My last couple of days at the school were strange…I complained so much about how irritating the kids were and how I never want to be a teacher again, but as I spent the last couple of days with them, I actually realised that I would miss the little buggers. They taught me a LOT about patience and about caring for other people. Somedays they made me so angry that I wanted to punch them in their tiny little faces (seriously? I would never REALLY do that), but I learned to relax and stay calm even if little Jamie started biting me or I.T (Yes that is his name) repeats the sentence, “I miss mom, I miss mom, I miss mom, I miss mom” four hundred times a day.

I wont forget trying to get Igor, a Russian boy, to stop spitting on his classmates whilst shouting: “Angry Birds!!” or trying to keep a straight face when Kenneth burst out crying at football practice, repeatedly screaming at the top of his lungs : “They say I stink!!!” because his friends thought he smelled bad.

On the Wednesday my cousins finally arrived. I booked them a trip to Phi Phi Island the next day whilst I finish up the last couple of days at work. On Friday we had a Christmas play at the School after which we had a staff lunch at a nice restaurant in Phuket town. This was it, I had to say goodbye to these people who where my first friends on the island. After saying goodbye to all the staff members we all left the restaurant. For some reason everyone, except me, parked downstairs in the underground parking area. This resulted in a very dramatic, yet fitting, goodbye because everyone had to go down the escalator whilst I had to go up. And as I looked at them slowly descending downstairs, waving at me, I felt like a Coldplay song should be playing while I drive off into the sunset.

The people at the school I worked with were amazing. They were not only colleagues of mine, but also became very good friends of mine. It is funny how you could get so close to complete strangers even if they are from a total different country or culture.

After the lunch I had to get ready for my farewell BBQ and party at Laguna nightclub. It was an amazing night with the whole crowd of island friends. We partied till about 4 o’clock. From there a couple of us went to the Chalong Pier. We sat on the pier for a while just talking and saying the final goodbyes. The sun was about to rise and I told my cousins that I would really like to drive up to Big Buddha to go look at my last sunrise in Phuket, from there. So the three of us got on our scooters and drove up the hill.

When we got there it suddenly got very cloudy and misty. It was really cold as well and we could not even see the sun. We stayed there for a while hoping to get a glimpse of the sun, but we never saw it. At least I tried. It was on my Phuket bucket list and I think I can still tick it off.

We made our way down the hill so I can finish packing a whole year’s worth of memories in my tiny backpack. Giving a last look at my flat and saying goodbye to the two street dogs I pretended was mine, we made our way to JaJa’s for a final breakfast and to get the taxi that would take us to the bus station.

Peace out Phuket it’s been real. Thanks for the best year of my life!