July 14, 2014
Today I went on a walking tour of Amsterdam. My tour
guide from SANDEMANs, Kor, pronounced like “hard core”, took our group on a
tour of Amsterdam with such zest and life, but he was not dragging us. There
are some people who know what they are talking about and just ramble so quickly
that no one else understands a word they are saying. Kor did not do this. He
took his time and repeated things when asked. He even spoke Dutch, a little
German, and of course English so that he put the emphasis where it should go.
Kor explained that Amsterdam is 800 years old and is Dutch. He said the Dutch
have a saying, “God created the world, but the Dutch made Holland. I thought
this was funny as Dr. V just told me this earlier in the day.
Today I would like to talk to you about freedom. We
all want to be free; free from the watchful eye of our parents, teachers, even
others that could judge us. I am a firm believer that everyone should take some
liberty with their lives; however I do not think that people should act
unseemly. In society young people want to grow up too soon. For those of you
who might study abroad I want to let you know that it is okay to be you. That
is what freedom is actually all about. No one has to conform or be in a box
doing the same thing that everybody else is doing. I live outside of the box
because I want to be able to soar when the winds lift me. God has blessed me
today with several gusts of wind when I was warm. He kept the rain from falling
down on me today, and I am thankful.
On my tour I found out that the Dutch here in
Amsterdam just wanted to live free. Kor the tour guide said Amsterdam is the
land of the “Hippie”. He explained that the three XXX’s on the flag of
Amsterdam is representative of the three things that they have conquered. One
is fire, two is flood, and three is the plague.
Freedom for each person is different. In Amsterdam
to be free is totally different from freedom in America. Each one of us is
reared in an environment that we either embrace or rebel against. American,
Dutch, French, or German we all have to know what we want freedom to mean. Be
free, stay free, but don’t live unseemly lives trying to fit in or make
friends.
