I kinda forgot I'd made "friends" out here in Delhi. Last night I drove straight into the Bullet Wallas shop/hangout after 12 hours of driving, and it was like running into an old group of friends I hadn't seen in a while. I guess I'm going to have to start getting used to that feeling...
I sold my bike, then went to the bank and liquidated my account to pay for this bike I'm getting shipped to LA. Somehow, magically, I'm down to a hundred bucks total assets. OK, three hundred with unused travellers' checks...and I guess reiss and jael owe me some money...but that's not the point. The point is that this trip is over, physically and financially, and it's pretty neat that they coincide. Not bad, I guess, for a year's worth of savings: 7.5 months travel and a motorcycle. A whole lot of fun was had, and I'll have something to remember it by as I'm cursing the LA traffic. Great. The end.


Section Break


Now the problem is that I've liquidated my bank account and still have 3 months worth of traveling to do. Luckily, the wizards over at Citibank have devised some way to warp the fabric of time-space and let me borrow from my future earnings as a doctor 10 years from now, but it's all a bit mystical and fine-printed. In any case, it would be a lot more fun to try to do cheaply. So far, I've found 3 options:

accordioning across the country, which might get me beat up.
craigslisting across the country, which also might get me beat up.
couchsurfing across the country, which might get me beat up AND raped.

I think a mixture of all three would be safest, but there's no denying that the internet has massively changed the American Road Trip so I might as well use it to my advantage. Some Aussie told me about Couchsurfing.com as a way to match travellers with couches, and it sounds like a great way to "do" America. I could also post on the Craigslist Rideshare board in every city I plan on driving through, and see how many people I could push into the car. Could be an interesting way to meet people, anyway.
Jeff's not coming, which would make the accordioning either extremely free or massively depressing. I'll take it along, and see how it pans out. He brought up a good point, that most American's don't give a rat's ass about two wierdos from San Francisco playing for money. True as that might be, Canadians might just dig it. Anyway, if I end up going up north, it might be a good idea to set up shop on a few streetcorners.

I'm leaving for the airport in 30 minutes. 20 hours of flight time ahead. whoopee. I'm up for any suggestions with how to get across the country, so let me know if you know of a cross-country zip line or something. I'm out. So long, Asia.