Mixed Feelings

So here I am, yesterday I arrived in Washington, DC! I've been through a lot of trouble, it has taken about a year of preparations and there have been many uncertainties, but finally I've arrived! And yet, I can't say I feel as euphoric as I expected. I've had a great summer and spent a magnificent time in Berlin, Belguim, Bolivia, Prague, Vienna, Croatia and Beerze, my hometown with friends and family and to leave all that behind isn't very easy. So I feel what we call in Dutch 'ontheemd', un-homed. I don't live in the Netherlands anymore, and I still don't have a place to stay here either. I won't see most of my friends for quite some time, but I don't know anybody here in DC. So when I walked the streets here yesterday, it felt like I wasn't really there. Like I was watching everything from a distance, as if it was a movie. But it's real, and I'll just have to deal with it.
Luckily, I've already had some encouragements from people I met on the plane, at the border security and in between. The guy sitting next to me on the plane worked in DC as a business consultant, and he said I'd have a great time here. Then there was a girl who'll study law at the George Washington University this year and who also had to take care of a lot of things, and while I was lining up for border security a guy from London told me about his cousin who lived here and that he could help me out if necessary. So those encounters were a nice experience to start with, but that doesn't make up for the friends and family, and especially my girlfriend, who I left behind in the Netherlands. My last day there was great: me and Rianne, my girl, went to the beach at Noordwijk and we enjoyed the Dutch shore, sun and sky. And I must say, Holland is very different from the US. While Leiden, where I studied, as all these nice little brick houses, what I've see of DC up till now is just big office and appartment buildings. Instead of small streets and squares they have big avenues and crossroads here. And everything is big: big buildings, wide streets, big cars, large distances and big people. I hope I'll fit in here with my skinny body.