Ok... what has been happening in my world since I last wrote...? Maybe that's not a question to be asking anyone else...
Well, when I left you I was still in Amsterdam. I spent a couple of days wandering about. I went to the flea-market, saw the Hermitage Museum which only opened about a month ago, explored the student hang-outs, perused some book-markets, got tired and sat around Anne-Marie and Pieter's house...
Anne-Marie took me to see Harry Potter at the Pathé Tuchinsky, which I believe is the oldest cinema in Amsterdam? If it's not THE oldest, it's pretty far up there, and I reckon it wins out overall in terms of grandeur. It was a fabulous theatre, so beautiful, so much attention to detail, so much love and care and thought into every curve and bulge. Like Anne-Marie said, it was too bad the movie had to show in the dark!
Every moment I shared with Anne-Marie was so special... these are encounters, moments, experiences I will carry in my heart forever.
The next day we went on a good old-fashioned family outing to the zoo! Anne-Marie, Pieter, Suze, Louise and I all trekked around Artis zoo watching the animals... I really felt like part of the family. It's so special to be in an environment that you can just totally relax into. These people welcomed me wholeheartedly; they carved out a comfy little basin for me to curl into and I could just settle there and didn't have to use all my energy trying hack out my own niche, or prove that I could.
The highlight of the zoo was the butterfly house (no no no, I should say vlinder huis!). It was beautiful and magical! Butterflies totally kick arse!
Then I got my hair cut by a very sweet Russian woman 30 seconds up the street, who charged practically nothing, and left me with about the same amount of hair!
Then it was back to Hilversum for me. It was very emotional to step onto that train and have it whiz me away from this woman who I really feel I shared something with. I had tears pricking away at my eyelids and a big chunky lump scratching up my throat.
It was a special experience to come into the home and the life of someone who has always been an almost spectre-like figure in my life- who has always been present, but has never been there. She knew my mother in a way and at a time that no one else on this planet has. She has known me in a way that is totally unique and special to our situation, and even though I can't find the words to express it, meeting her and knowing her and having her treat me with such unhindered kindness, generosity, honesty and openness... it was something I will never forget, and I will always treasure.
Back in Hilversum I pretty much slept like a log and sat around like a dead cat for a day and a half, and then it was off to the Efteling!!!
For those who don't know it, the Efteling is a theme park- Netherlands style! There are various rides and attractions... I'll explain more as I delve into the wonder and perfection that is THE EFTELING!
So, Myrthe and Malou were taking me to my new favourite destination IN THE WORLD for the day. We got up early, packed our bags full of sustinance, and trundled off to the train. In Holland time, it was a fair distance, maybe an hour and half?... (I know, I couldn't even get from home to Sydney in that time, but here that's like, a third of the way across the country...) and once we got there... boy-oh-boy was I in Heaven!
I've only ever been to one theme park in my life- Wonderland. My memory of that place is that it was sticky, dirty, smelly, uninviting, unfriendly, stark, austere and unpleasant. The Efteling is like a little oasis. It's like you've stepped through the looking glass into some kind of mythical fairy land! There's so much love and care there. They haven't just parked a whole lot of machines near eachother to throw people about in the air and hope they don't notice how hideous their surroundings are. They've built a world; a beautiful magical world that you can totally escape into. There are a few rollercoasters, and each one is heavily themed. It was an incredibly crowded day, so lines were long and ate up time like a well-seasoned sandwich, but even while you're waiting, you're being marinated in an experience. One roller-coaster-the Flying Dutchman- was based on old Dutch sailing ships... pirates and ale and all that jazz. The line wove and meandered through various different rooms throughout the belly of a ship. You crept down a long hall as 'fires' blazed above your head, plumes of smoke curled around you and sailors screamed instructions to eachother; you slowly inched your way through the dining room as beer glasses chinked and Dutch drinking songs drowned out any other noise. It wasn't just a ride, it really was an experience, and you are totally emersed in these worlds for however long you're waiting, and then the ride itself is made all the more... whole. And the coaster itself was totally freaking awesome. Who knew I was into that sort of thing? But adrenaline is a person's best friend I reckon... it grabs your lips and pulls them so hard you have to smile, and it pumps laughter through your chest until you ache with happiness.
But it's not all roller-coasters. What makes this park really wonderous, I think, are all the different worlds that have been constructed purely to explore. My absolute highlight is the 'dream flight'. We had to wait about 40 minutes in the line, but once we got to the end, the wait completely melted away, and we were well and truly in another universe! You sit in a little carriage, which carries you up and around a world filled with trees and flowers and vines, and from nearly every branch, and on nearly every stone is perched an intricate fairy puppet that waves, or flutters its wings, or plays a little flute- and you just float around, watching it happen. I felt like a little girl again- I felt that little hand tugging at my chest, that little person who hoped so hard it hurt, that if she stared long enough at those little plastic wonders- one would eventually move- it would smile at her or wink. A space has been created there in which you can forget all the things you've learned about the world, and about reality, and you can see the magic that has slowly faded away with time and age and disillusionment.
Fairytale Forest was another favourite as we walked through a stunning wood, and around each corner was another story, another world, as Little Red Riding Hood knocked on her grandmother's door, or Hansel and Gretel ducked behind a candy house and the witch screeched from the doorway.
We also bought a LOT of candy, and I made myself gloriously sick on licorice. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....
I won't bore you with too many more details about the park, because I fear a lot of it will be lost in translation. Basically, it's beyond beautiful there, and if I could live there and just explore it every single day for the rest of my life, I would be SO happy and SO contented... I'd never... ummmm... I don't know, it would rock! It was so much fun... and I'm ready to go again!!!
Ahhhhhh... next day I was on my own, and I spent my time cooking, listening to my music (possibly a little too loud considering the ridiculously close vacinity of the neighbours on all sides), and getting myself locked out of the house through sheer inability to tackle the lock and having the elderly neighbour achieve with a single turn of the key what I couldn't with 15 minutes of desperate and concerted attempts.
Next day I was off to Utrecht. It's an odd thing to get used to, travelling on your own. It's a totally different experience. Sometimes it's actually a great deal harder not having to take anyone else's needs or wants into consideration. I'm stuck with only myself to form a decision, and sometimes that just spins me in circles like a top... and I end up just creeping back to where I started with my tail between my legs. I find myself to be excrutiatingly lazy, and unless I really try hard to push through the initial layers and curtains, then all to quickly I'll just settle and stagnate... take the easy option, which all too often means doing nothing, or doing too little. Anyway, I'm trying. I'll get there!
So, in Utretcht I first went to the 'Nationaal Museum van Speelklok tot Pierement' which in a trip so heavily sequined in museum trips shone like a little jewel sewn lovingly in the centre. It was about music boxes, and organs, and all types of automated instruments. I wandered about looking at the perfect little boxes with their lovingly crafted cases, and images, and their intrictate cylinders studded with twinkling teeth that would whiz and whir and make the most soul-dizzying melodies. I followed along on the tour which meant not only did I get to hear a lot of Dutch information... but I also got to hear a lot of the instruments play. Ooooohhhh... how I love such things. The little tinkling boxes, the giant booming street-organs, the ear-drum boxing carnival organ. There was an organ that also had three violins inside, so as the pumps sounded the organ melody, they also spun a wheel and pumped the violins forward and backward so that they too played their own tunes. They just don't make things like that any more...
So, I guess I never knew I was THAT into these things, but I've learnt it now, and I think my children will have a vast collection of music boxes to acquaint themselves with when they come into the world!
Utrecht was beautiful. I think it's far more beautiful than Amsterdam- and Amsterdam was stunning! These European cities are so vastly different from those back home, or in America. So much prettier, so much homier, so much more welcoming and human.
I went to the Dick Bruna Huis and hung out with Nijnte (Miffy) and her buddies for a while. That was pretty great.
I managed to convince Myrthe to spend the next day with me at her heels. We rode the bikes through the woods, to a castle where we sat in the beautiful gardens and had coffee. We then rode some more, through more woods up to a town about 6 kilometres away. I was so happy, just cycling through the trees. The air was so fresh and real, the scenery was so perfect and welcoming. We parked under some trees and sat for our lunch. I found some walnuts that had dropped from the branches, cracked them open and chowed down! Fresh walnuts, from the tree they grew on! Too cool. It really was lovely.
I still have some fear, that I'm not impressive enough or interesting enough. I am remarkably terrible at small-talk and chatting... and time with me usually means quite a lot of silence. I just hope, and hope and hope and hope that these people, my FAMILY, that they feel something a little bit like what a feel for them. That they feel a little piece of that inherent, automatic love... that it doesn't matter so much that I am really quite dull and a bit of a wet blanket sometimes... because there's something there that goes beyond all those things that seem to trickle away through my fingers. But, I'm also happy knowing that at least I feel that! That I can come here, and meet these people, and feel a thread running between my heart and their's. Maybe that's good enough, and I don't have to worry about anything else...
So, basically, I'm having a terribly wonderful time in the Motherland! It's a very unique part of the trip- it doesn't really feel like a 'trip' as such. I just feel like I'm here, in this place, living my life for a month or so. It feels so natural, so relaxed, so comfortable. I really feel at home no matter where I am or what I'm doing. Even when I'm walking the streets and cannot understand a word of the static surrounding me, or when I'm cycling and have no idea what the sign is telling me to do, or when I'm helping a lady in the supermarket pick up the stuff she spilled all over the floor and I'm just smiling and nodding at everything she says to me, hoping she doesn't notice my total ignorance as to what she's saying... nothing feels out of the ordinary. It all feels normal, it all feels right. Sometimes I forget I'm not from here, I forget that really I'm from an entirely different world. Really and truly, sometimes I just totally melt into this place, and I can't see anymore where I end and it begins.
You should see me on the bike when a car comes near me on the road, getting all self righteous and uppity because this stupid auto is all up in my space- what right does a car have on the road anyway!?!? And do you think I'm going to wait to let him by? Ha ha ha, no way bucko!
So... tomorrow I go to Den Hague. Maybe I'll see the Queen. We can have cheese and I'll recite all my Dutch words for her.
Thanks for reading.
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