I had a fabulous time on Saturday. I caught the train to Breda to see Izzy. After 3 years of daily travel the NS and I know each other well. Basically I pay 200 euros a month and the NS provides me with perpetually late, packed and stinky trains. While I was shell shocked at first I think I’ve adapted well. My heart doesn’t race when the doors open and the crowd surges forward like a rugby scrum after the whistle blow. Even more impressively, when the expressionless 2 metre giant elbows me in the head to scramble for some imaginary free seat, I just laugh instead of pretending my scarf is a voodoo doll and stab him violently with my keys. Anyway, the NS is pretty good in the weekends. The trains are often on time, there are plenty of seats and it’s nice to grab a good coffee and read a magazine. As the train arrived at Utrecht, I was pleased to see there were hundreds of free seats and only 20 or so people waiting to get on. I stood patiently beside the door to allow the people to step off the train. As the train stopped I noticed a pack of 7 middle-aged women running towards me from the escalator. They screeched to a halt when they reached me and stood side by side directly in front of the doors. Obviously the 10 people waiting to get out couldn’t get past the women yet they stood there obliviously and actually tried to push through the people trying to get out. After a few seconds of pushing and shoving no one had managed to get in or out of the train and finally a young woman trying to get out said with exasperation,

Volleyball Nicole googled her way on to my site. I guess I should have seen it coming. I probably should have even changed names. Yet now I’m thinking maybe, just maybe, somewhere deep my subconscious I wanted people to find it. I loathe confrontation but obviously the need to tell her how I felt was bubbling away under the surface. So while I was nervous about her reaction, I was also incredibly relieved that she would see for the first time that her frostiness made a huge contribution to my loneliness here.

She was understandably surprised. I imagine it’s confronting to see someone writing about you online. What I didn’t predict is that she’d approach Jarno (instead of me) and go absolutely off her head. Jarno told me to forget about her, that I only told the truth and should be able write what I want to. Instead, wanting to make peace, I wrote her an overly generous email. I admitted my own faults and things I could have done better. I told her how much I’d realised I was wrong about her and how I was ready to let go of the past.

After I wrote it, I spent the next couple of days skipping around looking forward to her reply. I thought she’d write back and say sorry for not making more effort and we could all go out for a beer. But what do you think she wrote back? A condescending email telling me how I should feel guilty and that I owe everybody a huge apology. She told me that because she couldn’t avoid running into me in the future she hoped I could look her in the eye (c’mon I didn’t say anything that bad!) The best line of all was she hoped I would ‘integrate’ better into Dutch society and confront people head on. (Note: I have tried this on two occasions and it ended with 5 people yelling at me at once, no change whatsoever on their part and me crying in my pyjamas for 2 days).

Anyway, her email stung me like slap in the face. I don’t remember ever being so pissed off. It did have a positive spin off though. As I sat there with my eyes narrowed and my teeth clenched a thought struck me, “God dammit, where’s my self-respect??” It seemed at that moment, out of nowhere, I found it again. I shot off an equally contemptuous email and decided to erase her out of my life. She responded to my email paragraph by paragraph in red (seriously) but I felt nothing on receiving it. It’s so liberating to finally have the weight of needing acceptance off my shoulders. P.S. the only sad part of this story is that her boyfriend is one of my favourite people in the whole country.

Life is like a roller coaster. I just read that line in Judy Garland’s biography and while it is simple and awfully overused, it’s been floating around in my head for days. I guess it’s true for everybody. People go though the happy highs, scary dips and unexpected twists that leave them hanging upside down. It’s all part of the fun, right? Lately I’ve been wondering whether I switched roller coasters and nobody told me. In my pre-Holland existence I felt like the ride was easy. Ok it was also mundane and predictable but it was so comfy knowing whatever bend was coming I could deal. This new ride feels like the mother of all roller coasters.

With the temperatures plummeting it’s getting difficult to deny that the so-called summer is over. Holland seems to have a 9-month long winter so the coming period is going to be tough. Luckily I’ll be flying back to the sunny skies of home in just 3 weeks.

I had an eventful weekend. It didn’t start well with a three-hour wait at the train station. The NS screwed up again and people were left stranded all over the country. Of course they blamed somebody else. Did I already tell you more than 30% of Dutch trains run late? Funnily enough, you can drive two hours east to Germany and the trains run like clockwork. On Saturday night we went to a cheesy but cosy restaurant called Chez Jacqueline. The food was sensational and the ninety year-old man playing the piano was too cute for words. Although I have to say the drunks who stood up to form a congo line through the restaurant did take it a little far.

Sunday I went to look at a wedding dress expo. It was like walking through meringue city. Giant, fluffy, ruffled, sparkly dresses everywhere. I got chatting with one of the ladies and told her I’m Australian. She went on to say that she knew someone who sold wedding dresses there. I told her the fashion is a lot different as we like simpler fabrics with clean elegant lines. She said,

“Yes, but you are catching up fast to us”.

Remembering my manners I only thought, I bloody well hope not as we walked out. Lenny, who is also getting married, didn’t like the dresses either. Who wears those things??