“Can you tell me any good restaurants around the hostel?”

“For you? Everything is better than the food you get in America.”

Yeah, you gotta love the Italians. And do you want to know the funny thing? The pizzeria the receptionist pointed me towards was entirely staffed by Chinese. Not an Italian in sight.

———————————– 

Some traveller’s may pack their bags one or two nights before they leave for a one-week trip, and others may stuff a few things into a backpack a few hours before the flight leaves. Not me! My flight for Florence-by-way-of-Milan left at 2:25 pm, on Saturday afternoon, and I started packing around noon.

Not too smart? Tell me about it. But you can’t go to Florence, Italy, without taking a camera, and since someone stole my camera last July, Mark Stewart oh-so-kindly loaned me his SLR for the trip. Which I picked up on Saturday morning, right after a pancake breakfast by the talented Joanna Stewart. Why didn’t I pack on Friday night? I had to get my IPod loaded with movies and TV shows. Priorities!

Right after I left the Stewart’s I went by work to give last-minute instructions and fix a few problems. Then I went back to my flat, where I sat down at my laptop and wrote some last-minute work e-mails to the staff. Then, after all that, I packed.

So my holiday didn’t begin in quite the relaxed manner it could or should have. When I got to Milan I also discovered that the hostel gave directions that were less than stellar. And did I mention that I get lost faster than anyone I know?

Big-backpack plus bad-instructions equals very-crabby-Jason.

But despite everything I got to the hostel in Milan, and the next day I had a pleasant train-ride to Florence. I even sat in front of the Duomo in Milan for a few hours and listened to some Mexicans playing music and preaching in the open square. I couldn’t understand anything they were saying, but they were definitely praising Jesus! Fun stuff.

Once in Florence I expected to have a relaxed few days (”relaxed” being the key word), see a few sites, and meet a few people at the hostel. I knew there would be a good chance I could convince some other folks in the hostel to see sites with me.

God had something different in mind.

For my first two days over 20 individual travellers - not one person was travelling with another - got to know each other. Most of us were in our late twenties or early thirties (although we all look a bit younger than our actual years, which suprised and discomfited some of the younger ones). And only a few were from America. Relaxing and alone-time went out the window with this group!

There was a core of people who connected in an even deeper way. One Canadian counselor named Sarah had just lost her husband a few months before, and an Aussie plumber named Adam was about to move  back to Australia after a year abroad. Sarah, Adam, and I spent a good bit of time talking, together and separately, and once or twice Adam made reference to his feeling of renewed faith in humans after our conversations.

Interesting comment, particularly because of the spiritual content of some of our talks.

I wish I could share more here of what we talked about, about Sarah’s liberal views of human nature and my less-forgiving understanding. Adam heard both and listened intently to both.  I also wish I could describe the genuine comaraderie I felt, even in the midst of a group of lost people with foul mouths, varied pasts (and presents), and wildly different world views.  I think I experienced a bit more of what Jesus did when he had fellowship with the misfits of ancient Israel.

So I came to Florence to relax, to be renewed, to get some perspective, and in a supernatural I’m getting all three. I still have a few days left. Maybe I’ll get some time to be by myself. Maybe not. (I’m thinking about doing a bike-ride tomorrow around the Chianti region with two of the original 20 who are still left.) 

But I’m praying that God brings some more people my way! Anything can happen. It usually does.

And if you think about it, please pray for Adam and Sarah. They’re special people who need God. They all are!

But then I would have been here much longer than a week.

Several people asked me over the course of my seven days here if I was feeling any culture shock yet. Most of the time I said, “Nope. Not really.� I think I’m pretty good at flipping a mental switch when I go from America to Europe and vice verse.

But then I went to a place called San Antonia Taco, Company, in Nashville, TN with some friends.

Tons of people. Talking. Loud. Southern American voice over the intercom. Loud. Tex-mex food. Greasy food. Americans everywhere with not a drop of European blood to be seen.

I think I actually got a little dizzy. That’s when I realized culture shock was setting in.

Yesterday I realized just how worn out I had gotten. Physically. Mentally. Over the past week I’ve seen old friends and new friends. I’ve driven through large cities, inner cities, hill country, and farmland. I’ve also had much more food than I normally eat. I’m just glad I’m getting on a plane soon to go back to Holland. And then on to Israel.

I guess my culture shock is only just starting.

On Sunday I did get to see something I didn’t expect that made my day. I went to a church with my friends to hear Don Miller speak, and before the service the church performed two baptisms. The church is called the People’s Church and is huge, which is quite a culture shock in itself. But even if Don Miller hadn’t been such a good speaker I would have been glad to go to the service.

The People’s Church is a Baptist church, and the second baptism that day was an elderly guy who had two people baptizing him.

A Baptist pastor.

And a priest.

Very cool.

No?

How about now?

Would a close-up help?

Last week I was in Ireland with two friends of mine, Joost and Kurt, and for several days we noticed a large number of men walking around Dublin in kilts. I lived in Ireland last year, so I know that kilts are not the normal fashion in Dublin. Later we found out that Ireland and Scotland were having a big soccer match that Saturday, and some of the Scottish guys were showing their colors, so to speak.

You’d think guys walking around in skirts would attract unwanted attention, but I definitely wouldn’t have messed with these men.

Anyway, as Kurt, Joost, and I enjoyed a drink in a pub that Thursday, several of these Scottish guys sat at the bar across the room. We had already commented a few times about the men in kilts and why there were so many in Dublin, but during a lull in our conversation, and with a nod of his head, Joost suddenly asked, “What do they wear under the kilts? I think Jimmy said they wore nothing.� (Jimmy is a Scottish friend who is a long-term guest at the hostel.)

I looked over and said, “I don’t know. I imagine they wear underwear. They have to!�

Then Joost said, “Well, I hope so. Look at how they’re sitting.�

That’s when I noticed the back of two of the Scottish men’s kilts draped behind the barstool. Which means that if they’re not wearing anything underneath those yards of tartan cloth, bare butts are gracing leather cushions.

Not an especially pleasant thought.

What made the experience especially funny was the moment these men decided to leave the pub. I leaned up to see if there were any moist looking indentations on the cushions. Yeah, gross, but I wanted to know.

Not five seconds later two well-dressed women walked in and took their seats, but not before one of them steadied herself on the top of the barstool with one manicured hand.

Had she only known.

If you’ve ever wondered what a Scotsman wears under his kilt, the time to find out would not be after he gets up from a bar stool.

Ewww.

But.

Everything.

Had.

Changed.

I didn’t live there anymore. Ireland was no longer my home.

But, then again, Amsterdam will soon cease to be home as well.

I wasn’t even sure I was supposed to be in Ireland.

A few weeks ago I found cheap tickets flying Ryanair into Dublin. At first I thought about visiting another country before I left Europe�I have this rather silly desire to add more countries to the list of those I’ve already visited. Yes, it’s a numbers game. My European friends here at the hostel would say that’s a very American trait. I usually try to avoid those qualifications as much as possible.

But I had a good excuse! Nicole, my Floridian friend whom I worked with at the Shelter, was finishing her time at the hostel and traveling around Europe for two weeks. The first leg of her journey would be to Zurich, where Cecilia, another friend and co-worker from Liechtenstein, had friends with a gift for hospitality.

Zurich proved too expensive, though. People may think that Amsterdam is a European hub-city for travel�we certainly get a lot of people stopping through on their way to other countries. But it is dang expensive to get from here to anywhere else on the mainland. Very sad.

Then I saw plane tickets for 50 euros to Dublin. Do I add another country to my growing, but still sadly short, list, or visit my friends in the land of 40 shades of green where I lived for 13 months?

The decision shouldn’t have been difficult.

Money was the deciding factor. Two of my friends from the hostel came along with me, and we had a fantastic time. I enjoyed showing them some of Ireland’s natural and historic beauty, as well as catching up with old friends.

Back to the bus stop.

Over the years and in my travels I’ve learned that I have quite different reactions to different kinds of trips. There are times when I love traveling alone, such as when I spent three days in Rome, and there are times when I would much rather have been with people, like in Barcelona. (Barcelona is not a city where you should be by yourself. And I don’t mean because it’s dangerous!)

I have a similar reaction to visitors. When friends or family visit me from another city or country, I usually prefer for them to come with other people. That means that I don’t have to cart them around and show them all the sights since two or more people are more likely to be proactive in doing that themselves. I don’t have to be the perpetual tour guide.

Yes. Very selfish. But I’m getting better!

Going to Ireland with Joost and Kurt�let me remind you that I had a great time with these guys�made me a little nervous since it combined the best and worst of these things. I was traveling with friends, which is great, but they were dependent on me to get them around and show them the sites. That also meant the catch-up time with my Irish friends was drastically cut.

So as I leaned against that cold signpost in the village of Lucan, thoughts whirled and bumped around the inside of my head like Charlie and his grandpa did in that original version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when they drank that fizzy drink: “Was I supposed to spend money to come to Ireland? I didn’t need to come here. Why does it feel like I’ve never even left?! That can’t be a normal feeling. I’m having some serious déjà vu here…�

The last thought was the weirdest. Well, not the one about déjà vu, but the one about how it felt like I’d never left. And at the exact same time I knew that I had a life in Amsterdam. A life that was ending soon, of course, but a life filled with friends, ministry, lessons to be learned, etc.

And very soon I will leave Holland. Which means my life will be in Israel. So when I visit Amsterdam, will I have the same feeling that I did leaning against the signpost in Ireland?

I think I will.

In Ireland and Amsterdam I’ve entered into life and all that God wants for me to live more than anywhere else in my previous seven years. And that life has not ended. It will not end. Do you remember that scene at the end of The Last Battle, the last book of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, where one of the characters noticed in “heaven� that a particular house still existed, although it had supposedly been destroyed?:

“Why,� exclaimed Peter. “It’s England. And that’s the house itself �Professor Kirk’s old home in the country where all our adventures began!�
“I thought that house had been destroyed,� said Edmund.
“So it was,� said the Faun. “But you are now looking at the England within England, the real England just as this is the real Narnia. And in that inner England no good thing is destroyed.�

Simplistic. Not particularly academic or theological. But it fits. The life I lived in Ireland is gone. My friends are doing different things. My old room is now a storeroom for broken chairs and computer boxes. There’s a McDonald’s down the road from where I lived. But the life I lived there is still growing within me. Better yet, it is me.

And the same thing will happen in Amsterdam. A year from now not a single staff member will remain who I worked with. The guests will obviously be different. And someone will probably paint the walls or do some weird thing with the computer system.

But my life here will remain.

I suppose I do have a home. Home is all around me.

It’s kind of fun to see the world as one big living room.

• • •

One last note:

I mentioned that I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be in Ireland. That’s a legitimate question. We all make purchases that, in hindsight, we know we shouldn’t have made. And going on a trip is harder to quantify. How can I prove that an experience is worth a few hundred dollars when a few hundred dollars is so valuable?

But on that bus I finally boarded, the one I was waiting for with the confusing thoughts knocking around inside my noggin, I knew that I was supposed to be in Ireland. I sat in the back of that double-decker with the cool Irish breeze from an open window in my face. I closed my eyes. I’m sure I smiled. That was good…that was right.

And later, at my church home group, I sat among friends who laughed, talked, listened, and finally prayed for me. I felt at home.

I also felt that I was ending my time in Amsterdam the way that it had started and leaving for Israel in the best way possible�with the blessing from my church.

So how much is a trip to Ireland worth? For me? It’s a bit like a credit card commercial.

Priceless.

When one walks through Amsterdam at 7:00 am, one might become privy to many interesting sites. I’ve seen fog turn a cold winter morning into an impressionistic painting, with canals disappearing into a pearly haze and church towers rising out of nothing. And I love strolling down the center of Amsterdam’s red brick streets with not a person, bike, or car to be seen and only sea gulls to be heard.

But I want to tell you about a surreal moment, not an impressionist one.

To get from my house to the hostel, I have to walk down Zeedijk, one of the oldest streets in Amsterdam. Zeedijk is also one of the more unpleasant places to walk early in the morning. Some days and nights are worse than others, but I’ve seen junkies shooting up and more on this street.

Zeedijk symbolizes Amsterdam for me: an incongruous mix of beautiful old buildings and human depravity lining the streets. I suppose this street by itself is quite surreal.

This morning wasn’t too bad. I didn’t see any junkies, but I did see two guys pulling their luggage behind them and smoking what I thought, at first, were regular cigarettes. On closer inspection, and as I smelled the smoke that drifted past me, I knew it was marijuana. In Amsterdam that’s no surprise. Especially from tourists.

What surprised me was my imagination. I’ve never had a desire to smoke marijuana, but this morning I imagined my reaction if one of those tourists offered me a puff. I even asked myself if there would ever be a circumstance where I would say “yes� to such an offer.

Like I said, I’ve never desired to smoke pot. But it was in this surprised state of mind that I saw Oliver Twist riding a bike down Zeedijk.

I promise, I didn’t smoke any pot!

Okay, so he wasn’t Oliver Twist. But this little boy with trousers that didn’t reach his ankles and feet that barely reached the peddles rode by so slowly and without a glance in any direction…he could have been a ghost. Or conjured up from the depths of my own misty mind. He certainly didn’t belong on Zeedijk at 7:00 am on a Tuesday morning.

Surreal.

And, in a strange way, worth having to walk to the Shelter this Tuesday morning.