Amsterdam has seasons so it snows in the winter and gets warm in the summer. During the winter, the canals freeze and people ski in them. I looked out the window of my hotel room just now and felt sad. An emotion took over that reminded me of home.
Home used to be Florida but now, home is San Francisco.
I didn’t feel that emotion toward SF until the months leading up to my departure but now, anything that reminds me of SF will cause my emotions to shift and wildly I’ll wish I was back. Don’t worry employer, I’m not jumping ship and going back to SF but I just thought I’d mention Amsterdam and how it makes me so homesick.
During the fall, it rains a cold moisture in a mist pattern. The rain isn’t heavy and it lasts all day. The temperature lingers around 55 degrees and everyone has their layered clothing. The street rail cars fly past dinging a bell to warm pedestrians of their passing. The coffee smell fills the air and you’re close enough to the ocean to have a breeze. The smell of weed occasionally fills your nostrils and different languages are being spoken by each passerby while out-of-towners hold their tourist maps and locals fly by on their bikes. Old is meeting new in architecture, culture, food and occupation. There are shoe shine attendants and men with suits and newspapers while a hippie walks by smoking a joint as his dread locks sway back and forth. There are photo-worthy landmarks and fine cuisine and locals spend their weekends bundled up at parks drinking beer from cans.
Amsterdam in the fall feels every bit like San Francisco year ‘round.
That will explain my insistence in staying in the hotel room most of the time. Once you get clean, a single taste will cause a relapse. I cured myself of San Francisco and Amsterdam is drawing me back. I find myself looking at old photos and remembering moments when I first visited Baghdad by the bay.
Anyone that has lived in San Francisco and looking for a European vacation should avoid Amsterdam. You’ll pay for a pricey hotel and the dollar to euro conversion is very weak so 6,50 euro for a subway sandwich is actually around $10. Go somewhere else Amsterdam won’t be a vacation. It’s just San Francisco with seasons.
I’m sure my parents will read this thinking that I’ve turned my back on Florida and the southern US where I spent the first 20 years of my life. I haven’t. When I’m in Florida, I’m “home” and could easily spend the rest of my life there. I know Florida and love Florida but, well I think it comes down to ego. I chose to live in San Francisco and didn’t choose to live in North Florida. As much as I love it there, it was my parent’s choice to move there and raise me there and I’m so thankful to have grown up in the south close to the beach and the dairy farm and to experience life in town and out in the country and value the virtues of BBQ and sweet tea and the importance of yes and no ma’am. I chose San Francisco and now it feels like home.
Dad was right when he said that San Francisco will always be there. I can go back at any time and after I’m done exploring New England and Europe and maybe the mid-west and after I’ve set foot in Australia and explored the mountains of Japan, maybe I will go back to San Francisco or maybe I’ll move back to Florida with my family to raise my children near my parents. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
I don’t know how this will end.
After I save this blog, I may drift away in my sleep never waking up. I’m not blind to the realities of life and death to take life for granted.
Why spend time in my hotel room instead of enjoying Amsterdam as a way to get my San Francisco Fix? It’s not that I’m afraid a relapse is coming. Trust me when I say that I’m in love with New Hampshire and my amazing job. I will not be leaving any time soon but I actually know why finish work here in Amsterdam at 6PM and have been going straight home every night to my hotel.
SF and I have some marital issues we have to work out.
I’m in a love hate relationship with the 7×7 square mile big-toe known as San Francisco. I won’t list them off but it takes a unique kind of person to live there and the value I put on those factors listed above while comparing SF to Amsterdam, not all of those are good.
San Francisco had its downsides as well and those downsides make me never want to go back. Comparing NH to SF is not night and day. It’s Winter and Summer. I won’t list reasons and only say that they’re different and, now, I’m much happier in New England.
Ask any friend who has visited me in San Francisco or attended one of my SF city tours during conferences. They see the excitement when I talk about the city and how happy I was to be a resident.
It doesn’t mean that looking out from my hotel room to a foggy skyline of Amsterdam doesn’t make me miss San Francisco and wish I could have her every once in a while. I’m confident that a few tears will be shed when I touch down in San Francisco to visit friends or on behalf of my work. I have an emotional bond to that city by the bay and miss it tremendously.
My life is in one place now. I’m evolving and changing and growing. I could no longer do that in SF but I hope we can reconcile our differences and make it work in the future but for now, we’ll have to just be friends.
I love you SF. I still have another 6 days in Amsterdam. Deep breathes. I’ll be back in the log cabin soon enough.