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Locations: Singapore; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Stockholm, Sweden; New York

At 4:00 am on Monday morning, I got ready to go, said goodbye to Ben, and grabbed the cab to the airport. My flights home actually went back west rather than east over the Pacific Ocean. First, I flew to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Then I flew to Stockholm, and then took the same plane to Newark airport. All told, the entire trip took 24 hours, and I landed in New York at 7pm local time. However, the flights went by pretty fast, because Malaysia Airlines is a very good airline; plenty of leg room, comfortable seats, good entertainment options, and good service. During this time, I read the last Harry Potter book cover to cover, and watched Spiderman 3 and Shrek 3 on the plane.

It's been a great 5 weeks. Ben and I both had a great time. In the end, I ended up visiting or passing through 22 cities and 12 countries, using 9 currencies, and hearing 12 languages. I'd have to say that my favorite place I stopped was Istanbul, Turkey (sorry Ben). I definitely want to return to Turkey one day, stopping in Istanbul again, and perhaps seeing the city of Ankara and the Cappadocia region.

I know it's a little cliche to say so, but I definitely gained a new perspective on the world from this trip. I feel a lot safer than I used to. For all the things you hear in the news about terrorism, and anti-American and western sentiment, most of the people you meet when you travel just want to live their lives and ensure prosperity for themselves and their families. Not once was I given a dirty look, poor service, or a hard time because I was American. Whenever we were asked "Where are you from?", and we responded with "New York", the local then told us what he liked about the city, or about the relative that he had living there (or tried to sell us something; a lot of salesmen ask that question to every tourist they come across).

I hope everyone reading this blog enjoyed the posts, the pictures and the videos. I enjoyed all your comments, and hope your summers were enjoyable. I'm going to be in New York for one week; next Sunday or Monday, I head out to Pittsburgh to start business school at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business. I do not know if I will continue to blog or not; I guess I'll see if there's something interesting to write about. Bon Voyage!