For two weeks, I returned to my homeland, the Netherlands, to reconnect with friends and family and enjoy the refreshing weather. The Netherlands is a place where windmills spin in the distance, bicycles rule the roads, and my family enjoys dinner under our garden’s fig tree. This journey was not just a break from the unforgiving heat of Dubai, but also a way to reconnect with my Moroccan roots and be a tourist in my European hometown. As Nelson Mandela once said, a sentence that resonates with many expats:

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

Back home in the Netherlands, there is always the comforting sense of familiarity, where my childhood remains unchanged, in clear contrast with Dubai’s dynamic and ever-changing pace. Ending this travel blog, I’ll share a quote from Miriam Adeney that echoes my own journey as an expat living in diverse places:

You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That’s the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.