#this one video opened with the church bells of leiden ringing

[psqqa]

god youtube stop reminding me how much better dutch cities are than literally any place i could live in canada ;___;

#went to look up some videos of the leids dialect #ended up watching videos by expats talking about their experiences living in the netherlands #and it's weird #i don't feel homesick anymore #but god is it frustrating to realize i once lived in a place that has so much of its shit together in terms of basic livability #actually that's a lie #this one video opened with the church bells of leiden ringing #and then switched to the sounds of a draaiorgel #and the stab of homesickness was fucking real #last time i was in the netherlands it didn't feel like home anymore #but it was so familiar in a way that was just so.......... #the US-centrism of tumblr is what it is i don't get mad about it #but so many posts are just so deeply unfamiliar to me yet posited as such a universal experience that i start like doubting my idk #experience-built sense of the world? #and then i think about my childhood or watch a video about the netherlands and it's like #no there's a reason these statements and arguments and lines of reasoning are confusing and unfamiliar to me #and it's because they do not hold with the experience of my childhood #they are coming from a different place and a different culture and even with shifts in progress and attitudes #and correcting for the blinders of my own privilege #the contextual starting points are simply different