so this is my last entry from this seven-week excursion.
last night was full of craziness. nathan and i only have one key to our apartment so we made plans to meet at a coffee shop near our place at 4 pm. by 5:30 he still hadn't shown up and i felt like an idiot so i just sat outside of the coffee shop until 6. (there is nothing worse than being in the red light district in a peach sundress..) i was terrified that something had had happened to him or that he had lost the key and i'd never be able to get home. at about 6 he comes running up. he had managed to lock himself in the apartment for four hours and had to throw pennies at bums below to come unlock him. how did i survive this?
as for yesterday, it was a wonderful last day in amsterdam. i woke up early, considering i have been going to bed way too early to be in amsterdam, and had a bagel covered in jam and a big glass of real oj then went to the van gogh museum and waded around in a reflecting pool in vondelpark and bought more presents for people and got lost a lot and got mistaken for being dutch a lot. i have about six hours left in amsterdam then it's off to massive headache of train rides, connecting flights and on-flight food. the last few weeks have been a complete ball of chaos, but i think i'm seeing things in a way i wasn't able to before and i already have a long list of more places i need to see. it's actually quite calming to see how very very small and insignificant you are to the world, as we tend to see ourselves as the center of the universe. i'm just thankful i've got what i've got and love what i love because it's what makes me tick.

through travel i first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that i found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it. eudora welty