The Last Night ...

It's been fun. Today is our last day, and while I am watching a replay of the Copa America final between Brazil and Argentina on tv, I finally have a moment to write a message for my blog.

What a couple of weeks it has been. Appropriately it is storming and raining outside in Rotterdam. Our vacation weather has been mostly cloudy and rainy, although it has not been cold which is always a plus in Holland. In my Lonely Planet about The Netherlands one of the people interviewed about Amsterdam, who was asked about what he thought was the worst about Amsterdam, said “The rain in the winter, and the winter rain in the summer.” Indeed, we can’t argue with that.

Nevertheless, our father-daughter vacation trip has been a lot of fun. We have done almost everything we set out to do; we went to Berlin, as you can read in the blog entry below, then we went camping for a long weekend with lots of friends in the Belgium Ardennes, a beautiful part of Belgium with the lovely Maas river that ends in Rotterdam and the side river the Lesse, then we went to Oma in Eersel and biked through the forest, after which we went to Amsterdam for two days where we again rented bikes as our mode of transportation. Oh, I even forgot to mention our one-day side trip to Brugge and Antwerpen on Flanders day. Then, as one of the highlights, on Saturday night in Rotterdam we went to the North Sea Jazz Festival. What an event. The rest of this last weekend Megan spent mostly with the family Schox, our good friends from way back when we lived in Capelle a/d IJssel. Today, as our last day we went to visit Amersfoort, my roots in Holland, if I can speak of having roots anywhere in the world. This was a short trip through memory lane that I could share with Megan. We met with old neighbors of almost 40 years ago. We visited our old house, the bedroom my sister Elisabeth was born, and my first soccer club AFC Quick and my first tennis club Flehite. We are tired but very satisfied.

So, what have we learned? It is hard to describe. Of course, Megan’s experiences have been different than mine. What Megan has learned I can best describe from the different little things she has said to me during our trip:

“If we could do this in America [going to a bar and having a drink whenever a teenager wants] we would not be so bored in the US.”

“Can I have a Smirnoff Ice? … oh, if you don’t have that, just do a bitter lemon with vodka.”

“When I am back, I am going to bike more.”

“Wow, this is so cool, just buying bongs and hash pipes in the street, as if it is very normal. This is so weird.”

“Do it without tobacco and yes, can you please role it for me?”

“and … can I have a cappuccino with that?
“I like that [Dutch people] always have breakfast and dinner together …”

And, what about me? What have I learned from this? Well, first and foremost I have learned that my daughter is a quiet person, a cerebral person who keeps her thoughts to herself, unless you ask. She is a person who has a wide interest and who can enjoy the simple things in life, the particular Dutch things, as well as the beautiful and dark history of Europe. She likes to read, finishing three very thick books and half way done with Harry Potter’s Order of The Phoenix (which she intends to finish by the time we land at SFO, so she can see the movie). I can go on and on mentioning wonderful qualities, but in short she is a great and easy person to travel with. I have great respect for her and am surprised that an eighteen-year can be so grown up.

To end, a last word to Megan, my travel partner and daughter: Thanks Megan for taking this trip with me, even though you had a hard time leaving. Thanks for all the wonderful memories, the laughs, the bike rides, the evenings together, the breakfasts in the morning together and the goodnights when we went to sleep. I will never forget this trip and I hope you will not either. I am very proud of you, as a father should be, and I hope that this trip has given you food for thought about being Dutch, an European, and an American at the same time. I hope it has shown you the differences and the similarities between these two continents of the Western world. I also hope it has shown you how wonderful it is, and how privileged you are to belong to both. It has made you who you are and knowing both sides of the Atlantic will make you a better person. I also thank you for your patience with me, the things I forced you to see and the people I made you say hi to. I love you always.