They call it a travel bug, but it’s really more of a lifelong illness (though happily benign).

At least that’s what I thought as I boarded yet another “Speedbird” (the British Airways callsign) from SFO back to the U.K. and beyond. It’s my third such international trip this year, and my second to Europe.

To which more lucid observers might say: Europe in early-March?

This is particularly true this year, a winter that’s seen much of continental Europe bounce from near-drought, to epic mountain snow, to extreme cold and snow as far south as Rome, to returning warmth (and a bit more snow in spots). For you climate change skeptics, I present you the Continent, 2012. And yet in that meteorological stew lay the seeds of this latest journey.

Well before I was born, my father was an avid skier. So avid, in fact, that, craving an experience beyond the local mountains of eastern Canada and New England, he visited the Swiss resort town of Zermatt in 1966 and has spoken of the journey all my life: the gorgeous, utterly genuine, car-free village;  the three cable cars to get to the top of mountains flanking the iconic Matterhorn; the above-treeline splendor; the descent taking almost an afternoon in itself. Even though I’d switched to snowboarding a few years back, and have been all around North America’s Rockies, Sierras, Appalachians, Laurentians — heck, even did a stint in Hakuba, Japan on my great world journey — I knew a visit to Switzerland was in the cards for me one day.

This year, with some huge dumps of snow having fallen in the Alps mid-season, coupled with relatively dry conditions throughout much of North America, I felt nature was literally calling. But before the mountains, a visit to one of my favorite cities (and home of a number of friends old and new) was on the agenda.

Two days in London proved a perfect spot to chill out and (mostly) get over jetlag. Sadly, my compatriot, partner in crime, and confidante from prior journeys, the fabled “Renaissance Man,” had flown the coop for new job opportunities in warmer (and noisier) climes: he moved to Mumbai a few months back. So this time around, I stayed in suburban North London with old family friends.

“Don’t let me sleep,” I exhorted to my pals as I arrived at their home midafternoon Saturday. I was determined to ward off jetlag the old-fashioned way: by getting onto the destination’s daily rhythms.

As it got dark, however, I had something more to keep me going: A rendezvous with some pals in the now-burgeoning Southwark district (I finally figured out how to pronounce it, too: “SOUTH-erk”.)

A train and Tube ride later and I was there – and, as I always am when discovering a new neighborhood in this town, suitably impressed: London’s noisy vibrancy and wall-to-wall shops on commercial arteries feel just right for a city boy like me. Southwark is a melange of old and new, from a cathedral that bills itself as one of the first Gothic incarnations in Europe, to historic commercial structures fronting the Thames, to the still-under-construction Shard of Glass (set to become the tallest building in the EU), to The George, where we were to meet — a historic pub with roots in Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens. It was a cool but not overly frigid night, and people tippled along outdoor tables beneath gas-fired heat lamps that I associate with California more than moody Northern Europe.

Gus and Adam showed up a few minutes later. Handsome, gregarious, intelligent late-twentysomethings from Sydney, they moved to Old Blighty a year or so back and are currently making a home for themselves in Winchester.

“It’s like a rite of passage,” Gus said, Aussies coming to the U.K. to live for a year or two. I maintain that London is a New York for the rest of the world, as it seems practically everyone, from so many different nationalities, seems to do the same. In their case, Gus’s engineering job brought him here, and Adam continued his career and studies in journalism. But their biggest leap into the brave new world is more romantic:

“We’re getting married in Vancouver this September,” Adam said.

Whoah, I thought. They’re twenty-nine (and look even younger). How long have they been together?

“Nine years,” Gus added. That was heartening to hear: with the struggle for gay marriage at a fever pitch in the States, I maintain that the gay community is waging its own internal battles in this area. Having been denied this form of emancipation for so long, the current crop of young and youngish gays back home seems almost hell-bent on “marriage or else.” A noble sentiment, sure, but for the fact that it echoes the notion of the dog chasing a car. What will he do if he catches it? I’ve watched so many of my contemporaries back home pine for a marriage that feels positively retrograde – housewifery, children, a home in the suburbs. Yet most of them also lack emotional maturity, and lurch back and forth between dysfunctional serial monogamy and guilty, furtive one-night-stands.

But these guys seem different. So eloquent, so well-spoken, so genuinely happy together without that forced artifice of “couplehood” I’ve seen in so many of my peers back home. Maybe it’s also the connection we nomads feel with each other: Gus, Adam and I spent  over three hours eating, drinking, comparing life experiences, political viewpoints, and a million other things. They even invited me to the ceremony they plan to hold in Canada and by golly, I plan to do my damndest to show up.

A hefty pile of sleep later, and it was time for a social Sunday with the remainder of the Lightman clan.

We started out in Golders Green, where I again paid a visit to the octagenarian Ray and Sidney. Ray’s hanging in there, warding off a myriad of health problems with a brave staunchness and a surprisingly lucid disposition. Keep calm and carry on, indeed. Sidney, meanwhile, remains a wonder: pushing ninety, he retains youthful energy and mental acuity and is still working (!) as a freelance translator; we managed to get into a discussion about, of all things, the coffee in Israel. The Jewish state has got a big café culture, and when Starbucks tried to move in there, they flopped (same story in Australia, too). While he wasn’t sad to see big American corporate coffee fail to conquer another land, he did have one regret.

“I had the contract to do their translation… and suffice it to say the pay was alright!”

Our next stop was East Finchley, where the Lightman family member closest to me in age, Joy, had just moved into a new home with her still-adorable daughter, Bella. It’s a cheerful two-story townhome that’s a bit remniscient of my home across the pond. Once again, I’m reminded of how similar we can be to those near and dear to us, even separated by great distances.

And so, that was it for my London sojourn. Up next: how I got to my snow destination (an insane day of travel!), and my reactions to the place once I got there. Stay tuned, snowsports (and train travel) fans.

As promised, here is a selection of photos from the Great Barrier Reef — though in truth, the waterproof disposable camera doesn’t do it justice. For you eagle-eyed fish watchers, however, you may spot a few, including the ever-famous clownfish, inspiration for the famed Disney/Pixar creation. Click on the pictures to see them in a separate page, then click again on them in that page to see them larger size.

After my trip to the tropics I felt I’d packed in enough adventure in Australia to make it feel like a much longer trip; Christmas with my family in L.A. already felt like ages ago. But I had a couple more loose ends to tie up in Sydney for the daylong layover I was to have there between my return from Port Douglas and my flight home.

To mix things up I opted to stay this time with my pal Sarah at her tidy flat in a walk-up in Woollahra. Unlike the beach shack in Coogee, Sarah’s housing choices – both in terms of location and style – mirror mine so closely it’s almost hard to believe we’re a vast ocean apart: a restored vintage condominium-type residence in a small, close-knit building (okay, hers is a bit closer knit than mine: she filled me in on some colorful neighborhood gossip that echoes the show Melrose Place). Only significant deviation: she’s got a fourteen-year-old son.

Yet there, too, there’s common ground: the oldest of my nieces and nephews turns ten this year, and in talking to Sarah about Huwie I got a glimpse of what’s off on my familial near-horizon. It’s been fascinating to watch, for me at a bit of a distance but still very much engaged, how the little ones develop and blossom into the people they will become.

I also managed a meetup with the very first person I’d met in Australia: Dean’s mother was good friends with some friends of my parents back in Montreal. We did the usual life-catch-up that occurs on so many of my visits where I make acquaintance with a long-lost chum.

On that note, the subject turned, as it often does, to travel; Dean and his family have done a fair bit of it, even doing bigger en-famille adventures (they were all headed to Hawaii in a day or so, in fact); but when I told him about my trip he had two observations.

“I couldn’t travel alone,” he said. “When I travel by myself, the journey feels like this,” he added, crimping his thumb and forefinger together with little space in between.

“But when I go with a friend – if I can find one who’s got the same time and budget – the trip becomes like this.” He held out his hands wide apart.

Fair enough, I nodded. But what about the notion of longer journeys such as the one I took?

“I could have seen myself doing it maybe when I was younger,” he said. “But now? I feel that now’s the time we need to be building up our lives and our careers.”

Aha! It’s instances like this one when my “career break flashpacker” light goes on.

“I hear ya,” I replied. “But if it is something you ever did want to do, your career will still be there when you come back.” This was a fear I had to overcome, one every midcareer professional lies awake at night considering: what if I’m no longer viable/needed/in demand? The amazing discovery so many of us have made who’ve gone on longer journeys is that, more often than not, aside from the short-term economic hit of traveling and not working, a career break really doesn’t adversely impact one’s career – and often augments it, bringing the career-breaker new perspectives and (sometimes) new skills to the table when returning to the workplace. Granted, not everyone is in a position to simply take a lot of time off and be able to count on a soft landing upon return… but many more people are in that position than realize it.

Some final packing, then a hop to the center of town, where the summertime Sydney Festival was just getting underway. I was going to miss it, but I did catch a sliver and enjoy a nice little rendezvous with a career peer: fellow writer and travel memoirist (and accomplished actor and screenwriter as well) Jesse Archer.

Jesse had been one of the early champions of my book back in its pre-release days, when I contacted him in a “what the heck” moment after reading his book about traveling in South America some ten years back. We’d traded e-mails and tips and such, but as he moved from New York to Sydney with his boyfriend last winter, we’d never had a chance to meet up. Even on this trip that looked unlikely: he was up in northern New South Wales at a New Years camping event when I arrived, and was recovering from a bout of flu this week from, shall we say, a little too much fun in the forest. But he made time for me and we sat on the grass swapping war stories.

“I love Sydney; the place is like a postcard,” he said. But it’s been tough for him as an indie gay filmmaker to be away from the burgeoning scene in New York. We’d chatted about my still-in-the-early-stage work on adapting Wander the Rainbow into a screenplay and he was able to offer some ideas to help make it more producible – though he conceded that the challenges of shooting overseas on a microbudget could be daunting.

As it grew later it was time for me to head off; bidding Jesse and his galpals goodbye I walked in the opposite direction of the human tide heading toward the festival, a bit sad to be leaving this place one more. I hopped on the train to the airport and checked in for my long, long flights back Stateside.

Oh, and wouldn’t it be nice if I could end it here. Unfortunately, the vagaries of sky-high holiday-season fares meant that I wasn’t doing a direct-to-San-Fran hop home but instead a bordering-on-ludicrous itinerary: two flights with Air China: an eleven-hour haul from Sydney to Beijing; a ten-hour layover in Beijing; then another eleven-hour jaunt across the Pacific to San Francisco.

I went for it partly because I knew the lay of this land, having been both to Beijing and its gargantuan new airport before. Still, this was to be a journey of eleven thousand miles and thirty-three hours total – about a sixth of the total mileage of my entire seven-month world odyssey.

Long-haul air travel has always been a challenge for me, who’s too tall for those economy seats. Our first flight, out of Sydney, however, confirmed a suspicion I’d had this past spring when going from San Francisco to London (a flight of similar duration): ten or so hours international, on a widebody plane with two meal services and a longer chance to sleep, is actually a better experience than the six-hour misery that has become domestic transcon travel. As suspected, Air China’s still finding its way in the overseas marketplace, but I’d say they’re still putting on a pretty decent showing.

Arriving before dawn into subzero Beijing, we entered the spaceport-like Terminal 3. A quick stampy-stampy at International Transfers and we were in the main lounge. I’d done my homework and knew where I wanted to go: as a newly-minted major overseas transit hub (a distinction it didn’t enjoy as little as five years ago), Beijing airport is now endowed with a number of options for passengers needing to while away too many hours – and who don’t relish the prospect of sleeping on a public airport bench: short-stay hotel-like lounges. Ordinarily reserved for elite-class travelers, the airport now offers a “pay as you go” option for we regular folk. Comfortable and cozy (though by no means cheap) it made for a great way to sleep off a bunch of hours and surf the Internet (albeit behind the Great Firewall of China – sorry, Facebook, I couldn’t get to you).

A respectable (and also not cheap – China really has “arrived” as a travel destination, I suppose) meal of Chinese fare, some amusement at a few brilliantly-worded “Chinglish” signs, and it was time for leg number two: the voyage home.

On this run, another pleasant surprise: instead of crying babies or moribund fellow flyers, my seatmate this time around was a San Jose State sophomore returning to school. Frank’s from Beijing and is majoring in Computer Science; how oh how do they always find me? Friendly and outgoing, he told of stellar experiences as a newcomer to America; I’m always heartened to hear such stories, proving my adopted homeland is a lot more open to would-be immigrants than we sometimes realize. Frank and I got to comparing notes on travel tales and (of course) computing; again I’m reminded that encounters like these are what really makes world travel magical: you really never know who or what’s around the next bend.

That’s it for Australia, but the adventure goes on… I’m slated to head to Europe this winter for a bout of snowboarding in the Alps. Stayed tuned, Wander fans!

Ever since reading Arthur C. Clarke’s Dolphin Island as a kid I’ve longed to see the Great Barrier Reef.

Alas, my last couple of visits to this part of the world rendered that impractical: the Reef lies off the coast of Australia’s north Queensland, which as a tropical region is subject to a rainy season – which means cyclones, the region’s variant of hurricanes, in summer and fall. And since both of my previous visits to this country coincided with Sydney’s early-automnal Mardi Gras, heading up to the Reef was out.

This time around, however, it was early enough in the rainy season that I felt more comfortable venturing up north; as it turns out, eastern Australia’s been having a slightly cooler-than-average summer. This translated into very comfortable temps in Sydney – but it’s also meant a relative dearth of rain up north in the wake of last summer’s big floods. So I took the plunge and booked myself on a four-day jaunt to Cairns and environs to see what Far North Queensland had to offer.

I stepped off the plane in the late evening, and the absurdity of my San Francisco-standard light jacket was immediately evident: a soft, humid, tropical breeze was blowing, humid but not too uncomfortably so. For my first night I’d booked myself at accommodations in central Cairns; once again, following my “flashpacker” credo, I’d found a highly-rated, midpriced spot at a local hotel chain.

Next morning, I headed out to explore some sights near Cairns… and it was here that I discovered something the guidebooks – fearful, perhaps, of seeming too negative – only tend to hint at: Cairns may be the base camp for people exploring the region, but it’s an ugly town: a forest of boxy, mid-rise accommodations surrounded by plain-vanilla two-story homes and apartments; a waterfront Esplanade with unspectacular meat-and-potatoes-type eateries on one side, and a boardwalk overlooking the water on the other. “The water” is putting it generously: unlike Sydney’s magazine-brochure beaches, Cairns lies on a tidal mudflat. The Coral Sea here looks nothing like its tropical-dream-sounding name and more like the banks of a dirty lake back home.

Another observation: Bill Bryson once called Australia’s Aborigines the country’s “invisible minority”; in my week or so in Sydney I don’t think I saw any. Here they appeared, in greater numbers, walking the streets, shopping the malls, or hanging around on the Esplanade. Like some of America’s minorities, they have the feel of an underclass.

Heading though the Cairns Central mall – a place as generic as any Stateside – I reached the town’s railway station in the shopping center’s parking garage; there I booked what I’d really come to Cairns to see, something not in the city at all: the town of Kuranda.

As we passed sugarcane fields and turned up into the mountains, the scenery grew more interesting: Kuranda lies in eastern Australia’s Great Dividing Range, though here the mountains lie much closer to the sea than down south. And however lush the hillscape may be near Sydney, it’s more so here, fed by unending tropical rains and warmer temperatures.

Although we tend to associate the word “tropical rainforest” with the Amazon in South America, Australia’s got an abundant share of it, too: in fact, all the world’s rainforests were once connected, part of the primordial southern supercontinent of Gondwanaland.

I stepped off the shuttle bus into Kuranda’s center; yep, it’s a tourist town. Lots of shops and markets. But these seemed a mite more interesting than the usual ticky-tack: the place was once (so sayeth the official guides) “a center for alternative lifestyles,” (we can only infer what that means), and retains a stable of artists and craftspeople. It proved a suitable place to shop for some small gifts for the nieces and nephews back home.

After a quick bit of surprisingly decent pizza at an actual rainforest café (no theme-parkery needed in these parts), I ambled over to the train station. Two trains sat parked on the station platforms, each a long line of wooden carriages from the late-19^th century capped by colorfully-painted diesel locomotives. Inside, the carriages retained their period feel, dark woods, patterned white ceilings and open windows. The train wasn’t too crowded, though the mix of mostly families led me to wonder if this wasn’t another lame attraction.

As we got moving, a surprisingly insightful audio narration (with accompanying still video on modern-day LCD screens) told the story of the line and the scenery around it: like so many pretty spots now given over to tourism, the Cairns area got its start in resource extraction – gold in particular. The rail line was built to get at the gold fields in the mountains. As with the construction of similar such transport infrastructure in the Americas, realizing this with century-plus ago technology was an immense, hazardous undertaking. I’m struck by how often we forget, in our comfortable, often banal technology-age existence, the hardships endured by so many in the not-so-long-ago past to build the comforts we now take for granted.

As the train rounded a corner and came to Barron Gorge, any “is this worth it?” uncertainties I may have felt instantly evaporated: nearly a thousand feet deep, the gorge is a wonder, a verdant Grand Canyon of Tropical North Queensland. The waterfall that plunges down the rocky chasm was just a trickle on this day, a combination of the dam built in this spot and the modest amount of rain the region’s had this season so far.

The narrow-gauge train continued winding its way downhill, twisting across viaducts spanning deep chasms, chugging in and out of tunnels (aligning all these tunnels with pre-contemporary engineering equipment was a miraculous undertaking), finally reaching the flat plains toward Cairns. Dozens died building this line; it’s rumored the bodies of some are buried inside the track’s foundations. Still others are buried at McLeod Cemetery in Cairns proper, spending eternity with a view of the line they gave their lives to create. The engineering geek in me, coupled with the vista-loving romantic, made this journey reason enough to spend that single night in Cairns itself.

With that complete, however, it was time to head up to my more permanent home base in these parts: the town of Port Douglas, some forty miles northward up the coast.

The drive to Port Douglas seemed to suggest my blend of stays was right: Cook Highway was a glory, the blue Coral Sea on one side and rainforested hillsides on the other. As it headed toward dusk, the shuttle bus dropped me off at my accommodations for the next three days: the LGBT-owned Pink Flamingo Resort. A former 1970s-era motel converted into a colorful gay & lesbian villa-style inn, the place looked promising on the one hand: lush gardens, a pretty pool, colorfully painted and decorated. The former carports were redesigned into private villa forecourts, complete with most wonderful outdoor shower and soaker tub. They even invited guests to choose their own wooden placard indicating “do not disturb;” I immediately found one to my liking and hung it on my entryway (see picture).

On the other hand, the inn also reminded me to think twice about booking myself, the inveterate solo traveler, into places touted as “romantic hideaways.” It was sleepy and deserted in the early evening, though later in the night a gaggle of friendly ladies congregated around the pool and bar area. An aloof gay couple – one a fellow probably my age, another a bunch of years younger (boy, does that sound familiar) – hung around the pool over the days I was there, saying not a word to anyone. As a former motor inn, the Pink Flamingo lay a bit of a walk from Port Douglas’ main drag, Macrossan Street; the next morning, rising early for one of my planned excursions, I walked and walked in some light rain showers past a smattering of closed eateries and other establishments. Was this a mistake? I wondered as I organized my stuff for the number-one reason I came out here: an excursion to the Great Barrier Reef.

As a group of us boarded the catamaran under the auspices of Calypso Reef Cruises at the nearby Port Douglas marina, my apprehension faded: a broad assortment of families, couples, and a few other solo travelers listened as our dive guide Charlie – an affable mélange of Bob Hoskins and Jacques Cousteau – briefed us on the basics of scuba diving. Although I’d been a bit of a water baby when I was younger, my years in chilly-water California have meant I’ve never done any diving before. As I was fitted with flippers, a mask, and an Aqualung and hopped off the back of the catamaran some thirty miles from shore, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

Well, the experience, like so many others, borders on the indescribable… but I now utterly understand the notion that we’ve explored outer space more than we’ve explored our inner space under the sea: the absence of buoyancy and the ever-changing air/water pressure give diving an otherworldly feel unlike any I’ve had to date, and the blue water feels mysterious and enchanted from the moment of total immersion.

The reef itself, meanwhile, really does need to be experienced up close and personal (photos coming soon!): although we’d been warned in an interpretive briefing (by the diving company’s one truly fetching fellow, a blonde New Zealander) that the colors we’d be seeing aren’t quite as bright as in all those movies and photos (where they’re aided by flash photography and the wonders of CGI)… well, no complaints from me. On the dive down to sixteen meters (some forty-five feet) we spotted Christmas tree worms, brightly-colored fan-shaped protrusions from the coral that pop in when you come close to them; fat sea cucumbers lazing on the bottom (these can even be picked up without bother to them); giant sea clams, their colorful eye spots prompting the creature to, well, clam up at the first sign of danger; brilliantly-hued fish of all persuasions – yes, including clownfish hiding in anemones, made famous by the Pixar film Finding Nemo; a reef shark, hanging out on the bottom before his nighttime feed; and all manner and type of coral. These colonies of polypy creatures manufacture the eponymous material in vast colonies; the Barrier Reef, consisting of many reefs, in fact, is the largest single thing built by living organisms – and unlike those inflated claims about the Great Wall of China, the Reef can in fact be seen from outer space.

For the second and third dives of the day, I opted for a snorkeling experience, which in these parts is almost a better way to go: coral lives in a symbiotic relationship with algae, and so seeks the sunlight. However, it also can’t live out of the water, so the low-tide mark is typically as high as it can grow. This translates into immense shallow regions – three feet deep is not uncommon – making a foray with a snorkel eminently practical. With the rain having long cleared and the few clouds that remained sticking close to land, the reef was brilliantly illuminated with dapples of sun. Fish swam all around, oblivious to we curious humans; one of them, an especially social little critter, kept on coming within a foot of my mask. For those who know me, I’m no spiritualist, but my day out here on the Reef reaffirmed that this is indeed a hallowed place that needs to be protected and nurtured.

A speedy boat ride back to town, then time for a bite of dinner… and here’s where I ran into Port Douglas’ ongoing challenge for the single flashpacker fellow: the town’s become something of a foodie destination, but with the Aussie dollar sky-high I chose to limit myself to not-so-pricey eateries. Still, to celebrate my day on the reef I felt like treating myself a tad, and asked for a “table for one” at one of the town’s more popular and better-ranked restaurants.

“Do you have a reservation?” said the hostess, eyeing my bicycle helmet and my solitary status. I said I didn’t and it didn’t look like I needed one – the place was half-empty.

“Sorry, we’re full up this evening,” she said. Really? Crestfallen, I picked an okay, not-as-fab nearby spot. When I cruised by my hoped-for place some time later, it was still at half-capacity. Interestingly, the aloof gay couple from my resort was eating there.

Huh? Interestingly, I’d brought with me a copy of last month’s Atlantic magazine that covered the rising trend of singledom in America and across the developed world. One writer, interviewed for the piece, has even recently coined a term to describe our society’s ongoing stigma of the uncoupled: singlism. I can’t say whether this experience on this night in Port Douglas was an example of that or not, but I can only hope that in future years we learn to look upon the unpartnered as something more than crazy cat ladies or cranky, uncompromising bachelors.

The next day I’d signed up for a more terrestrial adventure, an afternoon rainforest tour. Gary, a middle-aged fellow with mottled bald head, picked me and a number of other area visitors (including a couple from India who were on my dive the day before) and drove us north, toward the World Heritage-listed Daintree Rainforest.

“Port Douglas had more than 40,000 people at its height after they found gold,” Gary said as we drove north past more fields of sugarcane. It was only with the building of the Kuranda railway down south that Cairns became the more prominent of the two towns. Perhaps that was a blessing in disguise: sleeping its way through much of the twentieth century until Aussie impresario Christopher Skase built the sprawling Mirage resort in the 1980s, Port Douglas now keeps its population and development in check.

“We don’t want another [Australian] Gold Coast or Miami Beach,” Gary offered. Shit, you don’t even have to look that far, I thought. Have you been to Cairns lately?

We soon stopped at the Daintree River, a brackish tidal inlet, for a mellow boat ride seeking saltwater crocodiles, tree frogs, and other elements of the river’s bestiary.

Crocodiles form harems, as the males are often killed off by fighting and it’s evolutionary preferable for them to have a high female-to-male ratio to keep the species going. Only a small fraction make it into adulthood (their lifespans are similar to those of humans) – but if they do, they grow huge: twenty-footers are not uncommon.

Nothing that big was out on the muddy river that afternoon, but we did spot some smaller fellows (by age six they’re already some five-plus feet long, and we did see some of those); our eagle-eyed guide also directed us to iridescent-green tree frogs and slumbering snakes. A comedian once remarked that nature is the world’s biggest restaurant, what with one species eating another… but it continues to amaze me how the vast global ecosystem manages to remain in balance.

Since none of us fancied being a croc’s supper, we next stopped at Mossman Gorge, up in the rainforested mountains, for a short hike and swim among the great timeworn boulders. With water too cool, too fresh, and too swift for crocs, we ventured without fear into the sparkling pure stream under the watchful canopy of greenery. Yes, water princess here took her time getting acclimated to the cooler waters (probably one of the only spots in Tropical North Queensland where water temps were as chilly as the ocean up north near Sydney), but it was eminently worthwhile. That evening, on my return, I even gave the outdoor shower at my Pink Flamingo villa a whirl and found it equally revitalizing.

For my last morning in Port Douglas, I ambled about town: I’d rented a bike from my accommodations, which proved stellar for getting around the mostly-flat town. But the place has one hill, at the very tip of the peninsula abutting the center of town. Here I chose to hoof it, and was soon enveloped by the forested canopy of Flagstaff Hill. As the town grew trendy through the 1990s and beyond, many celebrities chose to holiday here; the elegant modern homes dotting the Hill – scant yards from the town’s commercial strip of Macrossan Street – bear witness to this place’s glitterati status.

The top of the Hill rewarded me with a lookout, where I could survey all the spots I’d visited over the past days: the Daintree to the north, the Reef to the east, the beachfront café where I’d had a stellar pancake breakfast earlier that morning. The town’s Four Mile Beach stretched southward; interestingly, it was mostly bereft of swimmers, as are all beaches in North Queensland this time of year: the “wet” is stinger season, when the deadly box jellyfish and not-as-deadly but tougher to fend off Irukandji jellyfish hover around the beaches; swimming in the ocean waters up here is thus a necessarily confined affair, done in little enclosures surrounded by “stinger nets.” I didn’t bother, having gone out on the Reef just the other day (where the risk of jellyfish is far smaller than near land).

And with that, an adieu to this most wondrous of places; another scenic drive down Cook Highway for my flight back to Sydney, where I had still one day left before my long, long voyage home.

If you think about it, the International Date Line is an arbitrary human creation; an imaginary line running down the planet where we as a species have decided “the day starts here.” It’s still difficult for me to visualize, but I think of it as the spot where time slips into the world, only to forever slip away once it completes its circumnavigation.

However arbitrary it may be, and however equally arbitrary is our measuring of years, they hold significance to us, and rituals have sprung up surrounding them. Back in the Northern Hemisphere, however, New Year’s Eve has always struck me as something of a contrivance, a bogus reason to celebrate in the middle of winter, as if to hold on to those lingering embers of Christmas that much longer.

But here on the other side of the globe, New Years coincides with the arrival of summer; and given where the Date Line is positioned, smack dab in the middle of the Pacific, New Zealand and Australia are the first large populated regions to greet the New Year. All those factors have made the holiday something of a big deal in these parts — a fact popularized during the turn-of-the-millennium celebrations, when those awesome fireworks shooting off the Harbour Bridge first made me say “I need to see that!”

Trouble is, I wasn’t the only one. The holiday’s big business here, with primo-view tickets for parties at the Opera House asking around $1000. Even the party at moderately-close Darling Harbour that two friends of Mikey’s were attending went for north of $100 – and it was sold out.

We got a further whiff of the scale of it all as we met Sarah during the day on December 31st at the Art Gallery of New South Wales for a Picasso exhibit they were having on loan from the namesake museum in Paris; as it was one of the City of Light’s attractions I’d missed on my spin through there two-and-a-half years ago, I figured this would make for a pleasant daytime diversion.

As we walked to the red sandstone museum, we dodged security guards and long, snaking lines. No, they weren’t here for the art; these folks were queued up before noon to see fireworks that were still twelve hours away. Yikes. We took in the artistic retrospective – a pretty comprehensive showing of the iconic artist whose career seemed to drag on for the entire twentieth century.

After a bit of lunch we went on a reconnoiter, filling in a few more gaps in my explorations of central Sydney. We walked down the Finger Wharf of Woolloomooloo, peeking into the former industrial building now converted to condos and a luxury hotel. Conveyor belts that used to carry ship cargo stood forever frozen amid high-tone bars and offices on the ground floor. As with so many once-derelict industrial spots in prime harborfront locales, this is yet another example of the ambivalence I feel about the continuing creep of gentrification.

We passed the diminutive naval base nearby – I’m struck by how this small facility fits in so nicely with the urban surrounds, cool gray ships and masts comingling with Sydney Victorians. In America such bases are typically isolated and monolithic, a by-product of the nation’s massive imperial military and post 9/11 security tightening. Here some crowds were gathered as well in anticipation of the night’s fireworks – and it was here, just up the hill amid the quiet, leafy streets of Potts Point, that we discovered a decent viewing spot for the night’s festivities: close in enough to see the bridge and the water, but not so close as to require multi-hour waiting.

As it grew dark we returned to this spot, walking down from Oxford Street in Darlinghurst through Kings Cross and on to Potts Point. Sydney’s in-town neighborhoods are pretty compact: this amble totaled maybe twenty minutes. Our earlier reconnoiter proved a good choice: the crowds at the end of Victoria Street were substantial but not overwhelming, more local folk headed out for their annual fireworks viewing. Sydney’s big show is so popular they now have two rounds of it, one at 9 o’clock for families before the (literal) big blowout at midnight when the clock strikes next year. Even at their earlier showing, with a view blocked by a few trees, the event impressed: a coordinated series of volleys across multiple spots around the Harbour, capped off with – this is something I hadn’t seen before – additional bursts from nearby downtown office buildings.

We were going to hang around for the midnight fireworks, but then Mikey received a text from one of his friends: a mutual pal of theirs was having a party at their high-rise apartment nearby with a view of the Harbour. Would we be interested to join? I was hesitent to give up my hard-won view spot for what could simply be another party, but I acquiesced and figured I’d see where the night took me.

I’ve long since discovered, in my travels, the virtues of serendipity – something that doesn’t always come easily to an uber-planner/organizer like myself. But when we showed up at this New Years party, on the fifteenth floor of a swank Sydney condominium, my belief in the unexpected took a new turn.

We walked in to a two-story place with floor-to-ceiling windows. A broad, white modern sectional sofa was flanked by a kitchen on one side and a narrow terrace on the other. Outside the windows the view was phenomenal, tracing a broad arc from Sydney’s CBD on one end to Kings Cross, Darlinghurst, and the eastern beach suburbs beyond.

Although a ways off in the distance, the fireworks were nonetheless stellar as they went off at midnight. Mikey and I shared a sweet New Years kiss; I mused on the upsy-downsy year that 2011 had been. Hopefully 2012 will be ever smoother… definitely can’t complain about how it started out.

We didn’t get to bed too late, so the next morning, with the weather having turned spectacular (sunny, high-seventies), I opted to pick up where’d I’d left off almost nine years ago: back then I’d taken the cliff walk from Bondi to Bronte; this time, I aimed to head the other way, northward from Coogee to Bronte along the jagged, sandstone cliffs bounding the blue sea.

The walk in this direction was even more spectacular than the trek down from Bondi, at least if memory serves: from the expansive sandy arc of Coogee Beach I ascended a grassy incline topping white sandstone cliffs. The erosion patterns on the rocks formed perfect, even rows, as if some carver had gone through with a giant steel comb. The ocean here is a magnificent, iridescent blue – the sort you see in tourist brochures and think “Photoshop.”

Passing Clovelly Beach, I came upon a graveyard sloping gently toward the cliffs over the sea; I think I now know where I want to be buried. And, finally, Bronte, wher the crowds were thick on this New Years afternoon.

It’s become standard to me that travel is a means of learning about oneself, and walks like this one definitely feed the brain. So what grand new revelations did this trek portend? Nothing earthshattering, though a part of me sometimes wonders if I’ve been running in place in the nine years since I hiked these cliffs. I’m still doing the same work (albeit with better pay and better working conditions overall); I’m again a relatively-recent homeowner; I’m still finding my place in the social sphere and continue to feel like a bit of an outsider everywhere I go; and I’ve got a few more scars nine years on – some of them literal.

But still, much forward movement: six wonderful nieces and nephews; enjoyable work and home life; a respectable circle of friends; and now a nice little mini-side-occupation as writer and world traveler. Yeah, life’s okay from my perch here at Bronte Beach.

For my last night in Sydney, we opted for something fun: a showing of the new Muppets movie at an outdoor, night-time screening in Centennial Park.

Mikey and I met Sarah and her fourteen-year-old son Huwey at the entrance gate. While Sarah had indicated this summertime event (they have numerous screenings from December to March – still weird for me to call that “summer”) has been struggling with low attendance due to inclement weather, on the warm evening of January 1, 2012 that was hardly the problem: a line of moviegoers curled around the entrance gate. We’d planned to hold off on eating, preferring to purchase something at the event much like I’d done at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival this past summer.

Alas, the fates were not so forgiving: the organizers of Moonlight Cinema obviously hadn’t banked on this level of attendence, and after Soviet-style lines for ordering and paying, they ran out of food midway through. We tried even ordering a pizza (we were all famished), but nothing was open on this holiday (curse you, non-American countries with stricter closing laws!). Finally we settled for a pile of orders of chips and another pile of, er, chips (the Aussies call both French fried potatoes and potato chips “chips”).

For the final day, I showed all those hearty Aussies who’d been teasing me for refusing to go in the not-terribly warm water: yup, I literally took the plunge at Coogee Beach, did some killer bodysurfing, and generally enjoyed the stellar weather. With that, a stop at the iconic QVB Building for a bit of shopping, then a farewell to Mikey and to Sydney for my next great adventure in this, well, land of adventure: up to Cairns, the tropics, and the Great Barrier Reef.

For all my world travels, it’s been ages since I took a bona fide two-week break over the Christmas/New Years period… in fact, other than the big trip itself, the last time I did so was back in my college days.

Continuing to make good on my pledge to nibble at the edges of my world travels on shorter trips, and to maintain that global spiderweb of connections I’d formed on my journey — oh, yeah, plus that modest pileup of Frequent Flyer miles burning a hole in my pocket — I opted for a far-flung destination where I still had a few adventures on my wishlist:

Australia.

After a wonderful first Christmas with my baby nephew and the family down in L.A., I had my posse drop me off at LAX  on Christmas night. In order to get Hunter to bed early I got to the airport with some time to spare. No bother: somewhere along the line I’d been gifted a one-day pass at one of the airport’s Business Class lounges.

After checking into for my Qantas flight I hoofed it over to the next terminal and availed myself of drinks and nibblies in the cavernous, comfy, and mostly empty lounge space. Through the tall glass-and-steel wall of windows I spotted it: the oddly chunky beast bearing the “QANTAS” logo plastered all over it. This was to be my first time flying the double-decked A380, the largest passenger plane in the world.

Bigger planes mean more people, and although it was generally pretty good for steerage class (kudos to Qantas for those netted footrests), more people also translated into… more little ones in tow. I’m still of two minds about infants on planes: I think it’s great that people are getting out there and taking their kids along for the ride; at the same time, sitting two rows behind three crying babies made what could have been a moderately-restful fifteen hours, well… not so restful at all. I consider my siblings, who’ve all gone through or are going through the tribulations as mothers of under-one-year-olds; I can’t imagine any of them subjecting their kids at that age to a journey of this length.

Still, it was worth it: a wonderful, warm Sydney greeting awaited me on the other side, this one from Sarah, my compadre from round-the-world days. Sarah served a pivotal role in my then-unsettled life (check out Wander the Rainbow‘s Sydney chapter for more); our reunion proved, once again, that impromptu soulmates really can be found all over.

Sarah wound her mother’s red Peugot around the Sydney motorways away from the airport and into Sydney’s beach cities. The city sprawls for quite a ways in all directions, but its central core is fairly dense and compact, and fairly close to the city’s beaches. Coupled with cleaner, bluer, and (slightly) warmer Pacific waters than what’s to be found even in the southernmost of SoCal cities translates into a vibrant beach culture more remniscient of Florida or the Caribbean back home – but with a city the size and sophistication of a San Francisco.

The day was a bit moody – Sydney’s been having a relatively cool, rainy summer to date – as we pulled up the hilly, winding road by Bronte Beach. The sand was uncrowded and the waves were temptestuous as we enjoyed a bit of lunch al fresco – I reacquainted myself with my favorite British-cum-Aussie delicacy, Barramundi fish & chips. Afterward, we went on a drive around Sydney’s northernmost south-side beach suburbs: North Bondi, Watsons Bay, Vaucluse. Streets curve over hills both greener and gentler than San Francisco slopes, and are dotted with elegant homes. Though not too elegant: Sydney may be pricey (and with my weak Yankee dollar, as much so as London or Paris), but Australia seems more like Canada than the States vis-a-vis its income divide.

Sarah dropped us off at a pleasantly run-down, rambling beach shack a block from the surf at Coogee Beach. Echoing timber-framed brethren across the great ocean in Venice, California, this onetime summer cottage is home to Mikey, the fellow who I was staying with, and three other housemates: two gay guys, both named Kieran, and a lesbian named Loz (short for Lauren — the Aussies have abbreviations for everything, I’ve come to learn).

That evening we hopped the bus into the city. Call me a city-planning nerd, but Sydney’s transport network continues to impress: spotless, mint-condition, air-conditioned vehicles ply across the city at speed – in our case, rambling through the beach suburbs, across the wooded expanse of Centennial Park, and up Flinders Street into Darlinghurst, Sydney’s gay mecca. We were headed for an evening at Midnight Shift, one of the town’s gay spots, for their midweek trivia night, hosted (of course) by one of the city’s famed drag queens, Miss Summer Salt. I can’t say I’m an expert at Aussie trivia, but I was proud of myself when Miss Summer handed me a purple-colored marker and I was able to toss in a line from Priscilla in context: “it’s lavender!”

Next morning, a meander with Mikey around the city. This was my third visit to Sydney, so I was nominally familiar with the place, but nothing quite beats having a local as one’s tour guide. We meandered through The Domain,  then on through the city’s Botanic Gardens toward Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair, a spot at the tip of one of the city’s many fingers of land protruding into the drowned river valley that is Sydney Harbour. Biggest achievement: I finally learned what those odd-looking birds I’d seen here on previous voyages are: Australian ibises.

“Rats with beaks,” Mikey remarked. Pestilential to Sydneysiders, for me they give the city an exotic feel to my North American eyes. But then, it’s all relative, right?

“I felt that way about squirrels in your country,” Mikey added.

Equally captivating to me were some bulb-shaped creatures hanging from the tall trees: Sydney’s got its resident population of bats, who sleep (yes) upside-down in the trees before taking wing at dusk over the city.

“To fight crime, no doubt,” I offered up as their raison d’etre. Dork, was the look I got in response. That’ll learn me to provoke a comic-book nut (Mikey’s collection borders on the encyclopedic.)

We continued over to the iconic Opera House, adding to my ludicrously bloated stash of photos of the structure; I maintain it’s one of the grandest works of modern architecture, and possibly one of humankind’s greatest buildings ever (forget it; I’m not adding another picture of it here). Just as we were completing our circuit at Circular Quay’s Overseas Passenger Terminal, and right after I asked if the building is still in fact used for such a purpose, my question answered itself: a beefy white vessel sailed under the Harbour Bridge.

It’s my third visit to Sydney, and I still haven’t been to the Blue Mountains. Next morning came time to remedy that as we hopped on a bus and a train to the country town of Katoomba, a couple hours west of the city.

Most of Australia’s population lives to the east of the Great Dividing Range, a spine of mountains running vertically down the country’s east from the northern tropics to the southern state of Victoria. They’re not enormous by any standard: no peaks exceed eight thousand feet.  Nevertheless, as I remarked on my world tour when driving up north through Nimbin (yes, weed-lovers, you can guess why I went there), they felt, to me, like a craggier variant of America’s Appalachians: green and forested, but more sheer and dramatic than the rolling hill country of America’s East.

A fairly full train ride on the city’s beat-up but very functional exurban train system dropped us smack in the middle of Katoomba. The crowds bore evidence that this was a touristy spot, and I was hoping that the natural attractions would overshadow the visiting hordes – much as, say, Niagara Falls does back home. A quick bus trip to the rock formation known as the Three Sisters revealed more touristic mobs – but the majestic views of the monument and the Jamison Valley beyond proved my working mantra true yet again: some spots become tourist traps for good reason.

We figured a short hike would dodge the crowds, so we followed signs to “GREAT STAIRCASE”  that looked to get ever closer to the Sisters. The steps were narrow, steep, and pretty crowded (though a trio of surprisingly loud and astonishingly fetching French guys in tank-tops made it worthwhile). Meanwhile, the hike was proving not so short: the steps continued down, and down, and down… no way we’re hiking this back up, I mused. At least the crowds thinned out, and by the time we reached the flat trail about halfway down the valley through the woods, we had the place to ourselves

We soon figured out why: we’d missed whatever signage there may have been for the 25-minute hike… and soon found out we were on the three-hour circuit. Though I was skeptical when examining the mileage: 2.5 km on a mostly level trail shouldn’t take more than 45 minutes for we fit walkers… assuming no further surprises were in store.

Luckily, none were, and we enjoyed a splendid hike through lush foliage. As expected, about three-quarters of an hour later we reached a couple of motorized conveyances to get us back to the top; we picked the closest one, an inclined railway that bills itself as the world’s steepest funicular. Something of a slo-mo roller coaster in reverse, I don’t doubt the claim.

Up at the top, at the once-again crowded and even touristier Scenic World facility, we stopped for some ice cream… and it was here, as I mentioned favoring less sweet ice cream flavors as I got on in years, that Mikey popped the question:

“So, how old are you?”

We’d met over San Francisco Gay Pride on one of those dating sites, and, in our talks about sci-fi and movies, and other, ahem, shared interests, the subject had never come up. Happily, my still-youthful looks confounded him. It made for a good chuckle over ice cream as he fingered my driver’s license and agreed the photo made me look like one of the 9/11 hijackers (all of whom, I think, were younger at the time than I am now — admittedly a dubious distinction.)

Back home, I got changed to meet Sarah and a friend of hers at a fab drinks & dinner spot back in Darlinghurst: the Victoria Room. Echoing the British Raj, the joint serves up a colorful array of drinks care of a friendly, attractive waitstaff. As we enjoyed Tiki-style drinks out of retro-ridiculous drinkware, a lively conversation ensued on unconventional relationships; with Sarah herself divorced, and with Sarah’s friend embroiled in relationship concerns, the ladies offered up a perspective different than mine on the open-type relationships I’ve had in my past.

“I just don’t think they work,” Sarah said. She counts herself as one who finds herself stung when she learns a potential paramour is into such arrangements.

“But think about it,” I offered. “If all people who decided they weren’t into traditional monogamy were free and open to choose it without stigma, then the truly monogamous wouldn’t have to worry about somebody lying to them or cheating behind their back.”

At least that’s my hope, if we ever come to live in a world more honest about what each of us really wants. I mean, heck, if we can’t all agree on a type of Tiki beverage to enjoy, who says all our relationships need to fit into a single mold?

Food for thought among the Tikis.

In my next entry: the real reason I came to Australia (sort-of) — Sydney’s New Years fireworks!

Wander the Rainbow is back on the book fair circuit… this Sunday, October 2, catch us at the Distant Lands booth at the West Hollywood Book Fair. Now in its tenth anniversary, the book fair this year coincides with the opening of the brand-new West Hollywood Library. The new facility features a GLBT literature section, where I’m sure you’ll be able to catch Wander the Rainbow in the near future. But don’t wait until then: I’ll be at the Distant Lands booth from around 1 to 3 p.m., with official signings slated at around 2.

Look forward to seeing you all at the fair!

One year ago, Wander the Rainbow broke new ground by becoming the first-ever travel book-length first-person account of a gay man traveling solo around the world.

Over the past year, the book has repeatedly hit bestseller status in its Amazon category, received wide-ranging media attention, gone on tour around North America… and most recently, was the gold medal winner of an Independent Publisher award for Gay/Lesbian Non-Fiction (item 43 here).

So what’s on the agenda for Year Two? Plenty!

Over the summer we will be releasing an updated printing of the book with a new Afterward recounting the follow-on trip I took to Europe last month. As with my previous blog/book arrangement, the book will feature memoir-style writing with no holds barred or punches pulled… which means you’ll all get to find out what really went on with those 18-year-old gay porn stars on my last night in Copenhagen. Stay tuned…

There will also be more media coverage, possibly more book events at some spots that were missed in the original tour… and even the prospect of a movie version as there’s been some interest from the folks down in Southern California of turning this sprawling memoir into a “coming of age gay road movie” (no, I will not be playing myself, but younger, hotter versions of me are encouraged to apply.)

Wander on, everyone!

Just as it did two years ago, I chose Copenhagen as my capping-off city to my time in Europe — and once again, it proved a worthy choice.

Getting here was an already-planned full-day affair; with airfares in normally-competitive Europe on the Budapest-to-Copenhagen route sky-high on my intended travel day, I sought out cheaper alternatives that would enable me to indulge in one of my favorite travel pastimes on the Continent: riding its legendary network of rail links.

I’d scored a (relatively) budget-y fare on a flight from Vienna to Copenhagen, leaving me with the need to span the gap between the two former Austro-Hungarian capitals by other means. No trouble: Austrian Railways had recently introduced the Railjet, a high-speed-ish, ultra-modern link, that spanned the 150 or so land miles in around 2 ½ hours. I’d booked myself on this knowing that my connection in Vienna would be adequate: roughly two hours from when my train was slated to arrive to when my flight was about to depart.

I arrived at Budapest’s Keleti station with my lingering sniffles nearly vanquished. The Railjet, in the traditional red livery of Austrian Railways with oversized lettering denoting the brand plastered along the side, slumbered in the grand old station, sparkling and new next to the rusting blue exteriors of some local rolling stock. Onboard, the cabin was even better: sharp, comfy gray-leather seats in ones and twos crisp and awaiting their occupants. Yep, Mr. Flashpacker here had booked First Class again, at a cost of about $30 more in exchange for tremendous legroom, AC power ports, and yummy in-seat dining. A noisome tour group of Brits occupied the front half of my train car, while next to me sat a sixtyish American couple with whom I soon struck up a lively conversation: Joyce and Mike were fellow Jewish Californians, hailing from sunny San Diego by way of New York City. We instantly had much to compare about our journeys – as retirees, they’re enjoying a longer getaway, visiting some Central Europe spots before jumping off from Venice on a Balkan cruise. Oh, the pangs of envy!

The train pulled out a few minutes behind schedule and remained that way for the entire journey. This made for a less-than-relaxing journey as I wondered if this would hose me on the other end… last time I had a similar issue with my lengthy overnighter from Copenhagen to Frankfurt to connect with a short flight; golly, what is it with me and rail in normally-punctual-to-a-fault German lands? That Murphy fellow must be cackling.

The train remained a few minutes behind schedule for the rest of its run – though interestingly, the medium for determining this itself indicated the conveyance’s overall fabulousness: TV screens throughout the train cars displayed a digital map and time to arrival, much as in some aircraft.

The first part of the Vienna connection went great: I arrived at the station, then – symphonically almost – as I walked out onto the street, a sparkling, gold-colored Vienna AirportLines bus rolled up. I’d now have over an hour to spare before my fight assuming no further hitches in the estimated half-hour ride out to the airport – which seemed generous considering it was only five or so miles away.

Well, I should’ve known why: it was around 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, and even mid-sized Vienna (population around two million) isn’t immune to rush-hour congestion. We crawled through two skinny lanes of traffic as we struggled to leave Vienna’s old city center behind. Instead of marveling at architectural splendor, the density here was stressing me out. Tick-tock, tick-tock, I thought, as it grew closer to our anticipated arrival time and still no airport in sight. Why do I do this to myself? In my zeal to travel creatively, scenically and unconventionally (today’s journey would involve a metro to a metro to a train to a bus to a plane to an airport train on the other end – assuming I made it), sometimes I don’t anticipate the cascading pitfalls of unanticipated delays.

I needn’t have worried, however: soon I saw the familiar round, hulking brick-brown shapes of Vienna’s old gasometers, a sign we were heading out of the city. We were soon on one of the region’s efficient highways and arrived at the airport practically on schedule. A quick check-in and on board the discount-airline Niki (one of Europe’s many discount carriers), and soon I was riding the rails on the airport train from Copenhagen’s tidy Kastrup airport to the center of town.

Copenhagen’s new budget-boutique hotel, the Wakeup, could not have been more different than the previous spot I’d stayed in Budapest: a clean, simple, ultramodern Scandinavian affair (at twice the price, natch) in a once-industrial area redeveloped so recently its Scandinavian-modern buildings post-date even my last visit. I was soon comfortably ensconced in a compact but incredibly efficient room. Best part: a bathroom straight out of a spaceship in a sci-fi film.

It was Friday night, so after a short nap I opted to head out on the town. I wended my way past the forest of bicycles parked near the train station — I’d forgotten about Scandinavia’s fondness for two-wheelers: all throughout the city’s major streets I had to remember to avoid the so-named “Copenhagen lanes,” slightly elevated dedicated bicycle lanes between the sidewalk and the street; I can only imagine Americans giving up their precious SUV-wide automobile-dependent roads for something as hippie-dippie as a bike.

Even though it was past midnight, the city’s compact core was abuzz, almost as much as London’s party spots were last weekend. It still impresses me how Europe pulls this off: American cities the size of Copenhagen such as Denver, San Diego or Portland – all fairly liberal bastions and respectable party towns in their own right – have nothing on Denmark’s urban hub. I stayed out late, catching up with my friend Anna, a fellow pal of Renaissance Man care of a shared childhood with parents who did the “hippie missionary” circuit. As I walked back to my hotel, the sun was already coming up – oh, it wasn’t that late, but this being high-latitude Northern Europe, in mid-May first light happened before four in the morning.

The next day, I strolled the city’s downtown pedestrian shopping district, Strøget, in search of kiddie gifts for my nephews and nieces (the Lego store was a particular delight – a still-going-strong Danish-made wonder from my youth). Best part: a nicely-rendered Lego model of Nyhavn, the pretty inland canal I’d visited last time I was here.

After a splendid dinner at Anna’s flat in trendy Vesterbro, I headed out for another night on the town; since I’d already been to Copenhagen once before I was able to focus on this town’s more social delights and friends I’d made here. Plus I had an ulterior motive: late nights in Europe meant less jetlag when returning home.

Saturday was at least as ebullient a night as Friday as I headed to the place to see and be seen, Club Christopher. More of an alterna-vibe than many gay nightspots, with a far more motley assortment of gays than one would find back home in one place. I liked that; I’m not one of those fashion police types who demand that people conform to a certain look, and I found the general blending among gays and straights here, along with the mix of outfits, to be refreshing.  I spent the night chatting with a preppy straight boy who comfortably claimed to play around with guys, along with some of his pals from the unpronounceable city of Aarhus who were in town for the weekend. They were staying in a hostel dorm room, and even in fab-hostel Copenhagen their reaction was telling.

“We hate it,” one of them said. They were sharing a room with four others and quickly discovered that the backpacker way isn’t for them. Perhaps in a few years, when their income catches up, I shall introduce them to flashpacking.

Next day was another catch-up day with old friends, in this case my old college chum Cindy, her husband Jonathan, and their two kids (only one of whom was around last time), Thomas and James. Islands Brygge, their district, lay right across the water from the Wakeup and is in a sense a mirror image of where I was staying: also reclaimed industrial land, now lined with those clean, simple, ultra-modern mid-rise steel-and-glass structures for which Scandinavia has become legendary.

A couple of Cindy and Jonathan’s friends and their two kids soon join us for this little party for James’ second birthday. Thomas has grown and blossomed from the slightly shy kid I remember two years back (he insists on my photographing the tall towers of block-like toys he builds, asking solicitously in a mixed Danish-and-British accent straight out of Oliver Twist to my Yankee ears). But James, who wasn’t around yet on my last visit, is something of a bruiser, the sort of kid who bashes into things on purpose just to see what’ll happen. He demolishes his older brother’s constructs with abandon – though on the whole the two adorable little blonde kids play well together. Thomas may still look more like Jacob, my nephew who’s about the same age, but James possesses Jakie’s feisty persona. It still amazes me how the template of one’s personality begins to shine through so early.

I opted to stay out late again on Sunday night, my last in the city, again to ward off future jetlag. It proved worthwhile: even though the city was much sleepier than it was the two weekend nights, I still managed to have some fun at another couple of gay spots, where I struck up a conversation with — of all people! — a couple of dyed-blonde 18-year-olds who claimed to be twins and — wait for it — porn stars. A suitable farewell, I suppose, for my last night in Europe. After taking my leave of the boys and their mates, it was time for a checkout at the hotel, a trip back to the airport, and a long, long flight home with many new memories made back here on the Continent.

Budapest ranks near the top of “ones that got away” in my tour of Europe’s great cities more than two years ago – which made it a natural as my one “new place to visit” on this minitrip, sandwiched in between those more familiar locales that would bookend the journey.

Alas, it began with one hiccup – or more accurately, a sore throat. Sickness is the bane of every traveler; this goes double for shorter escapes where a nasty bug might span much of a journey. My near-nonstop socializing in London was good fun, but by toward the end of my time there I felt a dispiritingly familiar tingle in my throat – and not simply from vocal (or other) oral exertions. Soon after came the familiar sniffles and such, and for the first time in my overseas travels, I had a bit of a cold.

Aside from that, though, travel was smooth: an early-morning departure from Renaissance Man’s flat, a tube ride to Paddington Station, a train ride to Heathrow, and a quick flight across the Continent. England’s tidy hedgerows and farms gave way to the undulating shoreline of the English Channel and the fields of northern France. The weather, as has been the case my entire time here so far, was glorious.

A smooth flight across the Channel and Continent, then a drop-off care of an airport shuttle at my guesthouse, a gay-owned joint I’d found online located on the third floor of a respectably-maintained Art Nouveau structure. At first I was trepidatious: the building’s ancient, creaky little elevator and no signage indicating my accommodations made me wonder… is this a scam? But I found it, and within moments was greeted by Shandor, middle-aged co-owner of the KM Saga and at least as solicitous and helpful as any official guide. In addition to the usual tourist brochures he also handed me the town’s gay nightlife guide. While Budapest isn’t quite the Central European party spot that is Prague, it apparently always boasted a gay scene – even in Communism’s heyday – and remains the region’s second-biggest such spot after the Czech capital.

The guesthouse itself, meanwhile, was a charmer in its own way: overstuffed period furnishings, themed rooms named after composers (mine was the “Beethoven,” complete with stern bust of Ludwig Van glowering over my bedside), gold-leafed chandeliers, and random knickknacks and doodads that straddled the line between classical elegance and high kitsch. Best part: a king-size bed emerging out of a headboard settee. I loved it immediately.

Thank heavens for such comforts (at a steal of a price, natch – Budapest accommodations are still cheap by Euro standards): deciding to play it safe with my lingering “bubons” (as Jon Stewart terms it anytime he gets sick), I napped and headed out after dark to Raday utca, a nearby pedestrian street, for a bite of dinner. A respectable – and eminently filling – dose of chicken paprikash.

Hungary’s development since the fall of Communism has been alright, though not quite as ebullient as Poland, Latvia, or the Czech Republic. The place still feels like a work in progress, with rundown and smartly-restored Art Nouveau buildings running down long, straight streets. Or so it felt as I wandered through Pest, the mostly flat half of this city on the eastern bank of the Danube.

A glance at the history books tells why: like most of Europe, the town’s had tremendous turmoil through the centuries, though in its case some of it lingers into the present. It’s one of the Continent’s oldest settlements, with evidence of human habitation dating back deep into prehistory. It was a Roman garrison – Aquincum – on the Empire’s northeastern frontier along the Danube. Occupying a similar transitional zone as, say, the Levant, this bridge between East and West was fought over continuously: Christians, Ottoman Turks, Austrian Habsburgs, German Nazis, and Soviet Russians came and went through the ages.

As with Vienna, Austria-Hungary’s western center, the city’s real heyday was in the latter half of the 19^th Century, when many of its belle epoque edifices went up and bridges were built across the Danube.

A relaxing meander around City Park then a stroll down leafy Andrássy útca, the city’s answer to the Champs-Élysées, proved a worthy tonic to my sinus congestion and sniffles. I wasn’t really in a museum mood, but one otherwise-handsome building on the wide, tree-lined boulevard caught my eye: the House of Terror. Its pretty façade is lined by a jutting rooftop metal canopy spelling the words TERROR in mirror-backward writing, so the the sun’s rays shine the letters onto the building itself right-side up.

Once the headquarters for Hungary’s Nazi-leaning Arrow Cross, then later used by the repressive Communists as a dungeon and Ministry of Love-ish prison, the place effectively recounts the bad old days of dictatorship and repression. It’s all very well done, with padded cell-style corridors, TVs blaring black-and-white interviews of former political prisoners, and a giant tank standing guard in the central courtyard. The actual dungeons – in the basement of the building – are as squalid and horrific as any concentration camp: dank arching stone walls, hard wooden barracks, rusty commodes, grimy translucent barred windows. I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by such places – in Prague, Riga, and Moscow I also made sure to visit relics of and memorials to former totalitarian regimes – but I leave here equally edified and spooked.

Okay, then. As compensation for brutality, some grandeur and delight. As much as Vienna, Budapest was once home to a thriving café culture. Many closed over the decades or were replaced by establishments of the more modern, Starbucks-ian variety (though, interestingly, I spotted nary a trace of the American coffee chain the entire time I was in the city). But a few remain: Lukács Café’s chandeliers and white-and-gold-leaf trim proved a worthy place to enjoy a tasty (but pricey) cappuccino and delectable chocolate cake (what else?)

Ambling on toward the river, I came upon the hulking, wedding-cake Parliament building, all domed and spired and wedding-cake grand as befits a grand old European capital. Turning the corner onto the riverwalk of the (mostly) blue Danube, I observed something the Magyar capital has over its Austrian cousin: while both lie nominally on the great European waterway, in Vienna the river proper flows a ways out of the city center. But in Budapest, the river runs through it better than old Robert Redford could have imagined: the city is in fact a portemanteau of two formerly separate towns (Buda and Pest), each hugging the broad waterway (and it is broad – one of Europe’s bigger ones, I’d say).

Having meandered the Pest side one day, I opted for Buda the next. The two towns, although separated by nothing more than a river, feel as different as, say, Detroit and Windsor back home (albeit far, far more beautiful than both): Pest’s 19^th Century broad, straight streets contrast with Buda’s steep hillsides and curvy byways. To get there I opted for the scenic route, crossing on foot via the Chain Bridge, one of the world’s first suspension bridges dating back to the 1840s. It’s an adorable little structure, a Disney-sized variant of, say, the Brooklyn Bridge, which it predates by half a century. On the bridge, the city’s set-pieces were on show: a couple smooched under one of the bridge’s towers; more dispiritingly, an elderly Gypsy woman begged for change – practically the only such character I saw in my time here (yes, Budapest has fewer homeless than wealthy San Francisco). On the other side, past a florally-festooned traffic circle, lay the funicular to the top of Castle Hill. Here’s where the local flavor vanished and the touristic took over: I heard English spoken widely for the first time, most especially by a surprisingly rotund and rowdy gang from Toronto.

“Pretend this car is full, or it’ll be a sweat box!” said one camera-toter as we clambered into one compartment of the diminutive funicular.

“I can’t believe it’s not air conditioned!”

Oh, dude. Really? It was a warmish day but the splendid ride up the peak lasted maybe two minutes. At the top, predictably grand views across the river, toward Pest. On one side lay the city’s Royal Palace and on the other, the former “commoners” homes of the winding, medieval town – far simpler sloped roofs, and none of the Art Nouveau adornments found across the river. Adjacent the castle, some walled ruins – although Aquincum is a bit north of medieval (and present-day) Buda, these could have been contemporaneous but were more likely later – this place has had many masters, and like Middle Eastern spots such as Jerusalem or Megiddo, one set of invaders sacked, then rebuilt, often on the same spot.

A sci-fi and spookiness-obsessed friend had insisted I visit the underground cave network running beneath the castle. The so-named Labyrinth, which opened onto the street from a run-of-the-mill building on a town street, at first looked like another cheesy tourist trap: hordes of screaming schoolchildren at the entrance didn’t bode so well. But the dank, damp cavern beckoned, and I forked over the moderate-but-not-usurious entry fee to have a look.

Having done precious little travel in my youth, on my grand world tour I found myself more often than not treading the road more traveled. But rather than playing the jaded backpacker, I sought to learn, wherever possible, if the touristic is indeed a waste of time and coin, or if it continues to offer transcendence. Yes, I found disappointment – aggressive touting at the Great Pyramid and the rice terraces of Bali; obnoxious Spring Breaker-style youth on Koh Phangan; overpriced meals and crowds in Venice. But I also found amazing stuff – I thought the Mona Lisa was marvellous; Tokyo’s electronics heavenly (for a techno-geek like me); the Full Moon party a delight.

I’m happy to say Buda’s Labyrinth fit in the latter category. The schoolkids were on their way out, and, as I entered the warren of passageways, found I had the kilometer-long maze almost to myself.

Formed by natural hot springs that bubble up under the city, these tunnels have been occupied by humans since prehistory – a fact driven home by replicas of the Lascaux cave paintings etched into the walls. Haunting medieval-style chants wafted over speakers in the caverns lit only by dim, dim lights. I was transfixed, almost in religious rapture at the dim memory of hunter-gatherers huddling in these grottoes eons ago.

As I passed through the tunnels dedicated to their occupation in historic times, I came upon a pagan-style altar straight out of Tolkien; a “wine fountain” replete with vines and stinking of fermented grapes (signage warns the visitor not to drink the liquid, though I wonder if that’s just to keep tipplers at bay); and a mammoth, partly-submerged head also straight out of Fantasyland’s central casting. Oh sure, Disney and his Imagineers conjure up stuff like this in their sleep… but nothing in the Americas possesses these caverns’ aura of authenticity.

And then, as quickly as the feeling had come, it vanished: the last bit of the attraction, labeled “the End of History,” claimed that ancient fossils had been found – dating back tens of millions of years, it was said – of suspiciously modern-looking shoeprints and computer keypads. High-tech Flintstones co-existing with dinosaurs? Fun for the kiddies, I’m sure, but for me the effect was cloying. So too the last bit, a cavern of “personal discovery” – a pitch-dark mini-maze that could have been fun but for some annoying youths cackling and howling like ghouls and witches.

A quick stop at a touristy (yet reasonably-priced) café nearby, then on to the city’s main attraction: the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Buda Castle.

Although I’d been in the city more than a day, and on this side of the Atlantic for the better part of a week, this felt like the first bona fide “Eurosightseeing” I’d done so far. Unlike its counterparts in Vienna or Prague, however, this one saw combat and destruction as recently as 1944: in addition to the bridges across the Danube, the retreating wehrmacht damaged it significantly. Happily, it’s been fully restored and is now once again a hodgepodge of styles and structures from many different eras: grand 17^th Century monumentality contrasting with medieval stone walls – think The Name of the Rose meets Dangerous Liaisons. The city’s History Museum, one of several in this sprawling complex, really rams home this place’s uber-long history even in a continent overflowing with the old: from the skull of a cave bear tens of thousands of years old to scenes of Second World War combat.

Riding a tram along the river, I alighted at the foot of Gellért Hill, the higher of Buda’s peaks immediately facing Pest. Leafy and treescaped, with a soaring victory monument at the top and stairs beckoning for a climb, I resisted the urge as my strength was starting to give out. Hoping for something of the more therapeutic variety, I stopped in at the Gellért Baths – the city’s trove of hot springs has made it a spa town for generations, and the century-plus-old Gellért is reputed to be the granddaddy of them all. Alas, fate was not on my side: although I’d arrived in plenty of time before closing, the spa was booked for a private party. Such is the way of travel, as I’d learned in my seven-month odyssey of occasional missed connections and misadventures (though for the most part my trip moved smoother than a Swiss watch).

As I strolled across the fin de siecle cantilever-style Independence Bridge after a bout of dinner in the Gellért district – unlike touristy Castle Hill, this felt like a more bona fide lived-in district of Buda – I mused some more on this place: unlike spotless Scandinavia or orderly Germany (and its satellites Austria and the Netherlands), Budapest is still in transition. In a way, this echoed my physical state while visiting this town, but more deeply, it echoes the soul of the traveler, the wanderer, in any circumstance. And so too our lives overall, which, if you think about it, are always works in progress. Hopefully, as has been Budapest’s fate in recent years, we manage to build more than we destroy.