I’m writing from the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (again.) One year ago (almost to this day) I was standing at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam at the boarding gate. My first signs of dread only appeared when I saw my fellow passengers toting Aritzia carry-on bags and heard the sounds of native English swirling around me. I remember texting my friends with the remaining money on my SIM card, telling them that I was staring at the vessel that would transport me back to my impending fate. After five months on exchange in the Netherlands and two months backpacking Europe, I was ready to go home and face my final year of university. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it but I wasn’t dreading it, it was just what was going to happen.

I’m leaving Taiwan in two hours and I don’t feel the same way at all. When I left Utrecht at the end of June to go backpacking all the other exchange students were just starting to leave. In August when I went back at the end of the summer to pick up my luggage, it felt like a completely different city. I didn’t mind going back to Canada because Utrecht as I knew it had disappeared.

For the first time I have a few good local friends (natives and permanent expats.) After today, life will go on without me in Taipei. This Tuesday will be the first in about two months where I will not go to Underworld, the bar across the street from my apartment, after the 10:30 p.m. garbage pick-up. On Monday, there will be no class to attend and my classmates won’t sidetrack our teacher from the lesson plan with our bad Mandarin. And once again, I’m finished school.

My final day in Taiwan consisted of packing and a series of three goodbye meals. Seeing my apartment bare made me sad and petrified to leave a place for the first time. It’s strange to think that tomorrow I won’t be woken up by the creeping morning heat or the sound of man driving a cart calling for recycling. When I open the door to leave the house next time, I won’t step in the fray of the Shida night market.

When I think back on my time in the Netherlands, I think of it as a really beautiful time in my life. I miss my friends, the lifestyle and the situation we were in together but it’s not something I could go back to. Going back to Canada feels like I’m headed somewhere cold–literally and figuratively. The random conversations and acts of kindness will be no more and we will all continue to mind our own business and pretend not to notice each other. I never expected that I would have a life in Taipei, much less have one to leave behind, but there it is.

posted by vicky at 3:48 pm under Asia, Taiwan
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