Happy Thursday.

This week has seen some of the best weather since I’ve been living in Europe. I’ve been rightfully outside soaking every bit of this hot hot heat and working on getting my cocoa brown because you never know when this will just go away–never to return. Hence my silence on the internets.

I’m going to share some photos from my mom’s trip to Amsterdam. Once she booked her ticket, I knew that I would just wait to experience this city with her as a tourist. That’s something I’ve missed out on completely and now that I have it under my belt, I kind of want more. I view Amsterdam with a different eye because I have most of D’s radar as far as what is and isn’t a tourist trap.

We went to a lot of museums that I’ll write about bit by bit. Some were terribly interesting while others left me completely hollow.  Over the next few days, I’ll share photos of our time together and talk about some of the things we did.

So, I’ve been writing this blog on and off since 2008 and I’ve been awfully curious, sometimes to my detriment, about exactly who is my audience. My goal is a simple one and comes with a delightful little conclusion if you’re up for it.

In the comments section, tell me you are.
This will only count in the comments section.  Not via facebook, email or twitter.

Where are you from? What do you like reading about on this blog? How long have you been reading? What can I do to improve this space content wise?

A blog is nothing without an audience and while mine is fairly quiet, I want to change that.
I’ve had ideas for things I want to talk about for the longest while, but just haven’t had the right kind of focus. That’s all changing.

For a long time I’ve thought about what exactly I want this blog to be. Plus I think I read way too much ProBlogger. At any rate, while this is turning into more and more a blog about my life, I still want this to be a space that’s helpful and community like. Feel me? So there you have it kiddies. Nothing too difficult.

So let’s get chatty.

In other awesome but unrelated news, today my sweet little prince Pixel turns 1!! We’re going to buy him a laser and teddy bear later on today and hopefully some sort of cat cupcake or something to celebrate his birthday. I already fed him his fancy tuna and mango breakfast. He is so spoiled.

As far as the giveaway goes, all you have to do is leave a comment and on by Monday and I will choose a winner with the random generator on Tuesday. To make this juicy, the first person to comment automatically wins and the second person will be selected randomly by the generator. But answering my questions above is key.

This is going to be a long weekend in Amsterdam with Queensday weekend and my all day sewing class, so I’ll be back on Tuesday with some wrap ups and chatter and a winner!

Have a most fantastical weekend my loves!

Without question, living in Amsterdam is nothing like living in Brooklyn. For one, there’s much more water here. More green, too. The buildings are lower and mostly the same height for as far as the eye can see. There are tram lines and bike lanes built into the roads. Just about all sidewalk (and some roads) are laid stone. Cars are smaller, people are smaller (but much taller).

So on the surface the two aren’t that alike. Then you look at other things. Basically Brooklyn is Amsterdam 2.0 if you look at the structure of some buildings in Brooklyn. Sometimes I walk the streets here and I feel like I’m back home. It’s comforting.

One major difference that you can’t really feel until you’ve been living here for longer than a vacation is this incredible feeling of ease. Dutch quality of life surpasses the US far and wide. Yes, there’s plenty to get used to. Some things you won’t ever get used to, which is fine. But the general feeling that things are just not as bad here definitely washes over you after a while. Disregarding the stresses of moving and that awkward adjustment period that can feel like forever, once you’ve settled—I’ll say 13 months or more in—you definitely can bask in it.

At the top of my list for major game changers: affordable mandatory full health insurance. What is there in that to not love? I’ve been covered since January, visited a few times for checkups and I’m thoroughly pleased. I have my general practitioner, OB-GYN, dentist and my out of pocket costs have literally been less than €20. Since January.  On the topic of health, I also greatly enjoy bike riding. That’s something I really learned here. Two falls and one major scar later, it’s my preferred mode of transportation. It makes me want to actually bike ride in other countries. We’ll see if that happens though. The added bonus of lots of parks and general greenery coupled with all the canals and the Amstel River makes breathing a lot easier. I have needed very little medication for my allergies and sinuses since living here.

I’ve been able to really pursue my goal of becoming a writer here in a way I personally didn’t feel comfortable doing in New York. That may have more to do with me than with Amsterdam, but I do feel that it’s a credit to the energy of Amsterdam. I feel like I have less fear living here. I don’t know if that translates well, but I’ve had the tendency to hold myself back when the pond I’m in is over saturated. Here, I feel the exact opposite and it’s giving me the chance to take risks I’ve been wanting to take for years that I didn’t exactly know how to then.

There’s a real gift being able to live in a 3-in-1 city. I see Amsterdam as part super metropolitan/part very residential/part nature. I never had that in Brooklyn. I’m sure I could’ve had it by traveling quite a bit, but how much exactly? My commute to every job I’ve had in Manhattan took on average 90 minutes one way. In 90 minutes, I can be in the south of this country. I really dig that I don’t feel like I’m in the thick of busy city life living in the capitol. When I want that feeling, it’s only 20 minutes away at most.

The concept of time has started to affect me. I now see a 90 minute trip as long instead of necessary. Not always, because if I’m traveling to another country, I get that I’ll be on a train for 3+ hours and it seems super quick. In the same vein, a born and bred walking New Yorker now prefers to bike everywhere. It annoys me to think about how much longer it takes to walk someplace. Bike riding at first was extremely painful, mainly because I stopped walking as much and couped myself up in the house. Then there’s getting over distance riding. Going up and down hills. Once my leg muscles toned up I’ve been good to go. The idea that something is “just down the road” feels quite literal, now.

Every other corner feels like a postcard photo op. I love living here.

As of last week, I’ve officially been living here for 18 months and in that time I’ve met a good amount of expats from all over but very few Black expats. It’s got me thinking: do we as a people just not venture as much anymore?

Coming from New York, most of the Black people I know aren’t native Americans and have come from all over the world. Or maybe it’s just Amsterdam? It doesn’t attract nearly as many as say the need to recreate the fantasy of Blacks in Paris? The make-up here is different, and while different is good, great even it is important to have a cultural connection to someone without verbal communication.

I feel sometimes like an anomaly.

I know there is a community out there somewhere. I just haven’t found them yet.

I do have 3 Black American friends and I’m finding that most recent friendships are with people living in other European countries. Odd.

I have also been making a slight effort to meet other blogger expats which has been good and interesting but even that has me thinking. I moved here, married with the intention of settling down for the foreseeable future. Other people come here for education primarily or as a stint of experience in their early or mid 20s.

I definitely think I am still in the phase of seeing this city through my husband’s eyes with my own opinions forming slower than it would have had I come here on my own. I’m not against it, because in ways it has been a serious time saver but I don’t consider myself having a full on expat experience. Maybe with even more time this will change, but for now this is how I feel.

This is on my mind because after last week, I realized I don’t have my own little secret pockets in Amsterdam yet. I have very few personal gems to share with friends visiting and I need to change that. This week I’m trying to plan my mom’s first trip to Amsterdam that’s happening next month and I’m going to be scouting out a bunch of things I just haven’t done or seen yet. I’m also in the middle of planning a quick surprise for her. Maybe by the end of her trip, I’ll have a bunch of my own little quiet spaces.