“When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon — do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.”

Ithaka - Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)

"
Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it."
Samuel Johnson

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
Samuel Johnson

Í´m in Tarifa tonight. I can see Africa from the hostel balcony.

Tomorrow, a bus to Algeciraz, a ferry to Tangier, and a night train to Marrakesh. I´ll arrive there around 8 in the morning on Tuesday. Two or three days in Marrakesh, hopefully I´ll run into other backpackers and can travel in a group to take on a safari or something of the sort. I´d like to see Casablanca, perhaps Fes, and some of the Sahara. My big concern is getting out of Morocco - Egypt, Greece, Italy_ By boat or plane_ By way of Spain_ Details, details.

Here I am, at the end of the (anciet) world. It was surprisingly difficult to get here, not least because the bus route that used to run from Seville to La Linea is now closed, but bears the same name. Suffice to say, I spent some time in Algeciras before finding my way to La Linea ("The Line," oh, those wits in civil planning!) and walking across the border.

Gibraltar is a strange place with horrible internet prices, so no time for the full story now. The city is modest, the landscape lovely, and the language, while officially English, is a creole of English and Spanish that the locals call "Llanito." The culture is similar to the language. The London red telephone booths dot the landscape.

Enjoyed Seville. Ran into a couple of girls who had briefly attended the UW-Madison, one of whom is from Appleton and knows Biz & Ted.

I scaled The Rock of Gibraltar today, an effort that involved walking the entire length of the island twice. Near the top is a refuge for the Barbary Macaques, who are so accustomed to being a tourist attraction that they lounge on the walls and stroll past visitors with an aura of invulnerability. Taking a break a distance away, seated on the low stone wall, a macaque stolled up to me, stared at me for a while, then placed a foot on my leg, a hand on my shoulder, and deftly leaped over me. I have this on digital video, complete with my skeptical grunt.

Trying to get to Tarifa today, then Tangier perhaps on Monday.

My messenger bag, a couple of the hostel crowd, and I are going to Sintra today to explore the Moorish castles and palaces. Unplanned, we are all on the same train to Madrid tonight - leave at 10, arrive in Madrid at 8. I catch a bus to Seville around noon, arrive around 6. It is impossible to get to Gibraltar without going back through Seville or Madrid, so it will be a long, roundabout journey south.

Everyone here has fallen in love with Lisbon. This is not the over-your-head and heads-over-heels heart rush of beauty queens and super spies, the kind found in the Hollywood pantheon of American gods and virtues. Lisbon is comfortable like an old sweater, and everyone here has a kind of puppy-love adoration for a city founded by nomads, designed by Romans, and decorated by Moors. There is something elemental and beyond words about it, like trying to explain a fondness for toast or sunshine.

Birds flock from North to South and back again on ancient migration routes, strange and beautiful trees bloom amid the tiled buildings. Flora from North Africa, Western Europe, and South America all bloom here, strange testament to the Imperial glory of Portugalºs past. The buildings are tiled, the roads paved, and the chimneys roofed in an echo of the Moorish conquest. The tram is out of 1920 Paris (http://www.travel-earth.com/portugal/lisbon-tram.jpg), the city itself is built on so many hills that to go from A to B you have to cross through so many Z-coordinates that you pass through the rest of the alphabet. Laundry hangs from century-old buildings framed with converted gas lamps and satellite dishes. Lisbon wears its poverty (by EU standards: the recent history of Portugal and its rise gives me great hope) like an eccentric accessory that gives it flair, rather than defining its character. A diet of fish and fresh fruit (the best Iºve ever had, for less than Iºve ever paid) round out the experience. A few of us at the hostel have traded several meals, cooking in turn and enjoying the company.

Salt fish and I are not friends. I will miss the ready availability of fantastic Indian and Thai food that graces all of Europe. Planning to head to Seville tomorrow by way of night train to Madrid. A few days in Seville, then a few days in Gibraltar, then Morocco. My hostel-friends here are envious of the length of my roaming, excited for my first trip into Africa, and generally a slightly older crowd of seasoned travellers who I have been happy to meet.

It is fair to say, of course, that wandering around the nightlife of Lisbon with a group of other backpackers, we took to counting the number of offers for hashish and cocaine we received. I think we hit 12 and 5, respectively. This is probably a mar on my recommendation, but something about ridiculously non-threatening drug dealers makes it hard to not consider it a kind of comic relief.

Lisbon is lovely. I took a couple of wandering journeys through the city intending to pick up some groceries, a belt, and a day pack, as well as to get a sense of the city. On one of these jaunts I stopped by a bit of abandoned quay (very little beach is left in Lisbon, it has almost all been cemented in the name of the port). I watched the old men fish, the young men lounge, and the dandelion pollen flow in great, steady streams over it all. I sat beside a sleeping chickadee for a while before wondering if it was dead - after prodding it gently with my foot it gave me a long glare, then went back to sleep. Eventually I worried it might be dead or dying, and my curiosity eventually forced it to wake up and fly off to find less intrusive sea-watchers to share the day with.

Now armed with a daypack, I can comfortably haul camera, food, compass, and map. Thanks to a couple of competent sewing lessons from a woman at the office in London (she says she took college level sewing classes, courtesy of a theatre design major) I am fairly certain I can attach some clips to the thing so it can be carabiner-clipped to the backpack for long travel, or clipped to my belt if I decide the shoulder strap thing makes it look too much like a man-purse.

Speaking of which, Spain is where bad music, bad footwear, and bad haircuts go to die. The mullet and the rat-tail are still alive and well in Madrid. I saw young men driving expensive cars listening to "Funky Town."

I took a night bus from Madrid to Lisbon, and arrived with the sun. Lisbon looks gorgeous. I didnt take any pictures from Madrid, in part because few things struck me as worth immortalizing, and because I havenºt quite sorted out a daypack to lug around the short-term necessities of tourism - camera, food, a book. Life is made up of huge amounts of eating and waiting, interrupted by moments of astounding beauty.

As it always goes with these things, made a group of about 20 friends at the hostel in Madrid. Most have gone on to Barcelona, gmail is keeping us in touch. I think Iĺl wander around the city a bit this early morning, check in around noon, sleep, then figure out the rest.

Madrid doesn´t capture my heart, with or without a major celebration on-going. Trying to find a way to get to Lisbon today. I´ve been spoiled by the ease of travel through the UK and Germany - getting around Spain isn´t proving to be quite as easy.

Finished reading "Neverwhere," on to "Mr. Nice." Ditched some socks to make more room in the bag. Need a belt and a daypack.

The hostel I stayed in was on the historical register, and appears to have once been a patrician´s palace. The center courtyard was domed with stained glass, held a fountain, and beautiful tile mosaics heavily influenced by Islamic art. A group of vagabuddies (vagabond buddies) and I went down to the central park for a light-and-fireworks show celebrating the city´s saint day. As no one found anything particularly interesting to do anywhere else in the city, we mostly lounged in the courtyard and swapped stories. It had an ancient-courtier feel to it, and while relaxing, I´ll be glad to be free of Madrid.

Barcelona was far superior.

Made it safe to Madrid. Haven´t done much yet, mostly reorganizing stuff and sleeping after abandoning my life in London. Those odd things you learn travelling this way - my life, according to EasyJet, weighs 14.7 kilos. As I know nothing about the city, I´m not sure what to do here. Grabbing some internet time trying to figure it out.

Headed out.

The slow exodus continues. Smaller things now. CDs into a cd carrier, goodbye cases. Change into bills. More and more things are rejected, abandoned. There just isn't a hell of a lot left. I can almost imagine carrying it all through the rain and mud while being chased by the hounds of hell. Almost. Almost done.

Still saying goodbyes, still being surprised.

I am struck by the rituals of parting. The slow exodus of material possessions, the sense of levity, the rise of hope and confidence in self against the odds. All those carefully preserved pint glasses replaced with a water bottle, to all those kitchen tools a multitool and a heavy-duty plastic spork (it is made from the purest awesome; it is the Mjolnir of sporks, it haunts the dreams of the restless), endless methods of securing things become bungee cords in bright, happy colors. A small first aid kit, some water purification tablets, a compass, and a wind-up flashlight round out the relics of my new faith. In a few minutes the next ritual begins, and I give myself a haircut, an ordeal that inevitably requires prayer-like posture and fastidiousness. These days are simply laden with symbols.

There is a force-feedback loop between my emotional readiness to leave London and the piles of my life on the floor. Over the last few days the material trappings of my life in London have been slowly sifted and sorted, hemmed and hawed over, and finally lumped into three piles. The hegemony of My Stuff, the brutal tyranny of my possessions (and the comfort, predictability, and banality that they represent; votive offerings from self to civilization), has been broken into a tripartite state built around the rule of Things Mine, Things No Longer Mine (donations, recycling, trash), and Things to Store.

By watching the migrations of objects between these three piles, you can track my attitude towards the near future. At first, amidst all Things Mine, the promise of being unemployed, homeless, aimless, and wandering sounded oppressive, uncertain, even morbid - the destruction of months of work! During that early phase, a team of mules was an essential ingredient in my transport plans within the airport itself. Long periods of certainty and belonging nurse strange fears. The bizarre artifacts that we all pack, maybe most of the things we own, are charms against the future - or so I tell myself now, as I discard the twine and garlic presses and begin to develop a cavalier attitude towards things that might actually be useful. Pants? You offend me, Sir! Spare pants are for children and fools, and I am no child!

I still have too much.

Last day. Tomorrow I am unemployed, by Tuesday I am homeless. By Wednesday I'm off the radar somewhere in Spain.

Rough plans call for Madrid, Gibraltar, Morocco, Cairo, Alexandria. After that, perhaps Greece, Italy, Croatia, Austria, Czech, D.C., Home. Or maybe something entirely different. Either way, I'll be out of touch for an extended period of time. Will try to call home before I go.

No matter how often I leave, I never quite get used to it. These are the uncertain days at the end, where every good intention must be finished, discarded, or bundled up warmly and carried through the vagabond days ahead. Progress is measured in trash bags. The cumbersome weight of Neil Sheehan's "Bright and Shining Lie" will surely find its way into a donation bin. No matter of interest has ever carried me through it. Travel guides, light reading, and some textbooks appropriated from the students will doubtless go to friends who are staying behind. Food is another problem. At every end I find the same foodstuffs looming on the shelf. These are the pantry decor items that I can't figure out how to turn into meals.

Tuna fish? A lovely, jaunty green tin with that tasteful blue to offset background. That the tin contains cat food has never deterred me from buying exactly four tins in every place I've ever lived.

Beans come in a variety of happy, summer colors and rich, autumn tones. They add something to the room. No depth of familiarity with Spanish/Mexican/Cuban cuisine has ever led me to reach for a can of beans with confidence.

Forty small containers of spice. Of all the things the world needs more of, basil is not on the list.

Mustard, salad dressings, a tin of condensed milk, half a loaf of garlic bread, a bit of coconut milk, some pureed pumpkin, and so on. All of these are things that I associate with a well-stocked kitchen, so I buy them. Some deep-seated matter of training and tastes habitually prevents me from ever getting through them. This is "The Iceman Cometh" in culinary.

Eight weeks since last entry. Two months have passed and delivered us to the end. The students are gone by noon today, the RAs leave tomorrow. Drew and I, the first in, will be the last out.

I'm in the office early this Saturday because we're moving buildings. In addition to the other miscellaneous roles I've picked up along the way, I remain the biggest and the strongest, and so I get to do the heavy lifting. In quieter moments, I am finishing all of the changes I've made to the database - fixing small problems, finishing large projects, and preparing to demonstrate them all so that they will reside comfortably in institutional memory. It is strange compliment that these optimisations have been successful enough to eliminate my job: no one will be hired to replace me when I am gone. Drew has had his own successes in rebranding our communications and creating templates, so there simply isn't enough work for two people to share. Our combined jobs have been reduced to one, emphasising the communications aspect that is so hard to automate. The bits that remain have been given off to others like the odds and ends of a dish set at a rummage sale.

It is nearing noon now and only a few stragglers should remain. The casual fame that comes from being "office dude and staff-on-call" slips away. No more random encounters at coffee shops, pubs, train stations, and in popular tourist destinations in far flung places. My duty of care towards 321 souls is rapidly dwindling, along with my employment, and I lurch towards the wild freedom of being only responsible for myself - it is exhilarating, laced with a sense of loss. A few hours ago it was difficult to think of losing this place where I once belonged, but as noon crawls nearer, abandoning this brotherhood tastes more of freedom, excitement, and adventure.

I've received some odd notes from students as they leave. At least one has told me to be careful in my travels, given my reckless nature. Reckless? Since when was I reckless? Then again, I've also been warned of developing a self-destructive Fight Club attitude. Still, I see myself as the essentially the same kid who stayed at home for five years solid rather than be bothered with junior and high school - shy, awkward, unassertive. Traits I loathe about myself, and keep trying to overcome, one adventure at a time.

Three weeks since last entry.

Last week was Spring Break so all was quiet. Almost everyone was gone, so i was once again living the survivalist fantasy in an abandoned building. Then everything at work broke, so we achieved nothing. It remains broken, so we are weeks behind. Thanks, IT. Good eye, good eye. Not to sound dramatic or anything, but... caaaan we fix that? Or, rather, may I fix it?

In other news, I get most of next week off, so I'll be in Hamburg from the 11th to the 16th.

My week on call slips by painlessly. The weekend may be more interesting, but I feel like Batman sans Joker, Superman sans Lex Luther, Kennedy sans Khrushchev, nitro sans glycerin, chinese food sans MSG. I spend my days working, working out, reading, and periodically checking to see if the Bat Signal has gone off yet. Mostly, it has not. Without some great, conspiring mind to make the situation volatile, emergencies tend to be pretty bland.

Some combination of my father's geological patience and my mother's willingness to listen has given me an eerie ability to render panicking people calm, even slightly sheepish about it. There are a few people I have met who are staunchly resistant to this, but as a whole, they are congenitally irrational - people who have told me that "I'm a school teacher, I don't communicate well by e-mail!" or "No one needs anything more than I need a dresser!" While I continue to try to puzzle out the logic regarding school teachers and e-mail, or the context in which a dresser might truly be that necessary, the other people (the ones with food poisoning and lost passports, missing keys or culture shock or fire alarms or thoughts about heading to the hospital) present much smaller problems.

What I've learned is that the world has very few types of problems. Generally either something moves when it should not, or something does not move when it should. A roll of duct tape and a hammer (with a good metal handle, should you need to use it as a lever) can provide an emergency solution to everything from a broken leg to the guy who broke your leg in the first place. The real problem tends to be someone panicking: for this, a cup of tea solves all.

January.

January has passed through my life with all of the deadly grace of a crash of rhinos passing through a small farming village in North Dakota. The survivors, for lack of anything approaching a reasonable response, stand around shrugging, agreeing, "Huh... so... lets dust up and never talk about this again, huh?"

I little remember what happened, save that I have accrued somewhere around a hundred hours of overtime in the first 2.5 weeks, the servers have crashed, and I've been asked to stay indefinitely - that had something to do with rewiring the AV equipment with a razor blade and a butter knife, but the whole thing is kind of hazy now. A guest passed through over two weeks, three days in France, a day in Dijon, a day in Beune, an insane dog, watching as the worst-ranked French basketball team beat the best-ranked French basketball team (in person, we were at the game). Mustard, wine, very little sleep, shaved my head, knuckles are bleeding again for some reason, re-wrote the database. General laughter about how my job description now includes "sex object" for a healthy swath of the girls on the program - I've been too busy to notice this, but if everyone else thinks its funny, maybe they're right. Can I put that on a CV? I finally returned home on Friday the 1st of Februrary and slept from 8 PM to 12:30 PM on the 2nd. February should be easier. If it isn't, I've learned that I can handle that too.

Longer posts later - Tyler is here, appreciating the "spit and duct tape" nature of my life here.

I fixed the extremely expensive AV system today: the projector was only displaying blue colors. Someone had called the engineer about it, but it was going to be days before he showed up and hundreds-to-thousands of pounds for the call.

So they asked me to look at it, gave me a razor blade and a screwdriver... and it works fine now, thank you. The director of our department has offered an on-going job, a raise, and a new title - they're looking for a wife for me now. All I have to do is get married.