Home Sweet Home. (??!)

After a 21 hour long journey I find myself back in cold Norway (7 degrees celsius) with a thin shirt and sandals on my feet. The company I flew in with mixed up my luggage so my sitar is now hopefully somewhere to be found in Brussels.

Even though getting inside an airport should be fairly easy when reading signs, I spent the 20 first minutes at Chennai International looking for the entrance, walking back and forth between taxi drivers who wanted to take me to a nearby hotel. Over and over I had to tell them that I was leaving.

- "But, no, it is a nice hotel!"
- "Listen my good man; I'm leaving India. I'm departing!"

Getting checked in went smoothly, but when going through immigration the lady in the booth looked at my passport picture, then looked at me, and looked at the picture again. I started laughing telling her that "I have changed quite a bit in one year.". Her expression changed to somewhat sceptical, walked to another booth with my passport and got an another guys opinion. I was let through all the way to customs right next to immigration. There they didn't like the fact that I didn't have the boarding card from Brussels to Norway. I had to tell them that the air company couldn't give me that until I got to Brussels because it was two different companies. After explaining to them about my lip piercing, that it didn't hurt, didn't bleed and was not in the way of my eating I was let out to join the other passengers in the security. Security was also the same. All my belongings were going through the scanner and I was going through the detector and even because of all these safety precautions I had to be body searched again. The detector beeped on my belt buckle. He looked at it and I just had to comment that "it was fairly huge". (Just imagine how that sounded like to the others around him). He smiled at me and let me pass. Bingo! I was on the plane back.

In Brussels everything went fine. I was talking about ice skating and extreme sports with the immigration police man and went on to the next plane to Oslo. This is where I realized where I was going. Quiet business people minding their own business. No people asking about where you went from, why I have tattoos, my piercings. Everyone grey and dull. On the plane I was almost having a breakdown. I was close to going nuts. I needed to do something. I was twitching and turning in the seat. Finally I just closed my eyes and tried to imagine I was somewhere else. Anyhow, I think it will take some time getting used to the fact that it's not warm outside. That it isn't as easy meeting new people. That it is more boring food. But, hey, have to make the most of it right? Only few months until Trondheim and then few months for Melbourne (?)! All right. I'll keep you updated on the changes. I may be home, but I'm not done writing.