What’s the difference between a European and an American? HA!
It’s truer than you think.
The first time I stood inside an Amsterdam building and found out it was
older than my country of origin, America, I had to pick my jaw up off the
floor.
In the following years of further travel around Europe, I’m still as
awed. It never really sinks in. Like recently, in March, when we
walked through the above Marksburg Castle in Germany, built in 1174. It’s
over 800 years old…and even has an inside toilet.
But what really takes the cake for me was Rome a few years back, walking
around the Forum, following, perhaps, the footsteps of Apostle Paul from 2000
years ago. It has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the
world, and in all history, according to Wiki. I can imagine how I’d
feel if I ever make it to Jerusalem!
I never get used to it.
As for Astrid, who has lived all but one year of her life in the
Netherlands (that one year being America), age of these places is simply ho-hum
for her. She’s never known anything other than O.L.D.
However. The first time we took a one-day trip from where we live
here in middle Holland to Groningen in the northeast of the country, just 120
miles away, you would have thought we had driven to the other side of the
world. Seriously. And it wasn’t just her. When she told her
co-workers where we had gone and come back, all in the span of one Saturday,
they picked their jaws up off the floor.
She was never used to anything other than N.E.A.R. here in Europe, but
that’s changing quickly.
If I told you it takes us one hour to drive from our back door to Antwerp,
Belgium (50 miles), or 1.5 hours to Brussels (75 miles), in case we want to get
a good pot of mussels, you’d laugh, right? How about that it would take
us 5 hours to drive from our city to Paris (250 miles) and could easily be done
in a long weekend just about any time we wanted? Yup, you’re picking your
jaws up off the floor…while I’m convincing her how doable it is.
Speaking of America, Astrid came to visit me in Atlanta in 2009, 6 months
before I moved to the Netherlands. I wanted to take her to the family
cottage in Michigan to meet some of my siblings. Even by my standards
it’s a long trip, 850 miles. But I had done it almost every year for 25
years and knew the map like the back of my hand: 2 hours to Chattanooga,
2 hours to Nashville, 2.5 to Louisville, 2 to Indianapolis, another 2 to Fort
Wayne, and then the “strome hetch” once crossing the line into Michigan.
All in one “swell foop” and usually during the night hours with at least
2 drivers. In good weather we’d drive it in 12 hours, longer if we
stopped at the cemetery to see Mom and Dad.
You could say I’m training Astrid. She’s getting used to my
“long-distance” antics. In fact, we’re planning a 3-day birthday weekend
to Luxembourg come July, 162 miles away, driving all around that wee country
and spending a day in its capital, Luxembourg City, founded in the 900s.
She’s getting used to the distance, she says. 200 miles doesn’t make
her gasp anymore. But I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to any place older
than dirt 200 years!
