But I was going "home" to Regensburg for the last time. In a 20 hour whirlwind, I packed, cleaned, washed and ironed the sheets I'd borrowed from student housing (they're the ones with a penchant for ironed sheets, not me) and got ready to leave again. Moving internationally should become some sort of competitive sporting event. I think I'd be pretty good at it. I somehow manage to compress an entire room into a suitcase, a hiking backpack, and a regular backpack, which is talent enough, but my real skill shows through when I then manage to transport that. After a trial run, I realized that if I place my suitcase against a column, then hoist my large backpack onto that, I can get my backpack on without falling over. Then, smaller backpack stuck on front of me, all that's left is to drag my suitcase behind me, transporting roughly my weight in luggage. And then, since this is an extreme sporting event, that means you have to use at least 4 unique forms of transportation. The first leg of my journey was easy for me- a friend offered to go with me to the train station, so I didn't have to walk the 10 minutes to the bus stop looking like a human turtle or load my luggage onto the train by myself.
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| The Human Turtle with her weight in luggage |
But then, I was on my own. All was going smoothly until I tried to get off of the train. One of the straps on my backpack got caught on something going through the door. I tried to turn and look behind me, but I couldn't turn far enough to see whatever was keeping me from moving. I turned futilely back and forth a few times, flailing around a bit (possibly looking a bit like a turtle that's landed on its back) til someone behind me took pity on me and unhooked me and handed down my suitcase. I then trundled it all off to the next bus that took me right to the airport. I breathed a sigh of relief as my backpack and suitcase were whisked away and I was assured that they would go through to my final destination. But of course, there's no such thing as final in a trip like this. Final just meant last flight. I flew into Helsinki, which is still 2 and a half hours outside of Turku. So, once again, all my luggage loaded onto me, I looked around for the right bus, where at least the driver did me the favor of sticking it into the luggage compartment for me. And then, finally, finally back in Turku, it was too late to take a local bus back, so I had to catch a taxi, because even I won't walk 3 kilometers with my weight in luggage at 1:30 am.
And then, there I was, "home" again in Turku. Except, even though many of my friends, most of my earthly possessions, and my studies are all here, I don't actually have a house. My lease doesn't start until September. So here I am, at "home", but homeless. It's an interesting feeling, really. I've spent quite a bit of time the past few years pondering what home means, and well, being here reminds me that home, for the moment, is here. Home is where the heart is, they say. And that's part of it, but I've left bits and pieces of my heart all over, so then home could equally be the US, or Colombia, or Germany. And in a way, going to any of those places right now would feel like going "home", but not quite the same as coming home here does. I'd say home is where your stuff is, but that sounds way too materialistic, and besides, then my home would be Paulina's storage locker, and that certainly doesn't seem right. But home is where you come back to after traveling, where you pick up the pieces of your life where you left off, slip back into the same routines, are comforted by the familiar. And that's why, for me right now, Turku, Finland is home. In Colombia, and the US, and Germany there's no picking up where I left off right now- no job waiting for me, groups of friends have changed in my absence, there are no routines looking to be slipped into, just routines looking to be remade. So it's good to be back, and after a wonderful semester abroad, feel that I am indeed, home.
At least, for the moment. But then, on to my next adventures! I'm homeless by choice so I can travel and visit friends all around Europe until I have an apartment at home in Finland next month.
1 comment:
Hi Annie!
Just in case you missed this that I posted on my Facebook page a few years ago about traveling and returning home, I thought it was appropriate to send it to you after this last post of yours. Too bad you didn't get a chance to hop over to Ireland, we leave Saturday.
Aunt Cherie
My favorite thought on travel and arriving home - taken from the International Space Station's Science Officer Don Pettit. This is part of an article he wrote many years ago entitled "Homeward Bound". I love this part:
The feeling of being home is directly proportional to how far you have traveled. When you go out to dinner, you feel home when you pull into the driveway. When you go for a drive to a state park some distance out of town, you feel home when you enter the outskirts of your city. When you drive across the United States, perhaps on one of those memorable family vacations, you get this warm feeling of being home when you cross over your state line. When you go on international travels, particularly when returning from places with radically different cultures, you feel home the first place your airplane lands on U.S. soil. You may still be 2,000 miles from home, but you have this wonderful sensation in your heart that speaks out to you.
After having been on Space Station for nearly six months, we will be returning on the Soyuz spacecraft and be landing on the desert plains of Kazakhstan. When our capsule goes thump on those desert flats, we will be literally on the opposite side of the world, nearly 12,000 miles from home. Yet once normal breathing resumes, we will have this warm sensation inside that we are home. I can picture sometime in the future, a crew will be returning from Mars and after inserting themselves into low Earth orbit, perhaps from an aero-braking maneuver, they will look down from their orbital vantage point at this blue jewel circling below and say, "We are home."
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