Sylvia's Journal

The fateful elections are now more than a month behind us. We tried our best to tip the scales, but we lost.  As our trip to the Netherlands came closer people asked me, “…and…are you going to look for a house?’ The answer has always been, “no, I need to be in the US, I am going into the resistance.”

Now, on our 26^th day in the Netherlands, where it has rained every day except 1, on December 20^th when we visited my ancestral town of Dordrecht, I have another reason not to want to live here.  In April, when we went for 3 weeks, we had rain most of the time, except for the last week when the sun came through and we occasionally saw blue skies.  Now it has been raining almost constantly again. A local newspaper headline indicated that it was the poorest performance of sun panels, ever.  All the while we see or hear news from MA, it is cold, but the skies are often blue. I prefer living where I live in the US and if you were to ask me now, whether I would ever want to live in the Netherlands again, no matter what the political situation is in the US, my answer is a firm ‘No, never!’

I can feel very sorry for myself, but then the poor man outside the grocery store wants something from the people going in and out of the grocery store (whether money, food, compassion, or maybe a simple response to his hello) reminds me that I have it so good and I should stop complaining.

Because we chose not to rent a car, and have been staying in cities, we get around with public transport. Compared to where we live in MA, traveling around the Netherlands when you have no wheels is easy, especially if you can walk with ease. Axel has not volunteered to ride or rent a bike (and I would be nervous, especially in Amsterdam, with tram rails to get stuck in and fast e-bikes and cargo bikes zipping around you), our only option is overpriced taxis, Ubers or Bolts (they are never around when you need them) or walking. The distance to where we are, at any point in time, and getting to the closest public transport stop seem to require almost always between 10 and 20 minutes on foot. That’s where the incessant rain makes me want to scream (not fair!!). But then I think of the beggar outside the store, or the people in Gaza or Ukraine or Syria. Not fair!