Strange Things

It doesn't feel that long ago that I walked out of security in the Amsterdam airport, went home with some strangers to their strange house, in a strange town, in a strange country. I ate some strange food, heard a strange language, went to a strange school, talked to strange kids.

Slowly it became a little bit less strange. The strangers became my family, the strange house became a home where I lie on the couch and leave my clothes on the floor. The strange city became a place where I wave to people, the strange country became a place I don't want to leave. I cook the strange food, the strange language rolls off my tongue, I find my way through the strange school, and the strange kids want to come to Wisconsin someday.

And just after the strange things all stopped being so strange, and I started getting used to them not being strange, I realized that ten months was halfway over.

There's a pink piece of tagboard hanging on the kitchen door with things I still want to do here. Lots of people have written things on the list, and it's getting so full it's going to be a strain to get even half of them done. I want to do all of the things on the list, and much more than that. Also though, I just want to be here. The things on the list are all fun Dutch things to do, but most of the things that are the best for me here aren't the things that you think of when you think of the Netherlands, they're just... "life things" and people, like sitting for an hour after dinner and talking, biking to school in the rain, grocery shopping in the tiny grocery store, candles on at night, drinking tea.

But then I miss the "life" things at home too, and the people. There's a million little things a day that make me think of home, the most random things bring this wave of memories over the tiniest, most unimportant "life" things that aren't a part of my life here. The other day I missed the Cosmopolitan magazine I always used to get in the mail so much. And eating out a few weekends ago made me think of my mom and how when we were little she always used to tell stories about what was going on in the kitchen while we were waiting for our food to come. The sound of bike wheels on the pavement still says "Dad" to me and the youngest kids in school with their gameboys and tough swagger are so Joakim. I see my friends in everything too, and even things that remind me of people I didn't even realized I missed.

Strange things that aren't strange anymore, "life things" I'm going to miss, "life things" I do miss. There's no way to describe everything going on my head. How incredibly happy I'm going to be to go home again... and how incredibly sad I'm going to be to leave.
Deciding to come here was the best decision I've ever made in my life.