In the middle of nowhere

by Edwin

As I already expected the other day was leaving my friends in Washington DC really like leaving home again. Today I took a five hour bus drive to North Carolina to visit another friend of mine. During the ride I watched a nice movie (thanks again bro for placing all those movies on my iPad!) and relaxed a bit. When I got of the bus I realized that now I was quite in the middle of nowhere, in a small place in North Carolina called Durham / Chappel Hill. Fortunately my Dutch-American friend Christina was waiting for me with open arms. She even made a Facebook Event for me to tell all her friends I was coming to town, that was so sweet.

Although I was welcomed so warm here, today I was overwhelmed with some home-sickness (not sure if that’s the right word) for the first time this journey. Being here in middle of nowhere and finding out how big this country is made me wonder what I’m actually doing here. For example, to get to the next place is more than 20 hours by bus or train! Fortunately Christina understood quite well how I felt, because she’s missing Amsterdam (where she lived for many years) a lot too since she left there a couple of months ago, because her visa expired. And she had some good solutions: when we arrived home we ate delicious ice-cream and in the evening we went to a pizza place to have pizza and beer, what is always a good thing! 😎

Later in the night I chatted with one of my best travel mates from Australia and shared my feelings, she understood it very well too. Just before I went to bed I got a nice e-mail from Rick and Elma that I’m always welcome to come back to Washington DC and that is really a comforting thought. I’m God so thankful for my friends, they are there when I need them the most and that is really one of the most beautiful things in life.