Home for the Holidays

Yes. It's true.

I have returned safely to the land of snow covered pine trees and snow covered everything else out here in this winter wonderland.

But wait, I should clarify.

As desperately as I may have wanted to stay in Switzerland, I have indeed returned to my true home and native land: Canada.

I returned to the country I truly call 'home' on Christmas Adam (the eve of Christmas Eve; see Genesis 3:20 for reference) and the whirlwind of festivities since has kept the jet lag at bay.

My last few days abroad were a whirlwind themselves, and definitely contributed to the utter exhaustion that has allowed me to sleep away whatever jet lag was not soaked up in the layers of turkey I consumed upon my arrival.

On my last weekend in the Netherlands I managed to squeeze in a visit to Friesland, the birthplace and hometown of my Beppe (Grandma); catching a glimpse of her life there amidst the now-familiar bikes and fields and windmills. Between the 5 hour train rides there and back I managed to finish my final research report, clocking in at a final 46 pages and 11652 words.

With the report out of the way, naturally there was no logical option besides hopping back on a train, this time headed south!

After an 8.5 hour day of train hopping became a delayed 11 hours, I finally arrived in Basel, Switzerland.

And thus began 3 days of duelling with the Swiss mountains.

I say duelling, because it seemed to me that every day was a battle to retain my breath and not let it be stolen from my very mouth by the spectacular sights surrounding me. On top of the comforting sight of snow, the magnificence of the towering mountain peaks, and the glassy reflections cast by the most exquisite lakes, I was fed, housed and humbled by the generosity of friends once again.

As a traveller now well-versed in European trains, allow me to recommend above all others, the train ride from Lucerne to Interlaken in Switzerland.

As I sat, phone pressed up against the window to reduce the inevitable glare, taking picture after picture of the quaint wooden shacks sitting in juxtaposition to the tremendous snow caps above them, my awe was hardly contained. In fact, after the inquiry of the passenger sitting across from me as to whether this was my first time in Switzerland, I could answer only by looking down at my never-ending-picture-snapping-phone, saying: "What gave me away?"

In the presence of mountains I always find even the most impressive architecture laughable when compared with God's effortless handiwork.

I must admit that leaving the snow of Switzerland and arriving back in the rainy flatness of the Netherlands made the thought of returning to Canada and leaving it all behind me much more bearable. Particularly when this thought was sweetened by the promise of snow in Canada!

And so one day later I boarded the plane that brought me home for the holidays.

But not just for the holidays.

I've been asked numerous times already whether I return to the Netherlands in January, but unfortunately the answer is no. In January I return back to school in Waterloo where I resume studying while also applying to new jobs for my coop in the summer.

My exploring and adventuring days are not over, but will merely remain contained in North America for the next 2 years while I finish up my degree. That is, unless any of you know of any well-paying science jobs across the sea for an eager coop student to take advantage of!

For now I will continue to embrace the many attributes of Canada that I came to miss during my time abroad. I am relishing in the proportions of it all still, from coffee mugs to cars to roads to bathrooms.... North America has truly supersized it!

And the snow! Oh how I have missed bundling up and in 15 minutes flat being totally immersed in a utopia of snow laden boughs with the crunch of fresh powder following your every step!

However, I will admit I still catch a start when confronted with so much English!

I had nearly forgotten what it was like to listen in on the conversations of nearby strangers, or how to respond to a passerby in a real sentence rather than muffled noises to cover my Canadian accent.

So there it is. I am back, and I am glad to be back. Yet likewise was I sad to leave.

If I were returning to Canada for anything less than the Christmas season with its fill of family, food, festivities and fun, I know it would have been excruciatingly more difficult to leave my little town of Middelburg.

I do not yet know if I will ever see that town, or any of the rest of the Netherlands again, but I hold out hope for a day when I can again bike along those canals.

Until that day I will continue to pray that you all have the merriest of Christmases, filled with the wonder and glory of the creator of mountains coming to the world as a baby born into a small wooden shack. May the totality and ramifications of that fact sink into our hearts more rapidly than I sink into the knee deep snow we have here in Canada.

LOL - Lots Of Love

Briar