At some point I came across this chap, Multatuli, which is the pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker most famous for his book Max Havelaar which attacked Dutch colonial abuses in Java.
After meandering in and out of coffee shops and restaurants all day I retrieved my bag from a locker at the railway station then headed off on a local bus to the amusingly named suburb of Sloterdijk, where the rain returned and on the dot of nine yet another long-distance bus took us to Dresden, final stop in Praha, via Hannover and Leipzig, on which I was woken, spaced-out, for a passport check by a beautiful blonde German policewoman, kind of satisfying one of my top five dreams.
At 7.15am I got a train from Dresden Hauptbahnof, south into Czecho where I changed my remaining dollars into crowns and gave them to Mirek the bank guy who once spent four years in North Carolina "cleaning". Then I took another bus uphill into cloud but had to change and wait 30 minutes in a pretty village, and there it started raining as soon as I got off, so I went into the Town Hall pub for a coffee but the creaking ancient waiter in leather waistcoat came over and just put a beer in front of me without saying a word, and I thought 'welcome home', drank it, got on the final bus of the entire 8 week trip, got off in the square 10 minutes later, dropped in at Tippach for a coffee this time, said hello to the boys and girls, before wandering home for a long sleep because the road can be very tiring.
Just before hitting the sack I stood about in the flat as if reconciled with a long-lost, almost forgotten friend, and on the window sill in the lounge I found a ladybird that, if I'm honest, is dead, but I've left it (difficult to establish the gender as I ain't no Dr. Hodek) there in the hope that's it's really just in hibernation and in the early spring when the magical watery cool sun arrives and the world is re-born, it will rouse and stretch its wings and fly out of a window left open to welcome in the season fresh with blossom, and from here the ladybug (if you're American) can float off on a breeze to anywhere the winds please.
A photographic view of the final leg.