Day 86 – The end of an era

I think we all walked the Camino for a certain reason and with a certain idea of how it might turn out. But non of us would have even imagined what happened in the end.
Today – two weeks after officially finishing the Camino and going home – we said goodbye to Mitch and Ben.

After spending 3 days with Tom in the black forest, against their plan to go home directly from there, Mitch and Ben came back to Saarland with us once again on Saturday.
Trying to enjoy our last days together as intensely as possible, non of us got very much sleep after we had gotten out of that 6-hour train ride back home three days ago.
We were welcomed by my parents with another fire and Greek food that evening.

The next day, we drove to Saarbrücken in the afternoon to spend the day hanging out at the Staden and listening to some weird Bavarian cover band at “Musik am schloss”. We were joined by our good friends Arthur, Conny, Anke and Flo and finished up our night at Cafe Especial, as in old times.

Yesterday (or today? The limits are difficult to determine) was a very lazy day which we spent mostly hanging around half-asleep in the shade. When it got a little cooler, there was dinner, which had to be eaten from the lawn after my dad had dropped the pot on his way to the table (which was quite amusing).

As we had to bring Mitch and Ben to their train at 4 o clock this morning, we stayed awake once more and went there directly without going to bed in-between. Before finally separating after this long time, we used the night-hours for some intense talking about all the stuff we have lived in the last month together.

It will definitely be a strange adjustment to be alone in the next few days. It seems like we have spent an eternity together and we really got used to each other.
And although I appreciate and look forward to some quiet alone-time, private space and a more decent daily rhythm, it is very sad to think that this era has finally ended.

Johanna and I split up and went home at 6 when the sun was already shining hot and bright from the sky and felt pretty destroyed. It seems like the ones who will have to deal with jet-lag won’t be the two Americans…
I went to bed immediately and woke up at 1, catching myself wondering who was awake and what we would do today until I remembered that no one was there anymore.