they're gone... they're gone...

I am a solo traveller once more.

Three hours ago my buddies left the hostel, taking off for Manchester, and then London before heading home. And me? I stay behind. Two more nights in this hostel. Maybe more. I don't know. Dresden will be visited at some point. I have to get on that. Tomorrow I guess? Head over to the train station, get a ticket, book some hostel there – see the sights, enjoy the views, then head right on back to Berlin for a final few days in Europe.

But now, I'm doing it on my own again. And you know what? For two and a half months that was great. For two and a half months that was everything I could have asked for. I love being on my schedule, and doing things my way. It's great. It's wonderful. And hell, if it leaves a void.

To be perfectly honest, I think I understand marriage a lot better now. There are times you may be full of angst, times you may want to get out, times you may want to do terrible things to the other person – but at the end of the day it adds so much more, and works so much better than the alternative. It's just from inside you can't always see clearly.

So now I'm back on my own. And to honest, it kind of sucks. Now this may be because I haven't had the two or three days required to build up my walls once more, or because I'm still in the same place I was before, seeing through my same eyes, but a very different lens. Or – it could be that I just miss my buddies. And for so long it was easy to accept that I wouldn't see them for a year, but the internet, and email would still keep everything connected.

But then there they are, and it's amazing. And it's great. And these are the people who play DS with, talk about comics with, board game with, and stay up way too late playing video games with. But they're here. In Europe. And that's crazy. Sights like Prague's centre square, to this point, had been things for me to see alone, and to be experienced alone. When I got back in a year, I could tell tales, and others would know about it because they'd been reading my blog, which I appreciate quite a lot, actually – so thank you – but it wouldn't be the same.

Now though, knowing that we have a collective experience, eating the bread pizzas, visiting the The Castle, and standing on the slightly terrifying bridge, wandering aimlessly around Berlin, and exploring the Neurmberg castle – not to mention driving way too fast while singing Save Tonight, and Hotel California... well that these are shared memories, and not just mine alone to safeguard, changed everything.

Maybe I'll see them again in April – maybe – but even still, April? That's so long from now. That's half a year, a third, anyway, at best. And until then I'll wander the globe on my own. Sure I'll have some guided tours with groups, and I'll make hostel friends as I have been doing up to now; there's something different about touring around with the people you came up with.

It's a great big world, and me? Well I'm relatively small.