I think it was Hemingway that famously quoted that the most important thing that you learn of travelling is that what you left behind.
I felt emotionally really sorry for the bloke – to have your childhood dream ripped apart like that is something that can take you two ways.
You either treat the whole thing as a turning point in your life and take the positives from it, or you become depressed at some how failing.
Personally I feel he should treat it as a blessing that he has been released from a childhood fantasy – one that will make him praise what he has, and the person he can now become rather than the dream that so many of us follow.
A very moving if somewhat shortlived experience that has lessons for us all – if we only dare to look!