July 30th 2024
Belgrade Airport
– Adam, Adam! Someone is calling from the past life.
I’m standing at the gate area of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport.
This will be my last flight from Belgrade.
This is the end of an era.
We began our nomad life in October 2016 in Ubud, Bali.
In a place where all the nomad stories begin.
Adam
Adam part of the story can be read also in Finnish in my minimalism blog Minimaattori / Adamin tarina on kerrottu myös suomeksi Minimaattori-blogissani.
February 2nd, 2018
Ubud, Bali
“Good night and merry Christmas!”, I wish my spouse before going to sleep.
“Thanks as well, see you before Easter” he replies.
It’s our last night in Ubud. In the morning we pack our bags and do a small city tour; I go to a familiar masseuse for the last time, my spouse to a barber.
I have been an entrepreneur exactly 18 years today.
Cheers to it with a homemade mango-banana yogurt smoothie!
I will make some and let it cool down in the fridge.
Meanwhile, I go to exchange the US dollars I’ve carried with me as an emergency reserve for several years into Indonesian rupiahs when the bottom of my wallet shines. The next payment from the customer will not arrive until a week and a half later.
Last walk before leaving Ubud
We decide to visit a familiar place from our last trip, a neighborhood where we lived in November 2016.
Maybe Adam is still on the same stairs where he always slept…
Adam is a stray dog who was afraid of most people but trusted a few people who gave him food.
Adam learned to trust us too. We calmed it down after it had bouts of howling in the evenings and westopped to talk to it every day when we passed by.
We don’t see Adam.
We continue walking and peek into familiar yards.
In front of one of the stores, we hear offering:
“Something? Something?”
There are small handmade sculptures for sale.
We smile and answer:
“No thanks”.
The man stares at us for a long time.
We get back in a moment.
We decide to ask Bagus if he has seen Adam.
His eyes light up and his mouth spreads into laughter.
“I thought you looked familiar!”
Goodbye
Bagus gets serious and shakes his head sadly.
“Thank you for taking care of Adam”
The man continues by saying that the dog got sick four months ago.
Bagus had carried Adam to the vet, but it was too late.
“There is no more Adam”.
He invites us to sit next to him on the stairs and walks into the back room shouting that he will make us coffee.
Then we sit on the stairs chatting and exchanging news over cups of coffee.
“Why don’t you buy a plot of land here, it’s for sale nearby, you’ll have a good time in Ubud”, our old friend wonders and starts listing prices per hectare.
We tell him that we are leaving for Sanur and will continue to New Zealand in a few days. We are sorry that we haven’t had time to visit him before, but we tell him we will return in the last hours of the last day of the month.
It’s time to go
Bagus calls his taxi driver friend to pick us up.
We collect our backpacks from our accommodation.
Our hostess bids us farewell, happy that we will be back soon.
We speed away and after half an hour of driving, I remember that the smoothie was left in the fridge.
I used to travel for my work as a photojournalist without my partner. He often said goodbye vawing “Happy February, see you next month!”
Now we continue the journey together as digital nomads.
That’s why wishing Merry Christmas before going to bed has become our mutual joke.
We actually see each other as soon as we open our eyes, and not until many, many mornings later.
The last flight from Belgrade
Our original six months of traveling turned out to be years. We finally settled down in Belgrade, Serbia.
We never decided to do so, but we just couldn’t leave as we fell in love with this beautiful city.
But then. Life goes on and it was our time to move on.
He was already in Finland, I traveled between Finland and Serbia.
It was again like back in the days when I was constantly flying to meet him,
and took off again.
July 30th 2024,
Belgrade Airport
The time had come.
My time to take the last flight from Belgrade as Belgradian.
I ‘m at the newly reconstructed terminal of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport.
I wonder if I should have a coffee for the last time’s sake. Or should I walk around to film some footage for my YouTube videos.
I stand wondering in my thoughts, but suddenly I wake to the reality.
Someone is loudly calling
“Adam, Adam!”
And I suddenly remember Adam the dog from the beginning of our nomad life.
It’s been almost eight years.
This is the end of an era
I walk to the gate area.
There was not much traffic on the highway and passport control and security checks had been so fast that my flight wasn’t on board yet.
There are empty seats at the gate A6.
I sit there to wait for the gate announcement.
45 minutes and the text appears on the screen: LO572 Warsaw.
That’s my flight. On the Gate A6 screen.
It’s my time to board. This is the end of an era.
The sign on the wall says:
Vidimo se uskoro, see you soon.
I take the last glimpse towards the terminal as we are pulled off from the gate.
Before LOT Polish Airlines Embraer 190 takes off, the announcement starts clear from the flight deck:
“This is your captain speaking, my name is Adam…”
