I left Erfurt last Thursday, taking the eight hour train trip back to Tilburg. A rather uneventful trip in which I had to change trains a good four times before I reached my final destination. Luckily for me, none of my trains were all that delayed and I was able to make all my connections on time. I only had one slight freak out inside my head when one train was cancelled, but promptly replaced by a new one, arriving exactly on schedule.
When I arrived in Tilburg I was met by the largest fair in all of Europe so I was told. I could barely even recognize the city I had been living in all year when I stepped out of the train station. I dragged my bag through the city centre to meet Raischa at Pathé the cinema. After dropping my bag off at her place, we returned to Pathé to see The Fault in Our Stars, a movie I had been wanting to watch since I read the book on the plane to Amsterdam in January. We spent the hour and a half crying way too much before leaving to walk around the fair. I can't believe that such a large, famous fair would take place in Tilburg of all places, such a shame its not there when the international students are.
On Friday July 25th I spent the morning tying up any loose ends including closing my bank account, and buying a train ticket to Amsterdam Schipol Airport. I wasn't able to fall asleep the night before with the thought of leaving, and so spent the day in a bit of a tired stupor. I was hopeful that I would at least get some sleep on the plane. (Sadly this was not the case). That afternoon I said my final goodbye, to Raischa and lugged my suitcases onto the train to Amsterdam. As I watched the dutch scenery fly by for one last time the reality that I was leaving began to set in.
In the late afternoon I boarded the plane with the feeling you get when you're leaving home for a long period of time. When really I should have had the opposite, I mean, I was returning home right? But as Laura and I always said (quoted from the song "Home" by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros) "Home is whenever I'm with you"...and all the people I want to be with seem to be scattered across the globe now. So I suppose in the end, home isn't one place, but many places with the many people I wish I could be with.
I am so grateful to have had the chance to have this experience, and to be able to share it all with you through the blog. This will always be a place I can return to when I want to remember this year. Thanks for reading...and see you the next time I venture across seas (which hopefully won't be too long from now!)
