With this, I have ridden a bike on eight continents. It turns out for all the planning and preparation, it’s just another bike ride.

I knew that if I didn’t, someday I’d find myself at a party and mention that I’d ridden a bike on every continent, and some goober would go, “Well, actually, Zealandia is a continent, so you haven’t.”

“You went to Antarctica? How do I get there?”

“Can you wash dishes?”

Here I am in Japan, watching the last of the money in my checking account disappear. Did I mention I have a pack-a-day cigarette habit I’m hiding from my family, I haven’t smoked in almost a week, and I want to kill everyone?

The next summer, I taught English at summer camps in two small towns in Eastern Europe. But in the end, as the ol’ cliché goes,​ ​I learned more than I taught…

I grew up in the sticks of Vermont, so when all my friends at the college newspaper were talking about their upcoming summer internships, I was like, “What’s an internship?” The answer was, apparently, the very hinge of your entire career and all prospects of future happiness.