Out There....

"Ode to Ethiopia" by John Betsch Society

Ok, I'm finally starting this blog. I've got to play a little catch up since I've already been out there for almost a week, so I'm gonna post a few things in a row. Also I've decided, being such a music afficionado(music snob to some and probably rightfully so) that I would try to post a song for each blog post describing the mood I was feeling at that particular time or maybe a song that I heard that day, or whatver. So the idea is, play the song first, then start reading while it's playing. Today it's John Betsch Society's "Ode to Ethiopia". One of my new favorite songs, constantly stuck in my head and whenever I think about my  trip to South America it plays in the background. To me it's the epitome of a road trip song, especially a road trip in a foreign land(s). Lots of twists and turns in the song and the psychedelic spazz outs near the end are great, but my favorite is the repeating melody(hook) of the woodwinds/brass through the first half. It's beautiful and it evokes something in me everytime I hear it(wow, I really just said that). Someday I'll sample that hook so don't even think about beatin me to it. You know who you are.

So I've been thinking, and dreaming, and planning this trip for almost 2 years now. I left behind everything I'd been doing for the last 3 years, my friends, a really great band(duders), the city of Austin,Tx, and then I moved back home to California to save money and then 6 months later I left my girl, my family and more friends. Looking back now I've realized you can keep telling yourself that, "Oh yeah, I'm goin to South America", and you keep telling other people that. You keep sayin that it's gonna be next summer or next fall and then it turns into to next year or 6 months after that, but the whole time you keep saying it and saying it and sayin it. The point is, when something takes this long, and it always seems to be somewhere down the road, when it's finally right in front of you, the reality of it can be a little much. That's how I felt after actually booking my ticket, and continued to feel all the way up to the actual departure 3 weeks later. I kept saying, "What the fuck was I thinking?! A 7 month solo backpacking trip through South America?!! I can´t even speak the language!". I still can't. Poco a poco. Some of you may think this an easy undertaking, but I've never done anything like this, and I wanted a new challenge. Let's see if this trip is as great as I dreamed it would be.