Last Thoughts Before Returning Home From Half A Year Abroad

Guys, it’s time.

I’m coming home.

It’s been half-a-year, which is simultaneously an eternity and far too short of a time to be gone.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d be away, though I figured until at least the new year but it turns out I accomplished what I set out to sooner than expected. Also, the Canadian dollar hit an 11-year low during my travels so my savings depleted sooner than expected as well.

And so I’m coming home.

When I left in the summer, I mentioned that I exist with a rather difficult to reconcile duality that keeps me at constant war with myself. I crave stability but am always scanning the horizon for new adventures.

Therefore, as much as I love long-term travel and have spent nearly 1/4 of my 20s so far abroad, I’m still not the kind of person who is able to disappear from her hometown for long enough to miss more than one of every good friend’s birthday.

That being said though, I still have half the mind to move somewhere else—perhaps San Francisco, New York, or Amsterdam; we’ll see how it goes.

Regardless of where though, I need a home.

And yet it was a hard decision to make. I delayed booking a return ticket until 2 weeks beforehand and cost myself a pretty penny flying home during the Christmas rush. In October, I had been homesick. By November, I got over the homesickness and wanted to keep going but by then, all signs pointed me back to Vancouver.

I wanted to go to India for Christmas and the New Year but could no longer afford the flight. I wanted to go back to Amsterdam to see a new acquaintance with whom my time had run out too quickly, but our schedules couldn’t align.

And so my hand hovered over my mouse for a long while before I could click the big blue “BOOK” button.

I then paced around my delicate, chandelier-lit hotel room located by a lake somewhere between Warsaw and Krakow for a bit to come to terms with my decision.

This trip could be my last long-term journey abroad. I’m not so young anymore that I can afford to drop everything and go. It’s time to get my life in order. Properly this time.

When I returned from my year-long 2010/2011 travels, I thought I might have been ready to be an adult, but I was 22 then and still had many ideals about being a carefree traveler that I needed to fulfill.

During my 2010/2011 travels, I had been broke, attached, and afraid of venturing out in the world alone. This time around, I had enough savings for a down-payment on a small apartment, no commitments, and courage bordering on recklessness.

Therefore, this time around, I really did it all.

I dipped both feet into the Mediterranean on a hot night in Barcelona while drinking cava out of the bottle. A few weeks later, I dove off a yacht and swam in the cool, clear waters of the Adriatic Sea.

I watched an electrical storm surge over Budapest where the lightning intermingled with fireworks and was then caught in an ensuing rainstorm so intense I needed to gasp to breathe.

I sat on a ferry in the Bosphorus Strait and saw the lights of Asia to the east and the lights of Europe to the west. A week later, I stood on a cruise ship in the Strait of Gibraltar and saw the lights of Europe to the north and the lights of Africa to the south.

I rode sidesaddle on the back of bicycle and wrapped both arms around the aforementioned acquaintance—a beautiful, green-eyed Dutchman—as he pedaled through the quaint canals of Amsterdam in the mid-autumn dusk.

I walked on a glittering stage with the most beautiful and talented women from 82 countries around the world while representing my homeland of Taiwan in the 2015 edition of the Miss Supranational pageant.

I collected coins from 7 different currencies and grew so accustomed to the Euro that I no longer needed to double-check the number on the coin or bill when paying at cash registers.

I made hundreds of new friends from the far corners of the planet, all with the most gracious of hearts and fascinating of tales.

Also, I was nearly hit by a tram and had numerous close calls with cyclists in Amsterdam. The one time I dared go biking myself, I ran an old lady off the road.

I fell into a pothole in Istanbul because I was too busy looking at directions on my phone and twisted my ankle so badly it hurt for months afterwards, yet still managed to walk 10+ kilometers every day in search of new and wondrous sights.

I had the entirety of my luggage knocked into the marina in Split, Croatia, destroying my laptop and leaving me without proper technology for a month until I made my way to an English-speaking country where I could buy a new laptop with an English keyboard.

I was pick-pocketed at the train station in Livorno where I was heading to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa and learned exactly how difficult it is to have to replace both a laptop and a phone while abroad due to modern online account security measures.

I flew to Bordeaux to meet up with the man whom I had been so sure I was going to marry—yet had left me homeless and alone in the spring—only to finally understand that he does not want me to play a part in his future. I had been chasing and he had been breaking my heart all year so it was time to move on.

There were times when I cheered until I had no voice to cheer anymore.

There were times when I felt strong enough to overcome any obstacle, any hardship, anything.

And there were times when I was so sad I forgot how to put one foot in front of the other.

I’ve had both the best and the worst time of my life.

I’ve changed in more ways than I can describe in this article, only know that I have not and will not ever forget the kindnesses shown to me by both old and new friends along the way.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

I am so very lucky to have you all.

And I’ve missed every one of you.

To my new friends from around the world: I hope our paths cross again in the near future.

To my friends from back home: I’ll see you all very soon!