Sunday: Listening to the Fabulous Feline's account of Tom and him moving his furniture.

Monday. Sitting next to Tom during a whole long boring meeting. Trying to make jokes to each other to make time go by quicker.

Tuesday: Lunch with Tom, just the both of us. Talking about the stress we inflict upon ourselves. (And the lady behind us who was discussing cats dissection on the phone.)

Wednesday: Sitting next to Tom during a very friendly meeting in which we were all trying to entertain each other. (No advisor at the meeting. He's in Europe. I'm jealous.)

Thursday: Once again, lunch with Tom, just the both of us. Talking about traveling and family roots. (And the guy who left the lab but is writing a paper with me, which is starting to be a real pain in the butt. The situation, mind you, not the paper nor the guy. Yet.)

Thursday night: dreaming of Tom. (Not sexually. Just a weird dream in which he was the main character. Together with a sea lion. Shuddup.) How could that possibly happen?

Alright, on my way to inflicting Knowledge on poor little undergraduates now.

I stepped out of the plane feeling slightly disoriented, but happy I managed to pack everything back in a carry-on suitcase and found an aisle seat (I find them more comfortable) in one of the first rows. We were early. In a few minutes, Simon's car would stop at the curb and he would step out of it, hold me in his arms, load the suitcase in the trunk and drive me back to my apartment, were I would be able to settle down and take a shower. It would be very nice.

With fading memories of my parents smiling and waving their hands on the other side of the security line, I walked through the sliding doors while switching my cell phone on. The heat fell down on me, heavily contrasting with the coolness of the overly air-conditioned airport. "Ouch," I thought. "It's really warmer than in San Francisco here... and I was already complaining of the heat this morning. How weird to think that only a few days ago it was so cold I had to buy an extra sweater and ‒ gasp ‒ fingerless gloves!"

So life is back to normal (and the arms of the Fabulous Feline), with memories of a real city with abnormally sloping streets, cute but scary cable cars, impressive bridges, friendly squirrels, sea gulls and sea lions, beautiful flowers and trees, amazing art from Asia and Papua New Guinea, photogenic Victorian houses, rounded bay windows, foggy mornings, and over four hundred pictures to show for it.