Today I’m back in the Netherlands for two weeks. I think that’s a good moment to write again. I do miss the travel blog when I’m here. It’s just harder to write when I’m back in ‘normal life’. Perhaps that’s not a writing issue, but more a living issue. As after almost any journey, it’s a bit challenging to adjust to being back home. Physically I’m landed here, but part of my heart it still in the United States. I think it’ll always be.
Thursday two weeks ago I flew back from San Diego to Amsterdam. In the plane I wrote the last stories of this trip. I find it very convenient to have WiFi on the planes these days, it helps making the long hours in the sky more productive. After I’ve updated my travel blog I do some work and then finally sleep for a few hours. I’m never happy when I see the Dutch landscape appear again just before landing. It means the adventure is over. The landing goes quickly and customs goes faster than ever, because with my Dutch passport I can skip the lines and go through electronic gates. Nice. My luggage also arrives safely and soon I’m walking out of the doors of the arrival area. The last few times my mom usually picked me up at the airport, but there are strikes of train personal and so there is no easy way to get to the airport. With a subway and busses I manage to get home in about three hours. For the next few days I’m thinking to myself that I should really get a car, but when I talk with friends how much a car costs in the Netherlands (easily 500 bucks a month including gas), I figure I rather save that money for traveling.
Back home I enjoy the convenience of my own shower and bed, laundry machine and other things that you usually take for granted. I don’t like that the adventure is over, but I do like that I have a great appartement to live in. There is always something to be thankful for. The little garden on my balcony is also looking good thanks to a handy solar-powered irrigation system I installed before the vacation. Some of the herbs, basil and oregano, are growing well and I also see some first strawberries appearing. In the next few days some strawberries are turning red and they are delicious. Strawberries from your own garden taste so much better than the ones from the supermarket. Talking about supermarkets, that’s definitely something to get used to again. I thought inflation was bigger in America, but I think that’s not true. Prices have continued going up here as well. What I miss most is the variety of products you have at Walmart and Costco. I often tell my American friends that supermarkets here are ten times smaller than in the United States and that’s really true. For example: where you have about 10 choices of breakfast cereal here, you’ll have 100 in America and don’t get me started about the ice cream. Compared to American supermarkets, ice cream choices here are basically non-existent. The same is for almost any product. Where you have everything at walmart, the choices here a very limited. Oh well, I don’t want this to a complaining blog post, I’m just trying to show what I’m missing when I do my groceries here. At least here I can just walk or bike to the supermarket, to look at the positive side.
The first weekend that I’m back is actually quite fun. My parents are on vacation in a caravan in the forest and my sister and I are visiting them on Saturday and Sunday. We go for some walks, eat ice cream (of course, haha) and play some games. It’s great to see them again, they’re the main reason I keep coming back here and also why I’ve decided to live here. I’m thankful and blessed to have a loving family.
On Monday I start working again and fortunately it’s a national holiday, so it’s not too busy yet. It gives me a nice opportunity to catch up slowly. The jet lag isn’t too bad this time, I’ve been using melatonin to sleep better and found that it helps especially well with jet lags. I immediately bring back my strong morning routine, getting up at 5am and working out at the gym every workday. That’s definitely a good thing of being back home. I want to get back into shape, getting stronger and fitter again this summer. During the days I work either at home or at a coffee place and usually in the afternoon after work I go to a coffee place to read and write. We don’t have as many coffee places as in most American cities, but I appreciate that I can keep doing that when I’m here. One of my favorite coffee places in Utrecht is called Casa Fareira. It’s a Portuguese cafe and most people that work there speak only Portuguese and English and also there are many international people visiting. Being there gives me a bit of a vacation feeling and it also reminds me of the coffee places in Spain that I visited a few months ago with my dad.
Besides the coffee places I make sure to do other fun things. In the weekends I usually go to a different city. My favorite city in the Netherlands to visit regularly is The Hague. It’s right by the beach and they have scooters that you can rent to get there. Riding a scooter through the city is probably as close as I can get to the feeling of driving a car in a city in America. I find it a fun way of transportation and it’s a fast and easy way to get to the beach. Because I usually go in the mornings, the city and beach are not so busy yet and I get to spend quite some time there before the crowds arrive. Just to draw a comparison, the sea here is again nothing compared to the Pacific Ocean at the west coast. Where you have beautiful waves and clear blue water in California and Oregon, here the water is usually quite flat and has a dirty green-brown color. It doesn’t stop me from going for a quick dive, but it’s again one of those things that’s soooo much better in America. Again, trying not to complain, but just pointing out why I love it so much there. And hopefully, if some of my American friends are reading this I hope they’ll realize how blessed they are with all the great things there.
One other fun thing I do from time to time is going to the airport. Even when I don’t fly I still find it nice to be there. Looking at people departing and arriving and watching the planes take off is enjoyable to me. Also the whole vibe at the airport, that rush of energy is something that charges me up.
There are great things here if you look for them. Just yesterday I had a work meeting and public transport would have taken 1,5 hours, but I saw that it was only 45 minutes on the bike. So I did the latter and the route was through the forest. It was very relaxing and I enjoyed the fact that I could do my work commute on a bike. And in the evening I gave myself the pleasure of ordering a pizza, drinking some beers and have ice cream for dessert. Of course I know that’s not healthy, but I find that I have to create moments fun and relaxing moments like that to keep the joy. I’m almost daily searching for little moments that bring joy. Often it are little things, like spending some time at a coffee place, but it’s also things like calling with my grandma in Montana. Then there is the occasional fast-food or ice cream or a walk in the city on a sunny day. Eating a strawberry from my own garden or enjoying a home cooked meal while watching a sitcom. I think a lot of joyful moments are related to food, but that’s probably not surprising since eating is so essential. I do also find joy in my work and in working together with friends. When I think of the coming months, one thing I’m actually looking forward to is working on Webpresso and further building the business. That’s something to be thankful for and that I can usually do better when I’m here.
So, two weeks later I’m still missing the adventure, but making the best of being back. It’s now a time of working and saving again. The other day I thought to myself that if I can keep doing it in this way, working for about 10 months of the year and traveling for almost 2 months, then it’s actually a pretty good life. It’s probably also a well-balanced life, since always traveling would be exhausting and probably not fun anymore after a while. I think that the key will be not to live for those two months (like living for the weekend), but also make the ten months here awesome. I have another great adventure to be thankful for, some wonderful new memories that still put a big smile on my face, and a hope for future journeys.
