Recap & Homeward Bound

So, this is it. My last night in the Hippo Hostel, in Budva, in Montenegro, in the Balkans. I am heading off to known and unknown elements back at home in the San Francisco Bay Area again in less than 5 hours. Sigh.

Before I get too much into thanking all those people who played any role in my many mind-boggling memories of this place from the past 6+ months, and then rehashing some of those memories in quick-witted fashion, I should say that I'm going back to the Bay, and hopefully finding a nice, new apartment in Oakland again, near the lake (anyone know of any good vacancies?) because I didn't manage to find an impressive new job in public radio anywhere else in the country that would necessitate my relocating out of the Bay Area so that I can practice the occupation that I have loved for almost 10 years now. So, sigh, again. I'm going back to my favorite city in the world, where the largest concentration of loved ones in my life reside, where all my favorite places and things are, and where my beloved is waiting for me to not have a long-distance relationship with him anymore. I'm not that bummed about going back, thus.

But, it's been quite an odyssey here these past several months. It's hard to be leaving this place that since April 5th, I've been calling Home, this beautiful, lively, hectic, scatter-brained, infuriating, wonderful place -- and that would be both the hostel AND the city of Budva. As far as life-changing, eye-opening, furiously intense, and adventurous chapters of a person's life, this ranks up there just under my 4 and a half years in college as the period of my "youth" that I'll think back to for the rest of my cognizant years on earth as a time when I met a world of wonderful people and things, and experienced the most in life. And, it all fit into a neat little window of half a year.

I'll remember a lot from this window: the places, the people, the sights, the conversations, the laughs, the torment, the mishaps, the food, the fun, the folly, the things I wrote about in this blog, the things I *didn't* write about, and everything in between. I think in Italian, the phrase mille locos, or something spelled similarly, translates to "a thousand crazies". Every last crazy of my mille locos these past 6+ months was worthwhile. From my early days here transitioning into this world, to my laid-up months with the back injury, to life in the trenches during the height of the heat, humidity, and water shortage of Budva, to the past month and a half when I've been able to double my number of red dots on the wall map I own of cities I've been to -- it was all worth it. All of it. That's right, I wouldn't have skipped this for anything in the world. Though, no, I also wouldn't do it again. Because I believe that the most life-affirming experiences we have, the ones that shape us with sledge hammers and not chisels, we can only have once, and must then move on to the next one. It's true, my therapist told me.

So, to recap: Martina is leaving the building. In just a few short hours. I'm traveling to London, New York, and Orange County for the next 2 weeks. I'll be back "home" the night of Thursday, October 25th. Everyone residing in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'll be expecting a massive ticker tape parade down Market Street that weekend. Thanks. And, I'll see you all soon, wherever you are.