It’s about that time where I will be catching up with the lion’s share of people who I have met Abroad. I am now officially in Western Europe. Not Central. Not Eastern. Not Scandinavia and Not Southern. But to start, I am in Amsterdam and I am visiting Zaza, a good Dutch friend of mine who I met 6 months ago in New Zealand.
Her travels ended over 4 months ago and she is just now getting used to the normal life of work and school. She showed me the city sparing no delight. Though I resisted every time, she insisted on paying for everything. We went to two museums and rented bikes for the day. The first museum we went to was, or course, the sex museum. Why not? We are in Amsterdam. This was kooky at best, but most of it was just a bunch of erotic art. Slap an oversized dick on it and you could see your art here too.
After that we went to the science museum, which was a 9 year old’s wet dream. I wish I had a place like this when I was a kid. All of the hands on science experiment type stuff that you can shake a stick at. The city was raining on and off and I had a little bit of a cold, so I was not enthusiastic to go dancing in it. Next we went to the red light district, which is a funny dynamic to say the least. Walking down the streets my little naive brain produced a cute little question. “Why are some of the windows draped closed? You’d think that they would want to be open for business during these peak hours.” A swift reply from Zaza “They are in the MIDDLE of business.”
Then there were the special coffee shops. They all reeked of weed. But I couldn’t understand why there were so many restaurants and snack shops situated so closely to these places. MAYYYYBEEE because people had the munchies? Now I think I’m catching on to this whole Amsterdam thing.
I was pleasantly surprised with the diversity that I found in Amsterdam. People of all shapes and sizes were spurting out dutch with phrases with cracked smiles. The people in my hostel couldn’t understand why I wasn’t hitting the special coffee shops for breakfast lunch and dinner. They couldn’t understand why someone would come to this town if they were not going to indulge in all of the unique legalitys here.
Back to Zaza and her coping with normal life. When we rented bikes, she told me that “It feels good to be a tourist again.” It’s a nice release, even if it is at home. This is were I felt invincible. I began to realize that 99% of the people who I have met abroad have now gone home from their big special trip. They are back to the grind, but I am a long way from home.
Speaking of long. You might wonder, when did I feel like I’ve been away fro a long time? About a week ago when I hit the 7 month marker. That’s when I felt how long it had been. But and I sick of it? Not in the slightest. For now, in the traveling world, I feel like I am the chosen one. Where all else have fallen, I still solder on.
Even with the rain and my sickness, I am excited to the max. In the last month (Since I’ve entered the Schengen) area I have been to 11 countries! My pace will slow in the next month, but looking back, that is more than half the amount of countries that I had been to in my entire life (before I started this trip).