The thinking person changes his mind

My last stop is Biarritz, France, on the border with Spain.

My flight from New Zealand took a whopping 40 hours, with being at the airport early and transferring to the hostel, I was on the road for a good two days. Two nights without a bed, I was a zombie. But hey, the jet lag was persistent this time, but so be it.

And after more than 4 months, I finally see Camilo again <3 I had completely forgotten how much fun we have together, how much we have in common, how much we laugh together, and how absolutely great we can talk about everything. What was I afraid of again? Completely unjustifiably and after the first few days, I was newly in love again. And we surf and dance and do everything that people do together.

After a week, another short-term goodbye, and who would have thought that I would ever pick up a French book again? I, least of all, hated it in school. But one of my life mottos is “The thinking person changes his mind.” and therefore, I am allowed to have any change of heart and march diligently to school for the next two weeks. I have a small Airbnb apartment and spend a lot of time at the beach, and even more time working on another little thing. You can be curious, I hope it won't be long before I can present it to you :)

Biarritz is cool, messed up, fancy, and overpriced, and cozy at the same time. Huge beaches, great waves, very nice people. It's also something like that, I always liked categorically not liking the French. Well, this trip disproved that. Really a lot of great people, and at least most young people can speak English, and some even better than some Germans, so much for the prejudice. As I said, the thinking person is allowed to change his mind.

I had my mind so full of things, I was also looking forward to Berlin and actually thought that I was mentally ready to come back. But the last few days my body was of a different opinion, I had back and headaches, lower abdomen pain that I don't normally have. On the last morning, I wake up and suddenly realize, it's over. Today is the day. And even now, as I write these lines at the airport, my heart starts racing, my breath is shallow and fast. I'm starting to panic. Yes, I know, such a feeling of stress is completely normal and understandable. But it is still overwhelming. And then comes such a huge-mega-great gratitude for everything. For my family and friends, my relationship, my health, everything I was able to experience and the people who accompanied me. I really can't put it into words. Even if I was sometimes dissatisfied in between or didn't know where to go, in the end, every stage was there to teach me something, to make me see something, to make it clear to me what I want and where I want to go in life. And that's what traveling is all about. I love it for what it does to you and not for what you see. And so I found a wonderful passage on another travel blog

“Travel, although a great thing, is just another thing. It’s not you. It’s something you do. It’s something you experience. It’s something you savor and brag about to your friends down the street.
But it’s not you.
Yet these other, memoryless qualities—the outgrown personal confidence, the comfort with myself and my failings, the greater appreciation for family and friends, the ability to rely upon myself—these are the real gifts that travel gives you.
And, despite the fact that they produce no photos or stories for cocktail parties, they are the things stay with you forever.
They are your real lasting memories….because these things are you.
And they will always be you.”

With that, goodbye world, hello Berlin. I'm here.