The Light at the End of the Tunnel / Das Licht am Ende des Tunnels

Being in Austria hasn't really felt like being in a tunnel at all, but the light at the end of it sure is shining brightly. Instead of our return home being months and months away, it is now only weeks away, and that feels strange. Sure, it's still quite a few weeks away, seven and a half to be exact, but you don't even need two hands of fingers to count that high.

I keep picking up the Last Minute travel flyers at Hofer, which aren't always so very last minute but are always good deals and fun to look at, but I have realized that I don't need to look at them any more. Our time for adding more vacations and explorations is done. We've got a couple upcoming long weekends and list of the things we really hope to see and do in and around Salzburg before we go, and plugging just those things in to the remaining weekends is a challenge.

I've started getting rid of clothing, an enormous bag of winter clothing going to a local charity's flea market (which, I have to admit, we went to and I saw this really nice sweater - the only nice sweater in the pile - and then realized it had been mine!), a pair of worn out running shoes left behind in Regensburg, a spun-out long sleeve t-shirt with stretched out arms that had grow so long that they hung below my hands simply being tossed into the garbage. Many more clothes will disappear in the coming weeks.

Peter's replacement will be arriving soon for her in-town orientation, and so we've been cleaning up the apartment - washing windows, sorting clutter, finding dust bunny families under the furniture and so on. Of course she doesn't need to see a clean apartment, and we'll have to do an even more thorough cleaning before we move out, but we'd like to give her the chance to see her future home in a better state than when we first saw it.

Peter has the Red Notebook (now the Green Notebook because it outgrew the red one), the handbook of life in Salzburg that is passed on year after year from Resident Director to Resident Director, all ready to go. That small unceremonious tradition, a passing of the torch (or notebook in this case), really feels like an ending to me. Sure, Peter will still have plenty of classes to teach, and I will have plenty of classes to attend, and there are obligations that still need to be met - like getting those stupid heaters professionally cleaned, which is a springtime thing. I remember when we received the notebook last year and how exciting and interesting it was to read through it and imagine what this year would be like and what we might do with our time. For me, the passing off of the notebook will signify that our tour of duty is over and that someone else's is just beginning. It seems like it has come far too soon.