It's my last day at my desk in Amsterdam, and I don't know how I feel about it. I want to see my old friends, feel the California climate again. Just as much, I don't want to leave. I'm making a home here.

Every morning between waking up and boarding the tram, I read signs in no less than four languages. I eat breakfast from a bowl that is "too small" with a spoon that is "too big", and the cereal is the dense muesli that the Dutch eat. I practice my Dutch all day long. I see skies that are fascinatingly blue, cloudy in ways that just seem different. There is weather here. I love the details, all the changes from what I'm used to. I think differently here.

All these differences. My wanderlust has kicked into high gear. I don't really feel settled anywhere, and I don't really want to.

But it's back to San Francisco for me, for who knows how long. I can't make commitments more than a few months ahead now. This Greenpeace gig may last longer than I thought, and there is some possibility of a permanent move to the European Union. Right now, that's looking really good.

I'm going to miss my Dutch class. I'm going to miss my dinners with Daryl, after-class coffee with Danuta, drinking at Wynand Fockink, and shopping at the Turkish market. And the Belgian beer.

I met a church organist at a little Dutch pub the other night. It's a soccer pub on some nights, filled with Ajax fans and cigarette smoke. This gentleman was 79 years old and spoke Dutch and German. We talked over jonge jenever. We spoke in his language, with me asking basic vocabulary questions every now and again. The Dutch are very patient with foreigners who make an effort to learn the culture.

He told me about his three years in Berlin. About touring Nederland with a famous group of organists, playing three-hundred-year-old pipe installations in thousand-year-old cathedrals.

I'm really going to miss these moments.