The border crossing into Turkey was a sobering and novel experience. Leaving the EU for the gates of the East, I crossed a DMZ bridge. On each side, Turkish and Greek soldiers equipped with Ops-Core gear looked a bit bored, relaxing in the morning sun. I waved at them, empathizing with their mundane duty of standing all day looking at the other side with nothing else to do. The Turkish border customs officers were as stern as the tail-wagging dogs that roamed around the barriers. I tried my best Turkish to elicit a smile from the one checking my paperwork. No reaction. I kept at it, determined to see some humanity in this stern Turkish Official. Eventually, I saw a suppressed smile appear, satisfied he wasn’t a robot but a human after all—a victory under my belt. I had made it and opened up Tara onto the Turkish roads!

It was such a relief to meet Alex again; we hadn’t seen each other for over 12 years, probably more, since I joined up. We grew up together in Brussels in the late '90s, early 2000s. Our youth was a mix of European technocracy and dabbling even fingering with criminality. Brussels in those days was wild, hash from Morocco, ecstasy from Holland, and a booming underground techno scene was too hard to resist for our young and curious souls.

The storm that chased me from the Dolomites continued to pursue me across the Balkans. I was set to head to the coast as fast as possible to escape the rain and soggy boots. But, as is often the case, no plan survives contact; or as Mike Tyson so eloquently put it, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face."

Departures are never easy; they signify change, stepping away from something, someone, somewhere. Going somewhere new and having to say goodbye—a bittersweet mix. Just getting to the departure line was a test in itself. Having partied a bit too much a few nights before leaving to celebrate the removal of my kidney stone, I let procrastination get the better of me and left some of my admin to be done at the last minute.