Homeward Bound

Well, the time has finally come. I am in the final stages of preparing to go "home". Sky's wedding is coming up very fast (Aug 4th) and the parents have already gone home to prepare themselves. They flew out last Thursday and at the same time I caught the train back to Nuremburg to hang out for a few more days before my flight to Vancouver next Wednesday.
As the moment approaches I find myself thinking more and more what "home" means. I actually refer to a lot of places as "home" these days and I find that saying I'm going home now doesn't actually mean anything more to me than a bunch of other places. If home is where you live then for me home is here, there and everywhere and we'd often referred to where our big backpacks were as home throughout the trip. If home is somewhere you live for a while then I've had a few homes over the last couple of years; Egypt, Thailand, Philippines and Australia come to mind. Or does it need to be a proper home with a family type situation? In that case I could nominate my time in Singapore also. Friends? I have friends all over the world so I can't use that as a guideline. Family? Half my immediate family lives in Holland now so does that also qualify as home? If home is where you come from then I guess we can scrap any home for true integration of immigrants though I refuse to believe you are forever trapped by your original culture and country...
In Australia, where I worked and lived in a single city for the better part of a year but refused to properly settle by staying hostel-bound the whole time, I got a taste of "homeness" though I always longed to move on. Since then I have been visiting friends and revisiting places, all of which had a home-like feeling to them. That initial familiarity of Kuala Lumpur and then seeing the family I stayed with in Singapore again were nice but just warm ups to the Philippines. It felt like coming home when I entered the Philippines again for my 3rd visit. Does wanting to be somewhere and feeling comfortable there count as home? And then going "home" to my parents in Holland right after. Meeting up with them again is like a homecoming also... And now I'll get another one.
It needs to be done. I haven't been in Vancouver for 4 1/2 years so there is a list of things I need to deal with, people I need to finally meet (like the bride to be!), etc.
I am confident that this will remain more of a visit than me calling it quits and settling down so the blog will remain active and I will continue to post and let you know how well I deal with the culture shock of returning to Vancouver.
Ammon