THE END

On December 7, 2007 I entered Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. This morning, 444 days later and having slept in 46 countries and 7 U.S. states during the span, I returned to the very same airport.

When people have asked what I wanted out of this adventure, my response has usually been:

1) To get a little smarter

2) To see and do cool stuff

3) To become a bit more self-reliant

4) To meet interesting people

5) To wear socks as seldom as possible

I really feel like all five goals were achieved. The rest of this post is more for me than the reader. Just wanted to "get down on paper" many of the remarkable (some good, some less good) memories I've accumulated over the past fourteen and a half months.

Here goes (roughly in date order):

1) Final Philadelphia lunch at Society Hill Hotel with Keith, Mary, Tina, Jenn and Ted. (12/7/07)

2) Sandy hopping the train in Baltimore to do a little farewell ride with me en route to Union Station

3) Downing farewell martinis at the Borsuk residence before heading to the airport

4) Hearing the Reagan Airport PA announcement requesting Robert Stricker return to the check-in counter to retrieve the passport he'd left behind

5) Ben and Katie spoiling me during my London layover

6) The sheer insanity of the Mozambique border crossing

7) Giving Victoria and Ian a human rights lecture on the back porch of the Mozambique "Big Brother House"

8) Trying to figure out which of my group I could outrun as a mother rhino decided whether to attack in Swaziland

9) The miserable Christmas dinner at a South African fast food joint

10) Quad biking on the Namibian sand dunes

11) Being irrationally scared of falling while scaling giant sand dunes

12) Crashing Nicola's car in Swakopmund

13) Landing on a dirt runway in the Okavango Delta

14) Rafting the Zambezi

15) The feminine wiles of a Zambian "professional" at the hotel nightclub

16) Eating at a Botswana restaurant where rats were running about....and then returning the next night due to lack of culinary options elsewhere

17) Being towed 80 miles by two South African farmhands after our bus broke down

18) Final tour night brawl with Johann over his treatment of blacks, gays and women

19) Meeting the world's kindest couple, Mac and Amanda, on the Jo'burg to Cape Town train (Editor's note: No longer a couple...oops)

20) The incredible cast of characters at the Cape Town Backpackers

21) Exchanging emails with Kirsten Schmidt...the Yin to my Yang on our round-the-world adventures

22) My Moshi, Tanzania taxi driver pulling over in the middle of the night to ask a local which route was safest from carjackings

23) The feeling of panic as I waited with other hikers to be picked up and driven to the starting point for Mt. Kilimanjaro

24) Listening to my Kilimanjaro guide, Malisa, lecture me on the reasons America would never elect a black president

25) Killing time in my Kilimanjaro tent by listing all scholarship Villanova basketball players since 1991

26) The realization at 4am on Kilimanjaro summit day that THIS was going to be the single worst day of my life

27) Chowing down on enormous bananas during a ten-hour drive into the Ugandan jungle

28) Blindly reaching into my daypack to clear it out and yanking out a live mouse by the tail

29) Spending an hour, 10 feet from a wild silverback gorilla and his family

30) Derek scrambling for clothes in Egypt for a week until his lost luggage was found

31) Playing poker and emptying the train's beer supply in Egypt

32) Abu Simbel

33) Sleeping under the stars in Wadi Rum desert

34) Celebrating Nova's advance to the Sweet 16 in a Tampa hotel lobby bar with Leaf and the VUSports crew, while avoiding Joe Juliano

35) Chatting with a positively giddy Reggie Redding Sr. at the airport in Tampa after the Siena victory

36) Entering a quiet Dubrovnik bar with Kevin Connell only to be overrun by enormous, drunken Croatians in the ensuing hours

37) Eating the two best meals of the trip at Valsabbion in Pula on back-to-back nights

38) Spending the most surreal night of the trip with two Germans and four 18-year old Croatians in a series of Zagreb bars and Communist-era apartments

39) Spending a full sunny day strolling from Ljubljana riverside cafe to cafe, drinking wine, reading my book and people-watching....and then returning to my "prison hostel"

40) Hiking in the rain near Lake Bled in Slovenia

41) The enormous Miani family arrival amidst a sea of humanity in Padua, Italy outside the Hotel Majestic Toscanelli

42) Dining on fine wine, cheeses, olives and bread while overlooking Lake Como (maybe) with the Miani's and my number one girl, Elisabeth, in Bellagio

43) Smoking cigars outside the Hotel Belvedere with Max Squire in Italy, while debating with wealthy Americans as to whether the United States should continue to act as the "world's policeman"

44) The cosmopolitan beauty of Budapest

45) Kickin' it with Eric in Bratislava, home to the world's most beautiful women

46) Trying absinthe for the first (and last) time with Jenn in the basement of a Prague pub

47) Drinking at the Hofbrauhaus 3 feet from where I sat 13 years ago with Eric and Laurite ("I like it, I don't like it, I want to....")

48) Randomly coming upon a hilariously talented band at a free Brussels music festival

49) Night one at the Amsterdam jazz club with Jenn (night two...not so good)

50) Wisely playing a hunch and flying from Amsterdam to Chicago for Memorial Day weekend

51) Surprising my sister, Mary, on my visit home. Her first words, "What's wrong?"

52) My niece, Alice, coming home from school in a sour mood and, while surprised to see me, refusing to break with her frown....for about 10 seconds...and then a big hug

53) Spending the week in Sweden with Kristina, the world's best traveler

54) Crashing on Kaja and Helene's couch in Oslo, after meeting them in a Croatian bar months before

55) Sitting largely silent at the Kemp-family dinner table in Tananger, listening to tale after tale

56) The amazing Bergen to Oslo train ride

57) The Hotel Kamp staff in Helsinki knowing me by name the morning after I arrived...and the rubber ducky in the bathroom

58) Riding the rails into St. Petersburg and warily exploring the subway system while possessing limited knowledge of the cyrillic alphabet

59) Megan Waddel falling into a Russian manhole

60) Surviving the Trans-Siberian railway on Pringles, Snickers and vodka, with the best crew imaginable: Craig, Catherine, Sally, Megan, Erin and, yes, Kirsty

61) Spending the night near Lake Baikal on the couch of a Siberian woman who didn't speak English

62) Playing Ultimate Frisbee on a Mongolian hillside

63) The majesty of the Mongolian trains....seriously

64) Drinking fermented mare's milk out of a bucket

65) Walking out of the Beijing train station unable to stop laughing at the absurdity of where I was and how I had arrived there

66) The hair washing portion of my Beijing hair cut

67) Poor little vegetarian Sally breaking down nearly into tears at a Beijing duckhouse after valiantly maintaining her diet through Russia and Mongolia

68) Deep fried silk worms and crickets for sale

69) "One World, One Dream"

70) Bicycling around Beijing

71) The Yangshuo light show

72) Riding the world's fastest train in Shanghai

73) Paying a stranger to clean the wax from my ears in a Chinese tea house

74) Bumper cars in China....U.S. vs. U.K.!!

75) Watching the movie, "Seven", while receiving a tortuous Chinese massage

76) Viewing the Olympic opening ceremony projected upon a Hong Kong building in Victoria Harbor

77) Sailing with Kristin on a chartered Hong Kong junk

78) "You're in my bed." -- first words from Jeff, my initial Vietnam tour roommate

79) The first delicious, gluttonous meal in Hanoi

80) Beautiful Ha Long Bay

81) Deaf Vietnamese restaurant owner creatively opening bottles of beer

82) Bar Jenga

83) Tran Thi Bich HUE: World's Hippest Tour Leader

84) The awkwardness inherent in paying a blind man for a massage in Cambodia

85) The intense tour of the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh

86) Civilized cocktails at the Foreign Correspondents Clubs in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh

87) Accidently overtipping the Cambodian tour bus driver and then going back to ask for the return of my money

88) Four-handed massage in Bangkok

89) The opulence of the Chiang Mai Mandarin Oriental

90) Riding elephants in Chiang Mai, Thailand

91) Fire dancers at the beach bar in Phi Phi

92) Barefoot midnight bowling in Laos

93) Finding myself riding through the fields of Luang Prabang on the back of a scary motorbike, when nobody in the world could possibly know where I was

94) The delicious food in Penang, Malaysia

95) Mandarin Oriental waitresses in Kuala Lumpur serving me gin and tonics while on their knees

96) Taking Andy Hackman's advice (briefly) to visit "Beach Bar" in K.L. and wondering why there were so many very young local women chatting up so many very old westerners

97) Hiking and rafting in Ubud in Bali

98) Being in a quiet, tiny bar in Lovina as Maroon 5's, "She Will Be Loved" came on and all 12 or so patrons slowly building to a crescendo of awful crooning (kinda had to be there)

99) Failing miserably to match Gordon Kemp drink-for-drink my first night in Perth

100) Smashing into the curb within five minutes of renting my car in Perth

101) The "Wine For Dudes" tour in Margaret River

102) Fresh, warm brownies in Denmark, Australia

103) Leaving the keys to my rental car on an abandoned Hertz desk at the Albany airport

104) Three days of a whole lotta nothing on the Indian Pacific across Australia

105) Jetboating in Sydney Harbour

106) Raising with K-K and then foolishly folding after two all-in's behind me (both players had A-K) at a Sydney casino

107) Jager Bombs in Hervey Bay

108) The rough beach airplane landing on Fraser Island

109) Sitting in an empty King's Cross bar at 10am watching the Phillies in the World Series, while explaining to bartenders why the batter can't hit the pitched ball after it bounces

110) Sitting next to Scotland's biggest Stevie Wonder fans at a Sydney concert

111) "Superstion" on the didgeridoo

112) Maddeningly losing the trail on Waiheke Island near Auckland with Kristin

113) "La Piscine Naturelle" on Ile Des Pins, New Caledonia

114) Kristin nearly destroying me while cycling

115) The Fijian hail storm while rafting....and subsequent lightning storm

116) "Mr. Stricker, did you request a 7am wake-up call? (YES) Well, this is it. (CLICK).¨ -- my favorite hotel wake-up call (Fiji)....received at 7:25am

117) The pedestrian rope bridge at the hotel in Vanuatu

118) "How do you like your new black President?" - Vanuatu bus driver

119) The frightening volcano on Yasur

120) Massive relief at finding a western doctor to treat my infected left foot in Vanuatu

121) Having to book hotel accommodations on two islands for the same date...damn international date line

122) Swimming with the rays in Mo'orea

123) The unreal shades of blue in the waters around Bora Bora, as seen from the air

124) Dinner at Bloody Mary's

125) The jet ski tour in Bora Bora

126) Attending a surprisingly tame football game in Rio

127) Quite simply: MASON TWIGG

128) The quiet, cobblestone streets of Paraty

129) Remarkable Iguazu Falls (from both sides and every angle)

130) Drinking on Bree's (Daddy's??) credit card in Paraguay

131) Snorkeling down the pristine river in Bonito

132) Learning very quickly just how Bolivian border crossings work for Americans

133) Jess getting tossed from her horse and the resulting spiral fracture

134) Jess dancing at JoyRide three days later

135) The blending of the blue sky into the damp Bolivian salt flats

136) South America's best pizza at The Minuteman in Uyuni

137) Eating New Year's dinner at 12:30am in Potosi

138) Swimming with sea lions for the first time in Galapagos

139) Eating bad calamari and wanting to die two days later

140) My REALLY cool hotel room in Copacabana overlooking Lake Titicaca

141) Watching about eleven hours of U.S. inaugural coverage on CNN in the La Paz Radisson

142) Canopy ziplining in Salta, Argentina

143) The paragliding crash landing in Mendoza

144) Sliding down the icy glacier on Volcano Villarrica in Pucon

145) Enormous, delicious, cheap Argentinean steaks

146) Rio block party

147) The incredible Carnival parade going early into the morning