Long time, no see. No see, long time.

Dear loved ones,

Lately I did not feel the urge of writing this blog since my life here has just become more and more fabulous.

Now that the time here in Hong Kong comes close to an end I am getting more and more sentimental and experience the city in a new, unknown way. In the beginning I had to focus my senses for not being completely overwhelmed by the colorful and hectic way of living. Now, after having lived here for a couple of months my mind is capable of distinguishing between necessary and unnecessary, relevant and irrelevant information, which guarantees a re-experiencing of this wonderful city. The smallest things suddenly become important, the smells and noises become familiar and a part of myself that I do not want to miss anymore. It should be possible to catch smells in jars. The best souvenir one could possibly imagine.

Wednesday I had my last class and finished with Uni here. Tuesday is the deadline for my last essay, the 15th the last exam. If I should tell someone, what my feelings of this exchange have been, I'd say the best experience of my life. It was rather hard leaving all my friends in The Hague but at the same time leaving meant a new beginning for me and the thought that everyone was going to be gone anyway in my mind made me more than prepared to experience a new part of my life that is not HEBO.

Yesterday, Chloé, Ted and I had dinner with our country tutor Joe Morrin at a very nice Indian restaurant, called "Bombay Dreams". Recapitulating our experiences here, we all came to the same conclusion that these months passed by too fast and we are by no means ready yet to go back. If this blog is read by any students I might not know in person, let me say that Mr. Morrin by no means exaggerated when presenting the Asian countries. Studying in a European environment is clearly one of the advantages of HEBO. Going abroad (and thereby leaving Europe) sheds a completely new light on what Europe means, what its role in the world is and how privileged especially our students are when choosing from a vast diversity of non-European Universities. As my friend Lars in his double-negation always says: "This should never not be happening." And I fully agree. This is special, wonderful and mind broadening. I hope that our University will always be as open in the future and enforce more non-European contacts to enable all students of HEBO to experience the world in such an open, tolerant and fantastic way as I did.