Oost, West, thuis best!

So even though I was in Italy, Mijn Nederlands es beter dan mijn Italiano. My European travels have always been focused in the Belgian or The Netherlands regions and even though Italian sounds so beautiful, my linguistics skills seem to be more comfortable with Dutch of all things. May not be music to the ears---but that's how it is. I was chatting with a very old friend from The Netherlands online the other day, and we were talking about "old times". He and I and another guy took a road trip through Eastern Europe in the early 90's together on my sabbatical from SGI. Being Dutch, his language skills were top notch and traveling through Eastern Europe at that time, meant if anyone had a second language in Eastern Europe, which in itself was very rare, it was German---not English. He made the traveling and sight seeing (and finding the bathrooms, lodging, food and good places to see) a real pleasure!

He is also the person who gave me my first "adult" bicycle. And obviously that gift absolutely changed my life in very profound ways. He is married now and has a lovely little daughter...and we talked about how us knowing each other was in many ways a turning point in our lives. It's funny. We both toyed at the time with becoming expatriates; would he come live in America or would I go and live in The Netherlands? For many reasons, notwithstanding a bit of immaturity, nothing ever came of it.

When I told him about my recent trip to Italy, I said that I never fly over the pond without thinking of my Dutch friends (I spent alot of time there back in the day!) We both love Italy (what is not to love?), but "Home is where the heart is", I wrote to him. My home is really wherever Mike is. I do love it here in Nevada, and I love being closer to my family, but if Mike said to me tomorrow, "We are moving back to Marshall", than that would be where my home was. I asked Martijn what the saying would be in Dutch and he said, "Oost, west, thuis best". (East, West - Home is the best). So there you go!

Now that I might be mature enough (and that might be questionable!), I have found my home in a person, not a place. Perhaps, I have found my home within myself. I don't know. I have the travel bug again---a little bit of Europe goes a long way. Next year we are celebrating DEAR friend's 50th birthday riding our bikes in Italy/Switzerland and wherever else he decides we will go. Time to learn Italian.

Right now, I am off to ride my bike in Reno---It's nice to be home! Happy July 1st!