The Long & Winding Road

It was festive, fun & finally relaxing once all the teams arrived at the CN Tower to turn in their final score sheets and enjoy celebratory cocktails. Small annoyances and irritations from past weeks seemed to melt away as we realized the undertaking we’d just completed together.

For those of you keeping score, for the Toronto leg of the competition, Jeff & I pulled off a respectable second place finish, sandwiched in between two strong Canuck teams (Home field advantage… they already knew the language, ay?) For the overall competition we took the third place bronze medal- just 100 points behind the second place team.

But, the scavenging, points and competition was such a small slice of this adventure. We had the honor of traveling with some lovely, funny and talented individuals who made the adventure a learning experience for us. We hope to continue these relationships for years to come. We also found that if we utilized the scavenge/challenge list, not as a checklist or rule book for our journey, but instead, allowed it to guide our actions in each city, it helped each city unfold for us in interesting and unexpected ways. Many special moments presented themselves- a stunning view, an interesting interaction, a quaint shop or café- as we were in the process of hunting for an item in our book.

It’s a bit overwhelming to consider. We traveled over 41,000 kilometers as we circumnavigated the globe (we determined that is a difficult word to say when drinking wine.) We did much of the travel using public transportation and even threw in the occasional camel or horse for fun. We traveled through countries practicing many varied religions- Greek Orthodox, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim & Christian- all with equal fervor but varying customs & belief systems.

We saw so many similarities among the many places we visited. Whether in Nepal, Toronto or Athens, ethnic enclaves exist & thrive. We visited Chinatowns, Little Italys & Little Indias around the globe. They were more alike than different and reminded me a lot of the ethnic neighborhoods we frequent in Manhattan.

We also saw solutions and opportunities in many countries that could hopefully be applied on a more global scale. Toronto utilizes an efficient system of trolleys and underground protected walkways to ease commuting. Amsterdam residents integrate commuting and exercise by biking to work. China, unfortunately, has picked up western customs and is ditching bicycles for road-clogging & polluting cars. I couldn’t help but imagine NY with pedestrian walkways, trolleys, bike lanes and less honking taxis.

Throughout the adventure, we reconfirmed that human nature is basically good and people want to help and enjoy other people. People in our group had very few negative experiences with local residents & they were far outweighed by the positive ones. So many shared stories of taxi drivers sharing family dinners with team members. We had so many drivers take a personal interest in our adventure that they worked hard to lead us to scavenges and even called friends to get information to help us in our efforts.

We feel very privileged to have seen many of the world’s greatest wonders on this adventure- from the Great Wall of China and Beijing’s Forbidden City; Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers; Mt. Everest in Nepal; the Pyramids in Cairo; the Acropolis and Temple of Zeus in Athens, the People’s Palace and castles in the Romanian countryside and the lovely canals of Amsterdam.

But ultimately, as Dorothy told Toto, “There’s no place like home,” & we’re looking forward to coming home to our little cottage by the sea and to our own little Toto, Scooby. Thanks for your words of encouragement on the blog- it meant a lot as we were on the road. If you are planning trips abroad to any of the sights we visited, let us know… we have scavenges to share!