Haarlem Globetrotter

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It wasn't a feeling of disgust, fear, or curiousity. It was a sense of complete unbelonging, an opressive moral numbness that rejected me and everything I care about. Amsterdam doesn't like me and I don't like it; I couldn't leave fast enough. I knew, on a surface level, what I'd find, but I expected to be able to handle it - I've seen a lot in two months after all - but instead, I just felt like crying. Germany is a nice place to re-adjust to western society, but Amsterdam is a good place to make me, at least, want to go home more than ever before.

We took the first train out of the city we could after breakfast. Haarlem isn't anywhere near a ghetto, and it only has a few notorious coffee shops downtown. Today we took a long bike ride through a national park full of bent bushes, windswept pines and wild horses, down to the sea. It was a relief, but not like home will be. See you soon.

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