A Pleasant Drive To Amsterdam
When you are travelling in a foreign country, it’s different. There is a certain kind of intellectual curiosity that can never be there when you are in your own country. With no familiar surroundings, you stop and think about how different everything really is.
I remember being driven through backcountry roads and autobahns from Cologne in western Germany, heading northwest through Holland toward Amsterdam, for over three hundred kilometers. I saw giant fir trees that just seemed so much taller than ones I had seen before, and road signs that meant absolutely nothing to me even though I pretended they did, like “Nog een prettige dag!” or “Schönen Tag noch!”, if only just to wish me a nice day. I felt that I was in a wonderland that only I knew how to interpret.
It’s also true that there’s an “edge” to travelling abroad. There is the knowledge that you have been somewhere that most of your friends probably have not. The de Valkenier’ amusement park in Valkenburg, or walking across one of the 1,281 bridges that cross the 165 canals in Amsterdam, or standing beside one of the 1,762 graves at the Oosterbeek War Cemetery at Arnhem – these things were felt effortlessly. You become aware of how others in this world live. This is an exciting experience – and a good one.
My favourite aspect of this particular journey is that it was my first adventure outside of England where I was born. We become so acquainted with our local environment that we tend to believe it is just the way things are and that there is nothing beyond our peripheral vision. There is always a little tedium in coping with our everyday existence.
Consider something as simple as resting alongside the road for ten minutes, leaning on a fencepost watching the four sails of a windmill go round and round. Even while it is a needed rest for one, it can be an unnatural break in the rhythm for another, and yet a decision must be made to stop or not. On the other hand, decisions flow almost without thought when you’re on a trip to somewhere you’ve never been before. What a wonderful relief from the complications of ordinary life.
Keith Valentine first began traveling at eleven, and traveled the south of England alone at 15 and has toured extensively throughout Europe and North America. Now 52, he travels throughout Ontario with his partner, whom he met near Niagara Falls. If you would like to read more free articles, visit our travel articles page.
I remember being driven through backcountry roads and autobahns from Cologne in western Germany, heading northwest through Holland toward Amsterdam, for over three hundred kilometers. I saw giant fir trees that just seemed so much taller than ones I had seen before, and road signs that meant absolutely nothing to me even though I pretended they did, like “Nog een prettige dag!” or “Schönen Tag noch!”, if only just to wish me a nice day. I felt that I was in a wonderland that only I knew how to interpret.
It’s also true that there’s an “edge” to travelling abroad. There is the knowledge that you have been somewhere that most of your friends probably have not. The de Valkenier’ amusement park in Valkenburg, or walking across one of the 1,281 bridges that cross the 165 canals in Amsterdam, or standing beside one of the 1,762 graves at the Oosterbeek War Cemetery at Arnhem – these things were felt effortlessly. You become aware of how others in this world live. This is an exciting experience – and a good one.
My favourite aspect of this particular journey is that it was my first adventure outside of England where I was born. We become so acquainted with our local environment that we tend to believe it is just the way things are and that there is nothing beyond our peripheral vision. There is always a little tedium in coping with our everyday existence.
Consider something as simple as resting alongside the road for ten minutes, leaning on a fencepost watching the four sails of a windmill go round and round. Even while it is a needed rest for one, it can be an unnatural break in the rhythm for another, and yet a decision must be made to stop or not. On the other hand, decisions flow almost without thought when you’re on a trip to somewhere you’ve never been before. What a wonderful relief from the complications of ordinary life.
Keith Valentine first began traveling at eleven, and traveled the south of England alone at 15 and has toured extensively throughout Europe and North America. Now 52, he travels throughout Ontario with his partner, whom he met near Niagara Falls. If you would like to read more free articles, visit our travel articles page.
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