Why Travel Guy?

This is just a quick note on why I call my blog "Travel Guy." There are definitely more creative names out there, and I'm sure I could have come up with an original name of my own. After doing a quick Google search, I saw that there are dozens of Web sites called "Travel Guy." I never thought I was breaking down any barriers by calling it this, just for the record.

What it really comes down to is that the name is an homage to my favorite sports writer, Bill Simmons. I've been reading Simmons' work on ESPN.com for years now, and if you're familiar with his work, you'll know that he goes by the name of "Sports Guy." When I was a freshman at UMass I would read his articles and think, I could write something like this. Obviously, our topics are different, but it got me interested enough to add Journalism as a major and get me on the path of writing. Before that I never really wrote that much.

And obviously, since Bill Simmons is the "Sports Guy," his field being sports, it would only make sense that since I write about traveling, I would call this "Travel Guy." On a side note, in my group of friends, I'm one of the only ones that travels a lot. So that could also be seen as a partial influence. But basically, it comes down to the fact that Simmons is one of my favorite writers, and I just hope I can have success like him in the future. There it is, the deep explanation. It wasn't totally random after all.

Tomorrow I'm flying up to Quito to attend the End of Service conference from my volunteer organization. The conference will take place from Thursday to Saturday, and I'm going to stay until Sunday so that I can run in the 15k in Quito on Sunday morning. I've been "training" a bit more since the 10k in Cuenca last month and hopefully it will pay off. Quito is higher up, and I'm hoping that it won't be too much of an issue. There are 5 more kilometers to deal with, but I felt good at the end of the race last time, so I've got my fingers crossed.

I haven't been back to Quito since I left in September, and I'm curious to see how things have changed and whether or not I'll still enjoy being there. Cuenca may have spoiled me in the fact that I can walk everywhere. If I can, I'd like to see my old host family, but it's just a matter of time and if I can get that far away, considering how far away they live from where we'll be having our conference. Back where it all started, at Hotel 6 de diciembre, things will come full circle. Because all of our schedules are different, this will be the last time I see some of my friends from my program, so it will be a bittersweet weekend.

To avoid the 10 hour bus ride, I'm flying back on Sunday afternoon after the race. So I'm truly motivated to finish with a good time, because I need to catch my flight. I probably won't be able to blog while I'm in Quito, but once I'm back in Cuenca I'll update everyone with what took place and how the race went. Until then...