Being a transient expat, who moves on every two or three years, I often bump into people I met half way across the globe, and I think I am already getting use to it. Although it is always sad when somebody moves on including myself. Goodbyes are hard, but a trunkful of memoirs will be with you all your life.
Farewell? Not necessarily...until we meet again.
Today I checked out from the apartment I stayed for the last three years. When the agency put a tag on everything he examined, I know that was it - the time to say goodbye. Still I cannot stop being sentimental at this very moment.
One of my friends wrote something really touching on facebook two years ago when he left Antwerp, one sentence I always remember was "I will miss the penguin-like jewish kids and their penguin-like mother in Harmonepark". It is just one of things he listed about multicultural landscape of this city. For sure, I will miss it also. This multicultural community just makes this city so enjoyable for the expat. Wherever I am going for the next, it won't be the same.
I will miss the most is my friends here, who are like my families. But if I never made effort to make friends all the same when I moved here even I knew I won't stay for long, there would never be a close bond between us. It is definitely worth forming these close bonds. My life is richer because of my friendships with them. I believe I will meet the same nice people as people I love in Antwerp, and it will be the same sad when they move on or me. The intensity of the friendship lessens over the miles and years, but the memories don't. And if by chance we happen to bump into one another again in anywhere on this planet, we will just pick up where we left off. A few more grey hairs, a few more hard-earned life lines, a lot of experiences that we have to share before one of us moves off again. World is small and this could happen easily, I believe.
By coincidence, two days ago I went to the cinema watching "dawn of planet of apes", when the photo of James Franco and chimp Cesar was showed on the big screen, "rise of planet of apes" was the first movie I watched with a group of friends three years ago when I just moved to Antwerp. In the blink of an eye, even the sequel has been already out.
Now here I am, I came I go. And see you soon. But no farewell.
Farewell? Not necessarily...until we meet again.
Today I checked out from the apartment I stayed for the last three years. When the agency put a tag on everything he examined, I know that was it - the time to say goodbye. Still I cannot stop being sentimental at this very moment.
One of my friends wrote something really touching on facebook two years ago when he left Antwerp, one sentence I always remember was "I will miss the penguin-like jewish kids and their penguin-like mother in Harmonepark". It is just one of things he listed about multicultural landscape of this city. For sure, I will miss it also. This multicultural community just makes this city so enjoyable for the expat. Wherever I am going for the next, it won't be the same.
I will miss the most is my friends here, who are like my families. But if I never made effort to make friends all the same when I moved here even I knew I won't stay for long, there would never be a close bond between us. It is definitely worth forming these close bonds. My life is richer because of my friendships with them. I believe I will meet the same nice people as people I love in Antwerp, and it will be the same sad when they move on or me. The intensity of the friendship lessens over the miles and years, but the memories don't. And if by chance we happen to bump into one another again in anywhere on this planet, we will just pick up where we left off. A few more grey hairs, a few more hard-earned life lines, a lot of experiences that we have to share before one of us moves off again. World is small and this could happen easily, I believe.
By coincidence, two days ago I went to the cinema watching "dawn of planet of apes", when the photo of James Franco and chimp Cesar was showed on the big screen, "rise of planet of apes" was the first movie I watched with a group of friends three years ago when I just moved to Antwerp. In the blink of an eye, even the sequel has been already out.
Now here I am, I came I go. And see you soon. But no farewell.
