3 years
July marked 3 years since I came to Holland. Three years. It’s hard to believe. The first semester in America seemed longer than these three years (the second one seemed like three months). U.S. was another planet. Holland has become, for better or worse, my second home.
When I came here, I did it for an important reason. A reason that made my decision-making easy and crystal clear. It was not a question of “why?”, but a question of “how?”. The “how” seemed very difficult, yet I made it. But now that the original reason is not there anymore, I realize that the real test lays in the “why?”
Biking to work today (haha, I really couldn’t resist the temptation of putting this sentence in! Yes, I can finally bike! In a skirt, high heels, and with a laptop bag! Still can’t pull off the trick with two kids, a grocery bag and a mobile in the hand - just yet!)… So, biking to work today I was thinking about what I would take pictures of if I were a tourist here… Ok, the situation of being a TOURIST in Eindhoven is highly improbable, but that’s why we have imagination! Anyway, I thought about the special traffic lights for bikes, and the old ladies in flirty flowery skirts, and the empty buses (because everyone bikes of course), and the cute houses with flower-bushes around them… The perfect roads, the (really) tall Dutch men in black suits with pink shirts and some crazy polka-dotted blue tie… The kids who look like cherubs with their cute blond curly hair and blue eyes… The ubiquitous kebab places and signs in English, both of which I stopped noticing probably 2 days after arrival, but which are still interesting if you think of it.
A friend from Ukraine recently called Netherlands “Barbie land” - which reminded me of my first train ride in Holland, from Amsterdam to Eindhoven in 2003, and how I was impressed by the perfectly green grass with perfectly clean cows on it and the idyllic lonely houses… I was smiling at this pectoral the whole ride, and probably because I was smiling, people started talking to me… Now I take the train about once a week and complain, in Dutch, and together with other frustrated Dutch people, about how unreliable trains are (“A delay of 15 minutes! No way! That means I’ll miss my connection in Utrecht and will be home at 9 instead of 8.15!!!”).
I could go on and on about Holland, if not for the train I need to catch at 7 am tomorrow… But in short, I guess I just wanted to say a huge thanks. And, I wonder what the future holds. And, come visit me! We’ll bike around together :)
When I came here, I did it for an important reason. A reason that made my decision-making easy and crystal clear. It was not a question of “why?”, but a question of “how?”. The “how” seemed very difficult, yet I made it. But now that the original reason is not there anymore, I realize that the real test lays in the “why?”
Biking to work today (haha, I really couldn’t resist the temptation of putting this sentence in! Yes, I can finally bike! In a skirt, high heels, and with a laptop bag! Still can’t pull off the trick with two kids, a grocery bag and a mobile in the hand - just yet!)… So, biking to work today I was thinking about what I would take pictures of if I were a tourist here… Ok, the situation of being a TOURIST in Eindhoven is highly improbable, but that’s why we have imagination! Anyway, I thought about the special traffic lights for bikes, and the old ladies in flirty flowery skirts, and the empty buses (because everyone bikes of course), and the cute houses with flower-bushes around them… The perfect roads, the (really) tall Dutch men in black suits with pink shirts and some crazy polka-dotted blue tie… The kids who look like cherubs with their cute blond curly hair and blue eyes… The ubiquitous kebab places and signs in English, both of which I stopped noticing probably 2 days after arrival, but which are still interesting if you think of it.
A friend from Ukraine recently called Netherlands “Barbie land” - which reminded me of my first train ride in Holland, from Amsterdam to Eindhoven in 2003, and how I was impressed by the perfectly green grass with perfectly clean cows on it and the idyllic lonely houses… I was smiling at this pectoral the whole ride, and probably because I was smiling, people started talking to me… Now I take the train about once a week and complain, in Dutch, and together with other frustrated Dutch people, about how unreliable trains are (“A delay of 15 minutes! No way! That means I’ll miss my connection in Utrecht and will be home at 9 instead of 8.15!!!”).
I could go on and on about Holland, if not for the train I need to catch at 7 am tomorrow… But in short, I guess I just wanted to say a huge thanks. And, I wonder what the future holds. And, come visit me! We’ll bike around together :)