Mina’s last day

I hate it, but of course it had to come — today was Mina’s last day in Vienna.  (Technically, she doesn’t leave until tomorrow, but we’ll leave for the airport before 7:30 in the morning, so that doesn’t really count.)  I don’t want to focus on the sadness of her leaving, but I am sad.  It has been wonderful and amazing having her here.  I don’t want her to go.

This whole “being away from my family” thing is really foreign to me.  Before moving here, the longest I’d ever been away from the members of my immediate family was when Mina moved to California for 7 months, years ago.  I didn’t stress about it or anything, but I didn’t know what it would be like, seeing her again now, after almost a year.  Well, now I know — it was GREAT.  On the one hand, I missed her terribly, and it was so wonderful and exciting to see her again.  On the other hand, it was exactly like no time had passed at all.  Nothing was different, except that it’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other.  (I give a lot of credit for that to the internet — we’re able to keep in touch so easily that we don’t even really need to “catch up”.)

We had a nice day today, and we didn’t focus on her impending departure.  We mostly relaxed and didn’t do a lot — we were all worn out from our super busy day yesterday.  We did go out to one of my favorite Vienna restaurants which overlooks the city from the hills in the west.  The food was good, but the waitress was harried.  The view was beautiful.  Benjamin got stern with Mina on the way back because he felt like she was not giving herself enough time to prepare to get off of the U-bahn at our stop.  I’m so glad we had this day together, and all the days we’ve had on this trip.

I am going to miss her.  I wish she was staying longer.  But, we’ve made it through the hardest part — we’ve already been gone for a year.  And this year, we’re coming home, at least once, for a long trip.  So we’re on the downhill part of this journey.  And maybe she had such a wonderful time here in Vienna that she won’t be able to stay away.

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