Spanish since sixth grade and have lived in Mexico and traveled latin america for a few years.

"Yeska" a word for "mota" or "weed" I learned from this album.... very useful to know..., I also learned a lot of other slang listening to rap in Spanish. I speak conversational French as well, as I did 6 months of basic military training in the French Foreign Legion, a part of the French military for foreigners. I keep up with my French watching TV online in French and listening to NRJ radio from france which has a great mix of music and talk radio as well. These two languages I am improving while I am here to have a better experience I hope when I get to parts of the world that speak these languages. I also write peotry and plan to post some of the poems I have written here. I have had one published so far, in a bianual book of poems by Poetry Nation. On their web-page, an online forum for poetry I have some of my early poems posted. So, this is the end of my first blog, and more importantly to me, my first travel blog! My second blog post will be my poem that was published. If I have any readers, I hope you like it.