Despite the aforementioned midday nap I arrived in Budapest tired, confused and very nearly overwhelmed. I clang to my suitcase while Martijn wandered around in search of the new currency, almost wishing I didn’t have to go through the motions of getting to know a strange city all over again. But, determined to keep my resolution, I pulled out my camera and tried to capture the moment.

Martijn came back and pointed to the departures board: a train left for Thessaloniki in thirty five minutes. And –even though Thessaloniki, despite being my home town, has never felt like home, and even though the train took over a day to get there– this fact seemed, suddenly, magically, highly significant. Never before had my travels taken me to a place that was within reach of my hometown — my much-loved, so-very-familiar, yet-never-really-home home town. Suddenly, magically, I felt like we had arrived some place very special; like we had come full circle; like we were, this time, on our way home.