At approximately 0700 hours one day last week, after months of international talks between representatives from Buxton and the Netherlands, rebel feline commando “Walker” was remanded in custody for transfer from his American prison to The Hague. Well, he wasn’t forced into the crate. He went of his own volition; he is a very good boy. And he’s not being tried for war crimes (unless escaping the house, getting hit by a car and running up a $10,000 vet bill qualify as war crimes).

In September, my little sister Virginia (not so little anymore, I admit) boarded a plane for the Netherlands, where she has enrolled in a year-long program at Leiden University. Specifically, it’s a master’s in crisis and security management with a specialization in war and peace studies. I’ve mostly just been calling it “war and peace.”

Basically she’s going to become the person you call if you need to assemble a refugee camp, prosecute war crimes or figure out if a region is going to break out into armed conflict. I’m very proud, and, since I co-signed her student loans, I’ve been taking full advantage of being able to say “I sent my sister to The Hague.”

I’ve never been fond of Sallie Mae and her greedy, grasping claws — the loans we took out are set at a 15% interest rate — but now that the current presidential administration is machine-gunning the Department of Education, I’m finding myself grateful for the fact that her loans are private. Unlike the recipients of State Department-sponsored scholarships, she’s not stuck in a foreign country without her promised money.

Virginia actually was a recipient of a Gilman Scholarship during her undergraduate years at the University of Maine. It paid for her travel, books and academic program when she studied abroad in Kosovo. This was many moons ago, when we had a government that thought investing in education and international affairs was a good idea.

I miss her, these days, but the miracle of modern technology is that I can constantly be in contact with her, chatting on Whatsapp all day or sending Instagram reels back and forth across the Atlantic.

I asked her what she misses most when she’s in the Netherlands (other than her family and friends). She said two things: “the feeling of knowing how everything works, what everything means, and not having to think about/concentrate on doing daily stuff” and Dunkin’ and Aroma Joe’s. And honestly I’m not sure I put those in the right order.

We got a lot of joyful texts the day she found Dunkin’ in Utrecht. (No Aroma Joe’s sightings yet, but the time is ripe for a European expansion.) And when she comes back to visit us in Maine, she misses her regular life and routines, being able to hop on a tram and go places, and the prices. (“Everything there is less expensive to an American.”) She witnessed me and my wife get married while she was on a tram! Oh, and she likes Dutch bathroom stalls, which apparently go floor to ceiling to actually give you privacy.

Our foreign correspondent Virginia says that the biggest similarity between the Dutch and Mainers is “the people are pretty similar.” The vibe is “keep your head down and mind your business.” They’re “not super cuddly and talkative but will always help.” I asked her what the biggest difference was and she said, “People there are PAINFULLY blunt to the point where it comes across as rude to an American.” I asked if growing up with an undiagnosed autistic sister, not exactly known for always phrasing things delicately, helped her adapt to the new culture. She sighed. Mission accomplished!

Virginia says that as an American abroad, what she gets asked about the most are politics, whether she owns a gun, whether she has shot a gun, and then things about sizes (Do you have neighbors? Is it true you have to drive everywhere?), to which the answers are: no, yes, yes and mostly yes. “To me everything in Europe got hit with a shrink ray, so people know things are bigger in America but don’t really understand how much bigger. Like trying to explain to people what I consider a large-sized drink shocks them.” I can confirm that all the pictures she’s sent of her tiny little coffee drinks by the canal are indeed twee; if I was ordering from a Dutch cafe I think I’d need three.

The thing that surprised her the most about living in Europe (other than the cheap, easily accessible health care) was almost no one she meets in Den Haag (that’s Dutch for The Hague) is actually where they say they’re from. “Parents are from different countries. They have the passport of a country and half the time they grew up in a third/fourth country, sort of like Americans are with states.

Europe is a very blended, multicultural continent these days. And, the folks she’s interacted with know a lot about American pop culture, history and politics but very little about what it’s like to actually be an American — the everyday stuff of living in America, etc. (Hence, “Do you have neighbors?”)

I asked her if she has seen tulips and windmills. Her response was, “Do you see barns and pine trees in Maine? lol.”