End of September

This was the day I was packing for Singapore a year ago, when I was to go home and arrange paperwork for moving to Holland. Notice I say ‘home’ and note that ‘moving’ comes without implying ‘long-term’.

In December last year I came to Holland again, after a 3-month wonderful stay at home, working and meeting up with friends, laughing and talking about everything under the sun. Notice ‘stay’, what a shame it was not longer and  I could not look for a full-time job.

It will be the first time I join Summer to see to Autumn’s and then Winter’s arrival. I am not sure what it will be like, other than leaves fraying at the edges and turning red then brown and fall, waking up to chills every morning with a dark sky that lightens up only at 8am and the sun taking its leave at an early 5pm. That short of a day I have seen in end-December, I wonder if it is actually even shorter in November. Winter is beautiful, only in places that do not lie at the latitude where I am.

Since April, or maybe February/March even, the novelty of being in a new house and environment ceased to be amazing. My camera was not loaded with pictures anymore and neither did I have it with me all the time everyday. There weren’t much or anything that caught my eyes, because I was no longer a tourist and seriously, photographs of food and bare branches get old so quickly. If you ask me now, I would probably tell you that being in Europe is only fun when you are travelling and passing through. Shops stay closed on sundays, opening only until 6pm, restaurants while abundant they are pricey so people eat at home mostly, the last screening of the movies is at 9 latest 10pm, by then nothing is opened. Except maybe MacDonald’s.

Winter wonderland? Not so wonderful. In spring it rains, summer it regularly stays at 20-22degrees, autumn it rains again and winter well, not so much to tell. Life always moves on and reality always sets in, because in the real world, Holland is just Holland. Weed and space cakes are tourist attractions, the locals are just average people with little to do other than having coffee and counting the number of birds in the sky.