I am being deported.

Three months in one place seemed like a long time back in December. I could unpack! Use a machine to wash my clothes! Cook food!

I've enjoyed this time in Santa Cruz. I got some work done on my project(s), socialized with Americans, and took lots of pictures. (Hence I'm spraying a few up on each blog from now on. I also tried a new HDR software...but it's free and ergo, crappy.)

Three months has become three weeks.

I decided I wanted to stay here and work some more, but then I started looking for housing. I knew the housing market here is crazy, but I didn't have the perspective before. For example, according to this blog, a proper 1 bedroom apartment in the upscale Eixample neighborhood of Barcelona costs the same as a crappy little 310 square foot studio with half a kitchen and no insulation in Santa Cruz, and you'd be lucky to find the studio at all.

I've walked through the Eixample. It should cost twice as much as here.

According to this site, which compares the Cost of Living in various cities, rental prices are 68% lower in Barcelona than Santa Cruz. 46% lower in Rome. 42% in Paris.

I am being deported. By the rental market. So where do I go?

I only got to see the corner of South America, with a long beautiful loop of countries starting in Peru and winding south, east, then north. I have a prospective project I could work on there, a list of great NGO's to visit, and most importantly, I speak the language. That is invaluable in improving a traveling experience. I loved the parts of the continent that I saw, and am hungry for more.

(Rental prices are 80% cheaper in Lima than Santa Cruz...)

Or, do I go to Southeast Asia? Specifically, Mynamar is just opening up, and going now would be a different experience than it will be in even a few short years. It's more...authentic...today than it will be after tourism really gets going. I hear tales of what Thailand was like 20 years ago... I want to be telling those tales about Myanmar in 20 years.

So, blog reading people. Where do I go? (You can vote on the poll at my other page.)