There's no place like home

My apartment in Antwerp

Eating fries at the cafetaria around the corner. Buying a bread at the Turkish store a few streets away. Drinking a beer in the pub where my girlfriend works. Looking out of the window of my apartment to see the beautiful facades of the houses. Limping out of the sports school after a tough training of Brazillian Jiu Jitsu. Drinking a chai tea in the arty pub next to the laundromat while my wash is in the dryer.

It's the small things that makes you feel home, and it's the small things that you're going to miss the most. Even if you go back to do these things again, it's never going to be the same because it's simply not part of your life anymore. The more things I pack, the more I realize how I'm going to miss Antwerp, the city that was my home for more than two years.

March 2009. Yigit Unan, my teampartner in the first year of Duval Guillaume, was celebrating his last evening in Belgium. We drank a beer together, said goodbye and after that he left and I stayed there with my girlfriend. The rest of the place was partying on like nothing happened. It's a bizarre, empty feeling. And for some reason it felt like I was the one leaving. Because it was exactly like saying goodbye to a good friend before you step on a train or plane.

We, Miami Ad School graduates, know what it's like to leave a place. We've done it before. We left our homes, our countries, our friends and families because we share a common passion for the art of advertising. We left our home once, and we did it another two, three, four times in the second year, when we went for an internship every quarter. We don't stay where our life is, we go where our work is. Everywhere we go we leave behind a trail of lives, loves, homes and friends. And we take planes like we're stepping into the subway train. Because we know we have to move on. We're the gypsies of marketing, the pilgrims of our career. And wherever we go, we think it's our new home. But it's not true. It just feels like it. Even if you go back to your country of birth or a place you've been before. Because for nomads like us there really is no place like home...