It's funny how all good things always come to an end, too soon. Just exactly 5 months back I was sitting in my room in Singapore, packing my luggage, full of trepidation, and yet secretly excited. I did not sleep much that night.
Now I'm sitting in my room again, over 6000 miles away, packing that very same luggage bag, and I don't know what to say. I don't even know how to describe what's happened to me over the last 5 months. Normally, I would call it the time of my life, but I don't want to jinx that. I believe the time of my life is yet to come, so I shouldn't say that or it will all go downhill.
I've walked along the beaches of Barcelona, traversed the countryside of Italy, and walked down the Champs Elysees. I've seen the girls in the windows at Amsterdam, strolled in the gardens of Prague, hauled myself into a night train in Budapest, and watched an opera in Vienna. I've visited the English towns of Windsor and Bath, climbed atop a hill in Edinburgh, the highest churchtower in Porto, and I saw the harbour where the Titanic was built in Belfast. I visited the Cadbury factory in Birmingham, fooled around as a leprechaun in Dublin, and ate Swedish meatballs in Sweden. The last is nothing much I know, but Stockholm was so boring I struggle to find something to remember it by.
All this came to an end in Berlin, and atop the Reichstag I looked out at the Brandenburg Gate and gave thanks that I've been privileged enough to have been given the chance to experience this, to have backpacked across a continent and met people from all over the world, something many of my peers will probably never get the chance to do.
And I look back at the pictures from my earlier trips, when I was new to everything, from the first few times I visited London, to my first trip to Belgium, and I see how much I've changed. I really miss those times, because in them I had an innocence in traveling that made me go "wow" at everything, before I became "Eurojaded". I will always remember the first time I went to London and was utterly confused by the Tube system, or how I had to navigate the labyrinth under Charing Cross station as I struggled to find the exit to Trafalgar Square, the first place I set foot upon in Central London. Or how excited I was when I saw a pond of swans and ducks in Belgium, or rows and rows of chocolates waiting for me to sample them.
Somehow, I do miss that person I once was, but I know that person is gone, replaced by someone who has had his eyes opened to the workings of the world. This experience has been humbling, to say the very least, because I've come to see that the world is not just about Singapore, and it's not just about me.
And I know its the little things that I will miss the most. Like opening my window in the mornings and taking in the cool morning air. Hearing the different strains of music playing out of the different windows in my hall. Watching the locals go about their lives. Eating in the cafeteria on Indian food Thursdays amidst the hustle and bustle of other students and staff. Taking a walk to the supermarket to buy groceries for the week. Taking the bus down to London for a walk about town.
I will even miss sleeping on the bed in my hall room, or sitting in this very seat that I'm on as I type this. The very same seat I've slumped into as I returned from countless other trips, utterly dogtired and happy just to have Internet access again.
Everything's all packed now. I've been typing this line by line even as I packed items into my luggage.
I'm ready to leave.