I am realizing that the best part of this adventure is the opportunity to wake up each morning with the day completely undefined. It's like looking at a blank canvas and deciding what color or object to paint on it. I wake up in a new place, without most of the things that made me comfortable in my former home in Texas. I don't have a schedule, nor people to meet, and really not a clue where essential things are and how to get to them. What would have made me panic before, I now embrace.
This journey involves a deep change in the ideas of how to live and also the internal change that goes along with this. The first week, I've definitely had more questions than answers and have had to improvise and rethink how I normally do things. I love the process.
To get assimilated into this new culture, my first purchase was a Dutch bike. My bike has saddlebags on it to carry items home from the markets. It also has a dual locking system to prevent theft (the biggest crime in the Netherlands I hear) and a bell on the handlebars to let others bikers know that I'm behind them (like I'm going to pass or something?). On the way home from the bike shop with my new bike, it began to rain and then hail on me. I ducked under an awning to avoid the pounding from the hail. But after the hail stopped, I proceeded to ride in the cool rain and laughed all the way home. The first adventure to the market, I made a total of four trips in one day to get ready for my sister's visit. I could only buy at one time what I could carry home on the bike. There is a simplicity of buying only what you need for the day and also only buying what you can carry home on the bike that drives choices at the market. It changes the way I think about things.
It takes several weeks to get a new cell phone in the Netherlands. It was huge for me to go without a phone. I've had a phone in my hand for the past 5 years with many calls every day for Picture This! And here I was traveling around in a new place and didn't have the phone to rely on for maps and for that desperate phone call to Paul if I got lost. It made me pay attention to where I was and where I was going. It frightened me a little bit to be without it, but it was freeing as well. It occurred to me that it's not a bad thing to just wander around a little bit. Half the fun of travel is that it brings this feeling of lostness, of going places in a way that you haven't gone before. In fact, true places aren't really on any map.
Not knowing anyone and also not knowing the language is giving me some time to be alone. It's not really loneliness, but solitude. It's not an empty space. I've mastered "Good morning or Good day" and hello "Hallo" in Dutch to greet those around me. At the city street market, I asked for 4 komkommers. An older lady laughed with the market clerk at my request (pretty absurd really to use the English number four and use the Dutch word for cucumber). I was surprised at her response, but just joined in her laughter. Laughter is the same in all languages.
I'm hoping this journey gives me an opportunity to travel around and visit many new places. I hope it also allows me to go the distance within.
I'm living vicariously!! Enjoy every moment! It's all about the journey:) xoxo
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