What we missed

We're slowly but surely getting back into the right time zone, and catching up on our sleep.  I don't think either of us realized how crazy only three weeks at Christmas would be: good thing we're coming back in August this year too.

Last year, though, we'd only been away for a few months... this time, it was close to a full year since we'd been home.  It's an odd feeling, one you can't really explain unless you've moved fairly far away from your hometown, and I think having moved out of the country made it just a little bit stranger.  Things are familiar, but you're not quite used to them anymore.  You notice things you hadn't before, and wonder why they're done that way.  You realize that things that used to irritate you aren't quite as irritating as you thought.

Mostly, all these things fell into two categories: things we missed about Canada (whether we'd realized it or not) and things we didn't really miss at all.   Half today, then, and half tomorrow (or whenever I get around to writing it!).

So, things we missed about Canada...  And before you ask, I'm not putting family and friends on here. That's a given, and it doesn't really count  :)

The mountains.  We don't really realize it, but we're very attached to the landscape of our hometown.   Talking with other expats, you hear the same things over and over again.  People from coastal cities miss the ocean, people from heavily-forested places miss the forest, and people from high-altitude cities miss the mountains.  I'm just used to them being there, when I glance to the west, and it feels odd that they're not.  And as for the forest, yes, there are trees here, but they're all eerily lined up in perfectly-spaced rows.  That's not forest.  It's barely even nature :P

The sun.  Hey, I'm not from Vancouver... I knew I'd have trouble adjusting to that.  It's been cloudy here since mid-November, and I probably won't see the sun again until March.  It may get cold in Calgary, but at least there's sunshine and big, big blue skies.  I don't think I'd appreciated what people meant about the big Canadian skies until I spent a full year in Europe.  The sky just feels bigger and further, somehow.  And it's not that the sunrises and sunsets are any different.  I get asked this all the time, and I've checked: Eindhoven is at roughly the same latitude as Calgary, give or take a fraction of a degree.  The sunrise and sunsets vary by, at most, four minutes.

Stores we know.  Sure, we're getting into a routine and figuring out where we like to shop, and I've even found a few clothing stores I like, but when you're used to a certain selection of stores and that's completely gone, it's hard not to feel a bit lost.  I love going to the market twice a week, and I like shopping here, because the women's clothing is cut closer to my body type than it seems to be at home (plus it's often cheaper), but I was used to shopping at certain places, where I would usually find something I liked.  Stefan's even worse.  In the spring, he needed new jeans, so I asked him where he wanted to go shopping.  His answer?  The Bay.  Unfortunately, not an option.  As a result, we both packed fairly light going out... and brought a lot of clothes back.  And DVDs.  Have I mentioned how much I hate region coding?

Hearing our own language... and our own accent.  It's not like the Dutch don't speak English.  As I've said before, they do.  Nearly everyone speaks at least some English, and most people are fluent.  For a vacation here, it's not really worth learning any Dutch at all.  (And really, I've had Dutch people tell me the same thing about a three-year stint here.)  But I feel really presumptuous assuming that everyone will speak to me in English.  I'd like to be able to do all my shopping and make appointments and such without having to resort to English.  And, by and large, I can.  I can even chat to the sales clerks a bit now.  But it's still a bit forced.  I still have to think about it.  Not as much as I did a year ago, but it still takes some effort.  And really, sometimes it's nice to sit on a train or in a restaurant and hear your own language.  And your own accent, for that matter.  You don't realize how much you miss hearing your own accent, spoken by people other than you.  Even though we get a fair amount of Canadian TV (who knew the Dutch would appreciate Little Mosque on the Prairie?), it's not the same.

(Canadian) winter-appropriate clothing.  Now, I think this one is just because we're Canadian.  We're used to dealing with temperatures that can range from -30 to +30, and we know how to dress for all of them.  Last winter, we did what we would do in Canada to figure out how heavy a jacket or sweater we needed: we looked out the window.  That, however, assumes that the people outside have the same cold tolerance as you.  Which they don't.  After a full year, I've determined that the Dutch dress about two levels warmer than I need in order to feel comfortable.  If I'm in short sleeves with a light sweater, they're in a light jacket with a sweater underneath.  If I've got a light winter jacket unbuttoned over a light sweater, they're buttoned up in a heavy winter coat with a heavy winter scarf.  I don't even have a heavy winter jacket here, because I don't need it.  The lowest of the lows isn't even -10, so why bother?  My light winter jacket is certainly enough for -10.  And I left my winter boots in Canada this time around, because I didn't wear them at all last year.  Leather boots are more than enough.  It does mean that I get some strange looks, because I'm carrying a winter jacket around when they're all bundled up, but hey, it also means I can wear more of my clothes for longer, especially when they're layered.  The last day in Calgary, it was about +10C, and I saw a girl in flipflops and capris.  I miss that.

Of course, there are some things you really, really don't miss and could happily leave behind forever.  But this is enough for today, while I delve back into the ongoing (and thankfully almost-finished) laundry battle.