Over the past two weeks I have covered nearly as much ground as my entire trip thus far. After getting my visa to India, I had a couple of extra weeks to either spend diving on the island of Zanzibar while Ian got his dive certification or I could take the opportunity to fly back to the States for a week replacing some of my things and visiting a few friends and family..

I took the second option and jumped on a twenty-one hour flight back to Atlanta, Georgia; where I was met by my parents and happily surprised to see that along with them, they brought my yellow Labrador, Brulee', sporting a big pink bow! At first she did not catch my scent, probably because of my horribly dirty clothes, but then she nearly knocked me down and we spent some time wrestling and playing amongst the mayhem of people at the Atlanta airport baggage claim. After retrieving my things, I grabbed a Red Bull and continued to stay awake for the ride back to Fort Walton answering my parents' questions and recounting different stories of the trip.

By setting off on this trip around the world, I was hoping to learn a lot more about the world and myself, but coming back to the States was actually one of the most telling experiences thus far. After spending several months listening to people's impressions of my country, I came home as a silent observer of our people, the way we act, and what is important to us. Most of the impressions of us seem to be that we complain, are all overweight, arrogant, spoiled, unhealthy, selfish, superficial, unknowledgeable about the world, and interested only in making money and war.

Now, that is quite a laundry list of bad impressions and a lot of them seem unfounded to me. However, when I boarded the plane to return, I was among a plane full of many overweight people grumbling about where their three ton "carry-on" bag was going to be placed and that the person in front of them had their seat too far back. For me, this was not a good introduction to the impressions I had spent the last few months trying to refute. Then, I got off the plane in Atlanta and everything seemed to be moving at warp speed. People running through the airport yelling on a cell phone, others pacing and sucking down cigarettes out of stress in the lounges, beeping carts speeding by, and a thirty person line at both Starbucks and McDonalds.

Yet, at the same time, there is a father on the floor playing cars with his 5 year old son, a soldier helping an elderly lady out of her chair and to the boarding gate, a man on the phone telling his wife that he loves her and will be home soon, and the girl next to me telling me she is scared because she gave up everything at home to move to Atlanta and be near her boyfriend at his new job. So, while we make many mistakes and have a lot of problems, I feel that at the heart we are still a people of caring, compassion, and love. My father always told me that I will never have anything to regret if I "always be a gentleman." I have not always heeded to this advice, but every time I have regretted it, and I encourage you to follow the same advice.

I thoroughly enjoyed my brief return to home, but was not able to stay long because I went to Nashville for my university's (Vanderbilt) graduation ceremony. It was a wonderful ceremony and our new Chancellor implored us to go out, be a part of the world, but try to make a positive difference because money comes and goes but changing someone's life can be much more gratifying. After seeing many unmet needs from my travels and my observations of home, I feel encouraged by his words and will, hopefully, get the chance to pursue satisfying these needs as well as being among those loving, caring, and compassionate people I saw in the airport. I am now in Zanzibar for a few days of diving, then possibly on to Doha, Qatar for a couple days, and finally settling down on a boat for a week of diving around the different atolls in the Maldives…all the while trying to change people's opinions of American travelers. Till next time, Cheers.