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So this is it. All good things have to come to an
end and so it is with our European odyssey. Our stuff is being
packed and it’s all over but the achin’ back on the ride home. But
what a ride it’s been.
In 1968 or so, an Australian group called The
Seekers recorded a song called "I Hear the Music of the World A-Turnin’"
The lyrics are here and you can listen the song
here. One line that’s repeated throughout is, "You can have
music wherever you go." Lynn and I have heard that music loud and
clear everywhere and it’s been an amazing symphony. When I reread
some of the pieces that are included here, it seems as though we
liked everything. That’s really true, we did. Certainly there were
some places we liked more than others but we found the music
everywhere. From the time I was a kid, I wanted to see London,
Paris, and Sydney, and now, at least regarding the first two, we are
well-acquainted with them and the music from them will live with us
always. These are places that I had always hoped to see but now
we’ve been to places that we had never even considered like Prague,
Istanbul, Vienna, Singapore and a whole lot more.
One of the joys we’ve had is being able to see
Europe through the eyes of the kids. Unfortunately, Aaron was never
able to make it but Bruce came a few times, once alone, once with
his girlfriend and once with a longtime friend from childhood, and
my nephew Josh came once with his dad, my brother Joel. The young
folks didn’t all have a whole lot of international travel under
their belts and we think that what they saw and heard opened up new
possibilities for them that they may not have otherwise considered.
The experience of living here has changed us in
ways we that don’t even know yet. We have a friend,
mentioned
earlier, who told us that from his experience, we would have a more
difficult adjustment coming back than we did going. At the time,
this was difficult to understand but it no longer is. Coming to live
in a foreign country, one knows that everything will be different so
one is prepared to have to adjust. But going home, at the time,
seemed to be a piece of cake. We would be returning to a place that
was familiar, with ways there were familiar. What we didn’t think
about then, but has become apparent now, is that the place may be
the same, and the ways may be the same, but we are different. For
example, we are overwhelmed by the enormity of choices in American
supermarkets. We have a hard time with the amount of space taken up
to support cars. We are already saddened to think that there is a
paucity of outdoor cafes to just sit, have a beer, converse, and
watch the world go by. More than anything, we have learned that
while it’s great to be an American, there are plenty of others who
are just as proud and happy to be whatever it is they are. There
will be other things, I’m sure, that we haven’t even thought of yet.
While it has been an incredible experience,
we know it’s time to come home, home to the Cradle of
Liberty and the Birthplace of the Nation. Home is the place that
when you go there, they gotta let you in. Home is where the heart
is. For us, home is Philadelphia. We know that we may never return to
some of the places we’ve been, but still we’ve been to those places,
they’ve left their imprint, and the memories and the pictures will
always remain with us.
At the beginning of the movie Field of Dreams,
Ray, the main character, talks about his background and says at the
end of the opening monologue, "But until I heard the voice, I’d
never done a crazy thing in my whole life." Moving to Europe
probably counts as a crazy thing and it’s certainly the craziest
thing we ever did. And maybe the best. This isn’t to suggest that
every single day was a fantastic adventure because it wasn’t.
Through the dreary Delft winters, the sun would rise at almost 9
a.m. and set before 5 p.m. and the rain is constant. At night there
wouldn’t be much to do but read books and we did a lot of that. We
also got to know each other much better and that has been priceless.
All in all, I really can’t imagine how it could have been much
better. We lived in a town almost a thousand years old, in a
beautiful house about 470 years old so even when there was no
external excitement, it was always great just being here.
So there it is. We’ll see you soon on the left
side of the pond where we’ll be able to read everything on a menu,
choose from 500 different kinds of cereal instead of ten, and watch American football.
Now, though, about the only thing left to do is pack our basket,
climb into the hot-air balloon, click our heels three times, and say
over and over, "There’s no place like
home." |
