Ai love letter continues

I’m not a natural at being American. I was too young when we moved away and even before that, we spent every summer in Europe traveling. Every summer for four weeks we went all over Europe and at every major city. 

I think I was over exposed to the world. Am I being ironic? does it matter. 

I try to remember besides the orange groves …. Disney World, the beach and weekends at Melanie’s family estate

I was in elementary school. I never went in public alone. All my exposure to the American culture came from the stuck up school with the jockey club next door but I never touched money. 

I never had a dollar bill in my hand unless it came in a card from grandma. I didn’t know how yo use it, how it all worked, so, I cannot even say I had a grasp of our money. 

I learned to understand money in the Netherlands. I noticed how far it all got me. I would have to pay to get on the bus, the tram, the train. I learned transactions and how the Dutch transportation system worked. I had the entire grid memorized in my head. I still do. 

My sense of direction was learned from getting lost on the streets of Amsterdam and having to adjust to another language was sort of something I took in my stride. More actually than my sibling and others at school, but I was always someone who craves adventure so, no doubt this is why I rose to the challenge. 

It was also a way to run away. 

No joke. 

So, I would take off out the door as soon as the beast decided to notice my presence and I was out of there roaming the Amsterdam streets and walking into hotels with bars. And always I’d find a nice man to talk to who was traveling from somewhere and I’d tell him I was going to be a writer so I wanted to hear all about where they were from. 

I miss doing that. It was fun. And it never turned into sex. It was just conversation. I amused them. But they fascinated me. Men in business attire with brief cases; yes…. like my …. ‘father’  

So I would then walk home and I would feel better. I knew those streets well. I knew the men behind the bars. They knew me. I did it so often. And my parents never knew. Never cared. Fourteen. But I felt safer outside ….than I did ….inside ….there

I guess that is why I adopted that country because the people protected me better than my own family. It did not matter I didn’t want to go home when I had three beautiful parks right within walking distance to where we lived. And my tram pass could get me anywhere 

or museums I could just walk right into or the streets I could stare at the buildings forever and feel as if it were a magical world like the ones I wrote back then …but I never adapted to being back, and I think I just somehow missed something that makes me constantly feel lost in the crowd