A shoebox of photographs with sepia-tone lovin'

I'm a very lucky girl to have an awesome couple of grandparents who, from time to time, spoil me with huge brown paper packages filled to the brim with British tricks and treats - from Heat magazines to Lockerbie cheese. The packages are always a surprise and there's little that makes me feel more fuzzy and excited than tearing one of these bad boys open - although their surprise nature can make it difficult when I'm required to collect a missed delivery at the Post Office and the man asks what I am expecting and what the contents should be, for security reasons. (Bearing in mind this is the same man who was surprised by how long it took me to decide whether a package I was sending myself was considered 'valuable' or not - this is after I'd told him it contained nothing but  stroopwafels). Anyway, as I burrowed through my most recent delivery, amongst the Fox's Classics and Malteaser Bunnies, I found a small yearning for home. A nostalgia that comes over me every now and again as I live out my days in this wonderful city. Honestly, I've never been one to miss the material things in the U.K - the food, the shopping etc. - but I got to thinking about the little experiences and feelings I do miss and, you've guessed it, here's a few I want to share with you:

- In a straight-up culture where folk say exactly what's on their mind without frivolously and unnecessarily dancing around the point in order to spare the recipient's feelings; the bumbling, awkward, Hugh-Grant-in-any-rom-com, kind of British politeness is something I actually desperately miss. And yes, the snappy, blunt, way of talking that the Dutch exercise is probably a so much more efficient and bullshit-less kind of way to communicate, but sometimes I would just like someone to wish me a 'Good Evening' before firing their drinks orders my way. Plus, don't even get me started on the system they call 'queuing' here, it's enough to make even the most impatient of Brits hot under the collar and sweaty on the brow.
- Okay, I know I said I wasn't one to miss material things, but it's almost Easter and although the Amsterdam supermarkets are filled with tiny chocolate eggs and fluffy chicks, there is no sign of Easter Eggs and more heartbreakingly, no sign of Hot Cross Buns!
- On another food related note, the whole clean eating epidemic is yet to hit the Netherlands. Meaning I'm sat stuffing my face with Stroopwafels whilst my Instagram feed is full of sepia-toned, lean,clean salads and  ab definition progress shots. Plus any health foods I am curious try must first be translated into Dutch, which often results in my desperately searching Albert Heijn for names that look like a mixture between my iPhone's auto-correct vomit and a consecutive row of consonants on Countdown.
- Summer has reared it's little fluffy head here in Amsterdam, and one thing I find myself missing significantly, is the ability to rock the go-to Spring/Summer staple that is the maxi skirt. And why must I abandon any idea of flaunting this great and versatile piece of clothing, I hear you ask? Because I ride a bike. I travel everywhere by bike in Amsterdam, and the two just don't seem to be the best of chums. And although cycling in the sun does a cracking job for the forehead tan, my most recent efforts involved a hell of a lot of bunching up and a constant paranoia of any loose ends falling down into the trap of my speedily turning pedals, chain or even worse, wheels. However, with gutsy enthusiasm, I intend to persevere, so watch this space, as this Summer I work to make the maxi skirt and the bicycle compatible, even if it's just for one night.
- Being constantly surrounded by the native English language is another little thing I find myself sometimes craving. Although I live my day to day life here in a bubble of English - despite my growing capabilities in the Dutch language, which I do feel kinda guilty about - I have found myself, every now and again, uttering a phrase in the style of one of my non-native pals. Examples include "with who are you going?" and "make a photo".
- FREE HEALTHCARE!! They say you don't know what you've got 'till it's gawwn and that's never been more true and applicable than to the NHS. Although I have been exceptionally naughty and have only just started paying my 90 euro a month in my 19th month here - just in time to stock up hay fever medication.

So there you have it, sometimes being an expat is tough. But then a custom t-shirt clad, larey, English stag do stumble by. Looking like 'Ken dolls dipped in tea and covered in biro' (and everything else that viral Vice article described), with their embarrassingly obvious bloodshot eyes, oblivious to the fact that Amsterdam exists outside of the rip-off, tourist traps of the Red Light District coffeeshops and Irish pubs. They cheer and chant that 'what happens in Amsterdam stays in Amsterdam' as the stag downs a dirty pint after dirty pint - naturally whilst dressed in a novelty bondage costume. And all of a sudden I actually don't feel so nostalgic, I get a good giggle, and I cycle on.

Reminds me baby of you

It's been a long time coming, but it's time to get my ass back into boring you all with the ongoing struggles of expat life and, of course, my ongoing love affair with the city that is Amsterdam. It's been so easy to neglect recently with the bartending lifestyle not being one for much free time. Especially since the minimal hours I have seen daylight over the last six months have been spent revelling in the joy of thesis finishing, graduating and of course those horribly blissful yet life-consuming first few months of a relationship.

Yet as I party, drink and cocktail shake my way through my time here, living the expat dream with my little misfit expat family, there's one niggle which consistently remains at the back of my mind. It's a feeling that I don't think can be defined by homesickness. Amsterdam treats me like the perfect boyfriend should, doting on me day in day out and always keeping a grin on my chops. He's home to me now and as we've grown together I finally feel like I've learnt all those little important details about him; the things that wind him up, the things he does to grind my gears. In fact, I've never been more comfortable in a city away from home, yet there is still this longing, this desperate yearning in me, which seeks the familiar. As a friend of mine put it, it's the pining for being able to walk into a cafe and order a cup of tea without having to fight your way through another language or even just simply and shamefully admit that you don't speak that language, which of course, is not even a big deal to the Dutch with their endless talents in English, but there's still this element of shame, an element of discomfort I can't put my finger on. I came across this word 'hireath' - a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for lost places of your past - I'm not yearning for a place but a feeling, the feelings and moments of my past which of course look better through rose-tinted glasses because I was in my comfort zone. And if I was to return to my very first post about arriving in Amsterdam, I know I'll come across myself claiming that life begins outside of your comfort zone. I guess it's just one of those catch 22 phenomenons which I've now accepted are going to become more and more apparent as we all become grown ups. Anyway, I'm a firm believer that home is not a place, it's the people you surround yourself with in that place, so as long as folk stop leaving Amsterdam for Australia, I know I'm going to be just swell.

On a less sombre note, I now give you a condensed update of some of the key moments and experiences that have occurred since the last time I poured my stream of consciousness into my keyboard:

• I got a boyfriend. A real, Dutch one. I'm still learning how to care for him - how often to feed him, the idea that he might not like English tea with milk forced down his throat, etc. - but he's stuck around for now so I think it's going great
• I finished that damn mythical thesis I was always ranting on about and in turn, I graduated from my Master's. Albeit with a ceremony performed entirely in Dutch, through which I had to sit with a headset live translating the speeches on stage - which I'm genuinely hoping were way more clear and inspirational in a native language, otherwise the VU really needs to work on it's guest speakers
• I went to a surf camp in Mimizan where I spent the whole week walking around in a bikini with a surfboard under one arm and a wet suit thrown over the other shoulder pretending to be a surfer and hiding the fact the my beach hair was created with ghd's
• On the same trip, I drove a French car on the French side of the road and mildly freaked out
• I had my first Sinterklaas experience, including surprise making and Dutch poem writing. It was literally Christmas come early. (Note to self: Hang onto Dutch boyfriend and have two Christmas's a year without ever having to fight about whose family each should be spent with..)
• I got (read: stole) a cat! And she lives with me in my little crooked apartment next to Dam square, slap bang in the middle of Amsterdam
• I learnt how to say in Dutch that 'I understand but I'm too shy to talk in Dutch' and the amount of tips received from Netherlands folk increased significantly
• I learnt how to solo repair a tear in the inner tube of my bike wheel
• This summer I went to a festival which had a Knuffel Kerk - a small room you could climb into where the walls and ceiling were covered in cuddly toys

It's a weird one I know, but since when weren't my blogs just an extended rambling of my thoughts and distresses. Anyway, all is good below sea-level, for all those interested. Although I may have just finished my last packet of Jaffa Cakes throughout the writing of this post, if anyone would be so obliged..