I was watching the search party from the locks, about one hundred metres down the river. They were searching for the little girl who had gone missing the week before. Children were not allowed to volunteer, so I had to watch from my perch atop these crumbling locks, wondering what may have happened to her.

Everybody assumed that she was dead—kidnapped, raped and murdered seemed the likely scenario—but I held out faith that she had simply run away. When the train passed, blowing its whistle, my belief was reaffirmed. Like me, she had been seduced by the exotic sound of the train whistle, fantasizing about the different places she could visit. Places, no doubt, that were more interesting and exotic than where I was right now—Holland Landing, Ontario.

Growing bored of watching the search party vainly inspect the trails along the river, I turned my attention to the locks. They were now almost one hundred years old, crumbling and riddled with graffiti of teenagers from various decades. I had once imagined these to be the locks of a once mighty river, with ships bringing commerce steadily back and forth between Lake Simcoe and Lake Ontario. The Holland River was now little more than a stream, but I thought that its waters had once climbed the banks right up to what is now Mt. Albert Road.

But I was wrong. I had recently read in the town library that these locks had been built at the turn of the century but never used. Constructed simply to be a refuge for adolescent kids like myself to create fantasies. The news had devastated me.

But at least I still had the train. As the search party called it quits for the day, so did I. Down from the locks, I followed the curving rhythm of the water, past the trees and trails until I came to the turn-off which lead me to my home.

At home, my father always asked what I had done during the day and I always kept my answers vague. Not that I wanted to hide anything from him, it's just that he never understood why I spent so much time alone. It was easy these days to steer the conversation in the direction of the missing girl, and the various search parties combing all the areas in the vicinity. When it was polite and indiscrete, I would saunter off to my room, reading books and listening to music.

Lying in bed during the evening, I would wait for the second whistle. The train would pass by our neighbourhood twice a day B once in the afternoon and once at night. No matter what the season, I kept my window open so I could hear it.

Only then was I able to sleep.

The Atlantic Ocean looks so vast and forbidding, especially crashing against the rocky cliffs here in Newfoundland. My father passed away a few weeks ago, and not knowing what else to do, I decided to take a pilgrimage to the east coast. It makes me think about my younger days, dreaming about travelling and seeing far-off places; yet here I am in my early twenties and this is the first time I have ever left Ontario. Coping with my father's death has been difficult, but in a strange way perhaps it was the emancipation I needed.

Signal Hill overlooks both the ocean and St. John's. So far I have been through Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Moncton, Halifax and Charlottetown, but St. John's is the city I have most connected with. Anyone who has ever been here will understand why.

The last few days I have been staying at a bed and breakfast down by Water Street. Since I have been travelling alone, most of my stops have been lonely, introspective affairs. But the woman who runs the bed and breakfast here has been almost a constant companion since I arrived. High season has not started yet since it is only May, so I am the only person staying at her place. I imagine that I have her company by virtue of the fact that nobody else is there, but after so long alone I am not going to complain.

What I don't understand, however, is my feeling right now after I had to say good-bye. This morning, she drove me to the bus station so I could start my journey back home. She gave me a gift, telling me it was something to remember her by. After a friendly hug, she left, and I watched her go, disappearing into the city and out of my life. Strangely, I wanted to follow her, to catch her on the street and tell her that I have decided to stay an extra couple of days. I imagined what her reaction would be and started vacillating whether or not I should do it.

As I was contemplating this, they announced that the bus would be delayed for two hours. This could have been my opportunity to play out my fantasy and gauge her reaction. But instead, I have come here to Signal Hill to contemplate my feelings and wonder why I am thinking about this at all. After all, I hardly know the woman and we have only spent a couple of days in each other's company.

Making my decision, I slowly left the top of the hill and made my way back to the bus terminal. Getting on the bus, I found a seat by myself near the back. I watched the city disappear behind me as I tried to settle in for the long ride to Port aux Basques. I tried to forget her, but I couldn't.

I tried to fall asleep, but something kept me awake the whole way.

The train pulled into Barcelona in the early evening. I disembarked, not knowing that I was actually on the outskirts of the city and I would have to take another local train to get downtown. I started asking the man, who worked at the station what I was supposed to do, but of course he could not speak English and I could not speak Spanish.

Through pointing and excessive body language I finally figured out where I was to get my next train and it seemed that I would have to wait for about thirty minutes. As I waited, the man tried to continue this dual language conversation, repeating two Spanish words to me that I could clearly understand—mucho problemos. He was letting me know that there were many problems in Barcelona and that I should be careful.

Later, I was walking down Las Ramblas and I easily forgot his dire warnings. The gothic architecture and eccentric street performers gave the city an ambience that I had rarely experienced in all my travels.
I checked into a youth hostel just off the main drag, and stashed by backpack in one of the lockers. To explore the city, I threw some items into a smaller backpack I would carry around with me—my wallet (which contained money and credit cards), my camera, my passport, and most importantly, my journal.

I was the observer. I watched the various street performers; I entered the churches and the back alleys, always invisible. It was like the only person who ever knew I was there was me. Being so used to this, I never suspected somebody was watching.

There was a stall on the street where I could buy something to eat. While I tried to bridge the linguistic gap with the woman, she offered me a slightly amused and impatient smile. Somehow I ordered something, and I put my knapsack down for a moment as I grabbed the tray and sat on one of the small seats she had set up on the street. It was no more than ten seconds, which is apparently more than enough time for somebody to steal my bag and disappear. When I discovered it gone, I looked around frantically and thought I saw somebody running away from me. I gave chase to no avail. I was easily lost in the city I knew so little about.

I went back to the food stall. Obviously the woman saw something since this all took place behind my back while she was looking at me. You did not need a translator to know what I was asking, but she looked at me, shaking her head and feigning ignorance. The other people who had been sitting around did the same. Nobody cared about me, or what I had lost. Suddenly, I felt very alone and helpless. I felt like everybody was conspiring against me and I did not have a friend or confidante anywhere.

I returned to the hostel, defeated. I called a 1-800 number to cancel my credit cards and contacted the Canadian embassy to try and get a new passport. The journal and the photographs I had taken with the camera would never be replaced.

That night I lay in my bunk in the dorm room. There were no windows so the darkness lingered and refused to leave. All night I could not sleep, trying to figure out what to do.

Zanzibar is not a place in which you would like to take ill. Especially if you are on the east coast of the island, far away from Zanzibar City itself, and a world away from any type of amenities or modern conveniences.
I had been on the road for too long. Different countries and cities were all turning into a blur and I needed some relaxation. Like any serious traveller, I was trying to get off the beaten path and find something I could call my own. Or at least something I could delude myself into thinking was my own. I ended up in a tiny African village located on a beach on the other side of the island.

The village was obviously used to some type of tourist trade because they had huts set up along the beach for people to rent (so much for being off the beaten path). The one I had was a lower grade—dirt floor, no running water and a hammock strung up in the main room for sleeping. The bathroom was a hole in the ground and a bucket in which you could get water from the local tap to clean yourself. This suited me fine.

After a couple of days, I did not seem to be feeling any better. In fact, physically, I was feeling worse. I assumed that it was just a manifestation of my emotional state, being overcome by loneliness and rootlessness. I had begun to lose touch with the concept of home.

On the third night, it all came to a pinnacle. I tossed and turned, overwhelmed by a cold sweat that made me shiver. The swinging of my hammock brought on a nausea that I could not control so I stumbled into the little bathroom and made my way to the hole in the ground.

Bent over, I began vomiting and retching. Long after everything I had eaten had been brought up my body still found new things to expel. Many months later I would learn that I was suffering from giardia, an illness caused by drinking contaminated water, but at the time I simply thought I was going to die.

Without the strength to make it back into the other room, I laid on the dirt floor in anticipation of my next vomiting episode. Time seemed to stand still as my life lingered precariously in a sense of suspended animation. Enough light was starting to crack over the horizon so that I could see the room, and as I became focused I noticed that I was nose to nose with a rat. What I remember the most about it was that I did not even stir. At that moment I simply couldn’t care less. I was more interested in trying to breathe. The rat, on the other hand, stared at me with horror, as if I looked so pathetic that even the life of a rat would seem more desirable than what I was enduring. After staring each other down for several minutes, it scurried away and I never saw it again.

Eventually I stumbled back to my hammock. Several days would pass before I would feel well enough just to make it back to Zanzibar City. In the meantime, I just drank lots of boiled water and thought about the rat. I continuously drifted in and out of consciousness, without sleep, without a home, without anyone to comfort me.

South Korea is a paradox. It calls itself 'Land of the Morning Calm,' yet the pace of life in the country is anything but. You have an ancient culture existing and thriving as the new modern world rapidly develops alongside it. The recent influx of foreigners, like me, has made a once isolated country into a dynamic, complex nation. And the demand to learn English in order to compete in the 21st century has created teaching jobs for anyone from an English-speaking country who possesses a university degree.

Which is how I ended up there.

However, it is easy to get lost amongst the crowds and activity. Being an expatriate gives you a distinct impression of existing apart from everything else that is going on around you. Put up linguistic and cultural barriers and it is easy to see why so many foreigners return home before their contacts expire.

I was drinking by myself in a 'soju tent' (an orange tent set up along the streets in which you could drink soju and beer all night), taking in everything that was happening around me. A group of four men were sitting nearby, drinking and carrying on, which is a typical after-work activity for Korean males. Being different, attention usually gets shifted in my direction at some point. It wasn't long before the four men were sitting with me, practicing their English and playing drinking games. And it wasn't long before all of us ended up in a noraebang (which is a private karaoke room and the social activity of choice for most Koreans).

I realized that my new friends were well meaning, but I wasn't as enthusiastic as they were. I appreciated the camaraderie, but the excessive drinking made me introspective and brooding. In essence, I felt more and more alone in their company than I had when I was by myself.

As we each took turns singing, a score would appear on the video monitor, an indication of how well we had performed. My scores were never as good as the others. At times I would play along with the tambourine, but my zest and bravado was contrived. Finally, a hostess (which is female companionship provided with your rental fee) arrived, epitomizing the great facade of this whole situation. Maybe another time and circumstances would allow me to enjoy this, but it wasn't working for me there and then.

In Korea, it would offend your company if you had to decline their hospitality, so I was thinking of a diplomatic way to leave. My subtle hints did not cross the linguistic barrier, so I had very limited options. I told them I was going to the washroom (hwangjang-shil) and nobody followed me.

I made my way down the hall and out the front door, into the street and away from my new acquaintances.

I wandered the streets by myself for awhile, buying some food from street vendors and taking in the throbbing mass of life all around me. I wanted to be the observer, not a participant.

Slowly, I tried to make my way back to the tiny yogwan where I was staying. I was tired and wanted nothing more than to sleep and listen to the sounds of the city outside my window. The night crept by as I continuously turned mysterious corners. Not able to read the signs I struggled in finding my way home.

It was the beginning of October and already it had begun snowing in Yellowknife. The wind cut through me and I wished that I had been wearing some gloves and a toque. However, the weather did not seem to disturb any of the local population who continued with their everyday lives, seemingly oblivious to the sudden change in climate. I had been to many places in the world but I never felt more different and out of place than I did in this strange, northern city—a place in my own country.

On some level I had always wanted to find myself at the end of the earth, and at that time I felt like I had finally arrived. This was a capital city built on the edge of nowhere, fuelled by bureaucracy and unaware that it had no right even being there. There were far more suitable places to build a city in this territory, but somebody at some time decided that this should be it. And the rest is history.

One need only look around the outskirts of the city to come to this conclusion. The barren, Canadian Shield enveloped the community, holding it prisoner with eternal isolation. The climate was cruel, and when it was not winter then the bugs tried to extract every last ounce of blood from you.

At least the northern lights offered some mystery and beauty. Up there, you could see them distinctly on any clear night during the long, dark winter. Sometimes they looked so close that you felt as if you could touch them, dancing in some exotic and surreal fashion.

Yellowknife has an inordinate amount of drinking establishments for a town of its size. A couple of dozen licensed establishments for a city of 17,000 people. And, in the less reputable ones, you can be sure of a fight breaking out at any time of the day.

For some perverse reason I had become an avid spectator of the drunken fisticuffs. I would sit on Franklin Street waiting for the entertainment to begin, and it generally followed the same pattern. A couple (male and female) would come out screaming at each other, usually about some type of infidelity. They would carry on for the entertainment of anyone outside until the male decided he had to settle matters with some as yet unseen third party. He would rush back into the bar with his partner chasing after him screaming 'no, no, please don't". Then a few minutes later the two men would be out on the sidewalk duking it out, all in the name of chivalry.

I only watched the fights from the outside. Inside would have been too depressing for me. But as soon as winter started to descend on us, I had to reconsider my favourite pastime.

With winter comes darkness. And with the darkness came introspection. It is the great hibernation when people wonder why they are in the far north, completely cut off from everything. What is the allure? What is it that drives people like me to spend a significant part of their life searching for something in out-of-the-way places?

I tried to sleep that first winter away like a bear in hibernation. But the northern lights made me sit by my window, hoping they would get close enough so that I could touch them and solve their alluring mystique.

Something so familiar can look so different when you are older. Here I sit at these same locks that I spent so much time at while I was growing up. The river is still here, the railroad tracks are still running close by; but things are subtly changing.

I have brought my daughter here so that she can share this with me, although at four months old I know she will never remember. But part of this is a part of me, which in turn is a part of her.

My mother has sold the house, and tomorrow she moves across the province to live with my sister near Ottawa. I have come to help her move, but I have also come to say good-bye. Not just to the old house and neighbourhood, but also to my old self; the one that has constantly changed and evolved across so many different places. Any friends and relatives that I had around here have moved on, my mother being the final link that tied me to Holland Landing.

My daughter and I visited the graves of my father and grandfather this morning. Before deciding to sell the house, my mother made it quite clear that she is to be buried right where my father is. Her name already waits on the tombstone, right beside his, everything carved and ready except for the date of her death. The tales of my people continue to be told, and whether I like it or not, I am a part of the story.

Tonight is the last night I will ever sleep in the room that I grew up in. I am going to lie in bed with my daughter by my side and the window wide open above the bed. Together, she and I will fall asleep waiting for the train whistle.