goodbyes.

Last night I took Tomi to the bus station. All day long it snowed, the heaviest snow all year. There was the chance that he would be able to spend one last night in Dresden, one last night at the Gutz, one last night of “maybe a beer or two…” We waited in the snow for two hours. That freezing unforgiving cold. I really started wanting the bus to show up. The sooner Tomi got on his way, the sooner I’d be able to feel my extremities again. And with that, the bus arrived and my best friend here in Dresden was on his way back home. I walked back to my apartment in the snow, dissapearing into the darkness. I told myself “dont look back you can never look back” (Genesis 19:26) while at the same time feeling lonelier than a smelly kid at a middle school dance.

Several people have ended their semester abroad here in Dresden and have had to return to the homeland. It’s been a bit depressing but I suppose I don’t mind goodbyes so much. As long as they’re done right. By this point I like to think I’ve gotten used to goodbyes. I just can’t understand how my Dad did it growing up, son of a military man, finding a new set of friends every nine months knowing the whole time that they would soon dissapear just like the last set of friends.

Tomi and Marc and I have already planned out a bike trip through Transylvania, Hungary and all the way up to Krakow for the summer. So it wasn’t so much as “goodbye” as it’s “see you in a couple of months”. Or as Igor, the ebonics speaking Russian from the Siberian/North Korean border said upon departing…”the world is small you know…”

I leave Friday to visit a group of friends I’ve thought I wouldn’t see again on several occassions. It’s only a six hour train ride. The world is indeed small.