Time to go home.

I'm on my own now. I've said goodbye to everybody I know in Dresden, and everybody I know in Europe at some stage before that.

I'm in the Dresden library because I wanted to print out my boarding pass for my flight. First, my login wouldn't work, then the lady at the desk tried to tell me it was because my 12-month membership had expired in November and I told her that was impossible because I only came to Dresden on this exact day, 1 year ago, and didn't register for the library for a while after that. After telling her about how I was right and she was wrong, she fixed the problem and I went on the internet and printed my boarding pass.

Now it's 12:11, and the train I'd like to take to Frankfurt Airport should be departing at 12:54. I can't say it will depart at that time because it's Deutsche Bahn (see previous post) but just to make sure, I've left myself a few extra hours, just in case anything should go wrong. I could even miss this train, and the next one an hour later, and get the next one after that, and still make it on time.

This evening, I will hopefully be allowed to bring my guitar with me, either as check-in or as carry-on. In any case, I'll be boarding my QANTAS flight from Frankfurt to Singapore, as long as it's still flying. It should be, I checked earlier.

It has not sunk in yet - how it's all coming to an end. And I don't think it will even sink in when I am sitting in the plane. I'm just gonna get back to Hobart on Saturday afternoon, and after a few minutes it will be as if I'd never left. It will not have been a trip, as such, more like a continuation of my life that happened to have a different location for a while. But the past 400 days sure did rush past, especially the last four and a half month period of travel.

So.
Goodbye, Europe.
Goodbye, all the wonderful friends I made here, but we shall see each other again yes?
Goodbye, spontaneous fun? Hell no. If there's one thing I learned from this year, it's that the party does not have to stop when I get home. I'll bring it with me. And you guys at home are all invited.
It begins at 1pm on Saturday in the Virgin Blue arrivals terminal of Hobart Airport.

I can't describe how I'm feeling right now. Not particularly happy, not depressed, not anything, really. Probably just an uneasy feeling that anybody is bound to get when they have an entire day's worth of sitting in planes ahead of them.
But hey, on the plus side, I didn't lose my passport this time!! (see my second or third post from waaaay back).

It's nice that I spent my last few days in Dresden, my European home.
Ok, time to go.

Home, I'll see you soon.

Patrick Neasey