Clumsy...

Yesterday will go down as the clumsiest day of my life.  It started when I was biking down a street in Amsterdam.  I was catching up to some friends, so I was flying pretty good, and all of a sudden my wheels got caught in the gap of the tram tracks which jostled the handle bars so hard that I flung sideways into concrete body rolls as the bike skid beside me.  I smacked my head and everything; it felt like I was in the movies.  I was embarrassed and freaked out by being in the middle of the road, so I snatched up my bike and started riding again, shaken but basically okay. 

So, that was the top of the clumsy list.  But things kept happening all day, and I was amazed at the snowball effect.  At one point, I spilled soft serve ice cream all down the front of my sweater.  At another, I rode up next to a car and sort of just...fell sideways on it until I regained control and just biked away.  When I got back to the house, I went to pick something up in the bathroom and stood up into the porcelain sink.  Like, what!?  And how..!?

Something was in the water.

Life is pretty good in Amsterdam.  I'm staying with my girlfriend, Eva, and I feel pretty normal being here.  I haven't been taking many pictures and haven't felt compelled to write, because a lot of my day-to-day has just been normal life stuff: dishes, cleaning up, grocery shopping, and chilling at cafes with the tiniest coffees in the land.

I try to do "touristy" things every other day or so.  I've been to the Van Gogh, Rijks, and tulip museums, watched a ton of football, and have done more biking than the last 20 yrs of my life combined.  Though yesterday's episode was truly gnarly, I've had the best time biking around here.  I have nothing to compare it to, really, I'm not a biker in the states--but biking here is perfect chaos.  The biking lanes are more prevalent than walking lanes and are paved into almost every road (where the sidewalk would go in the states).  They even have separate red, yellow, and green stop lights (shaped like bikes!) for the bike lanes here.  It's super cute.  I've been using Eva's bike, which has proved challenging as she's about a foot taller than I am, but it's been lovely all the same.

Eva and her friends are getting ready to graduate from Amsterdam University College, so I've also been attending a lot of end of term parties and receptions sponsored by her school.  Free wine, hors d'oeuvres, and mingle time with randoms!

Anyway, if you're reading this, hugs from Amsterdam.  I'll try to update again soon.

Holy mother...

I'm sitting at my dad's house in Iowa City and have just now realized how foreign and strange I feel to be sitting here all alone.

The past few weeks have been intense.  All the way intense.

It started a couple months ago when I made the decision to leave my home of 5 years, Denver, to embark on an adventure of unknowns.  I don't think I realized then how wild the ride would be from then to now.  Let's make a list of the big things that've gone down:

1.  Graduated college.
2.  Quit the best job I've ever had.
3.  Started researching MFA programs.
4.  Attended my bff's wedding ceremony in Iowa and had the most wild three days of life.
5.  Moved my stuff out of my favorite room (in Denvah) I've ever had.
6.  Said goodbye to my coworkers, Kelsey, Ashley, Swathi, the Mexico 4, Spencer, the Denver music scene including three former roommates, my brothers, my sis-in-law, Kirk, Rhythm and Autumn, my favorite yoga instructor and studio, Jeremiah's parents, my doggies, Sherman (my horse), and Jeremiah.  Each grouping entailed its own separate goodbye and I ugly cried at most of them.  And those were just the folks I was lucky enough to see before departure!!!
7.  Said farewell to my parents.
8.  Waved goodbye to my country.  AMERICAAAAHHHHH.  (This will happen on June 15th).

I'm sure there has been a lot of other stuff.  Lot's of little things.  At one point, I remember lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling and feeling like a wrung-out rag, just beyond physical and emotional exhaustion.

And now, here I sit, alone in the quite of my childhood home.  I have an infinite amount of things to do before I leave: find a place to stay for my first couple nights in London, pack, gather little care packages for some friends abroad, unpack my car of the last of my Denver belongings, print plane tickets.........................etc.  I will get to these things eventually.  For now, I'm just going to rest my bones and relish in this silence of home.