With only 1 hour of sleep from the party me, Maria and Marjut had to prepare for our trip. We all had the same train, 10.12 to Copenhagen, so we three did not have to say goodbye to eachother just yet.

With 20 people sleeping in the house it made it hard to gather all our stuff. I had so much luggage that i had to gether, 2 trolley cases, one big backpack and one smaller laptop backpack. Because I has so much luggage I choose to go by nighttrain to the Netherlands. This way I could take as much luggage as i could carry and only have to change trains 2 times. All in all, preparing that morning was a bit hectic. In the end I had all my stuff, I could sit down for a moment for some breakfast. The last breakfast in Sweden…

Almost everybody who was att the party wanted to come with us to the station and say goodbye there.  Some had to go by buss, because there was no room in the car, there was not even enough room for all of our luggage. One suitcase had to go into Guillaumes car. He also came to the station with his car filled with people.  Allmost all the people came to the trainstation, from EVS, from the office they all wanted to say goodbye. And they all helped me with carrying my luggage, thank godness. To be honest I didnt want the train to come, because it really meant going away. Just as I said it, the train came… Now we had to go, load everything in the train, wave and then the doors closed. We were on our way home…

I was the first one to exit, in Malmxf6. I was gonna see Ida, another Dutch EVS volunteer, on my way home. The train was off course way to quick and in no time we were in Malmxf6. Maria and Marjut helped unloading my stuff from the train. Then the train waited more than 10 minutes at the platform, and I waited with them, hugging and having the last minutes together. untill the train had actually gone. I think it was good that we were together in the train, and not alone. This way we wouldnxb4t start think things over and start reflecting, make you sentimental and start crying the whole way home.

I met Ida in the trainstation hall. I put my bags away in a locker and we went into town for a Fika. I was strainge to be talking Dutch in my way home, while i was still in Sweden. I was mixing Dutch and English the whole time. Malmxf6 reminded me of Utrecht, my city in the Netherlands. A nice small city centre, little places to hang out, but all the stores you want. After a nice fika we walked through the city , talking about EVS, the Netherlands etc. after couple of hours the lack of sleep was kicking in and it was best if I would make my way to Copenhagen . From Copenhagen I would take the nighttrain. In the train from Malmxf6 to Copenhagen I almost fell asleep already, the sleepdeprevation was taking its tole.

From here on I was on my own with my luggage. Taking it in and out of the trains, carrying it to the stationhalls. It was hard, but i managed. I had made it harder on myself by going to the gym on saturday. It was free and we love things that are free. So me, Maria, Clara and Evelina went boxing. And we payed the price for it, the next day. I had so much musclepain in my legs that I couldnt sit down normally, walk down the stairs normally, even walk normally, I was like an old lady said Greta.  So I was dragging all this luggage (4 bags) over the stations and in and out of trains while I could not walk normally.

Another challenge presented itself on the station in Copenhagen. The nighttrain was cancelled from Copenhagen to Odense. I had to take another train to Odense and change to the nighttrain there. This meant an extra time putting all my bags in and out of the train. Thank godness there was this nice old man who was taking the nighttrain as well and he helped me out with my bags and looked where in the train I needed to be. It was such a relief to finally have found my bed in the train. Me and my roommates build the beds as soon as we were there. I climbed up to my bed, made it, talked a little to my roommates, and then went to sleep at 21.00. Well they woke me up at 5.00 and I had slept 1 hour the night before, so 21.00 wasn’t too for me.

Next stop Duisburg. 6.00 in the morning, 3 1/2 hours of waiting, 4 bags of luggage, lots of musclepaing from the gym, a deserted station, a broken elevator so you have to go down the stairs. Try to solve this riddle. Well I tried to go down the stairs with everything all together. Big no no, didnt work. But there is always a saving angel around who will carry a bag down the stairs for you. So just add her to the equation and you solve the riddle. Once I was down the stairs, I slowely looked for a place where I could sit for 3 hours with all my luggage, and have a little breakfast, which I brought with me. My real saviour was the luggage cart (you know the ones they have in airports). no carrying stuff to the platform!!

The last train was the ICE, nothing special exept I was hearing German and Dutch everywhere, I was almost back in the Netherlands.The thing I noticed waiting in Duisburg and in the ICE train is that I cannot speak german anymore, I confuse it with Swedish. I can understand it still, but speaking is another thing.

Then there was Utrecht, and my dear sweet mommy was waiting for me on the platform. I was so releived she could take half of my bags. She was amazed how I did it with all the luggage (actually I am too). The craziest is that I had to hold her arm to be able to go down the stairs. MY MOTHER HAD TO HELP ME TO GO DOWN THE STAIRS!! I had turned into an old lady :-S. I still was tired and just wanted to put all the bags away. For the comming month I was going to stay at Jaspers place. So we needed to get into the house. To do that you need keys. And Jasper was not at home, he was teaching. We had to pay Jasper a visit in the classroom . Well I waited untill his students were out of the room to sneak in and say hello and get the keys.

A small drive later I was in Jaspers room, my trip back was finished,  I was back in the Netherlands, my EVS project had ended. And all I could think about was a shower…