Girl in Amsterdam

part one: a case of the butterflies, live jazz + a cold hot dog on a cold night

“Ambition, covetousness, irresolution, fear, and desires do not abandon us just because we have changed our landscape.”

— Michel de Montaigne, On Solitude

Day One

Halloween morning started with a greeting from the North Sea winds and an unforgiving humidity that tormented my beautiful curls for the rest of the trip. For my first solo adventure, I flew a red-eye from Madrid to Amsterdam. I landed around 10 a.m. and called the hostel to ask when I could check in. They told me check-in started at 2 p.m., which meant I had roughly three generous hours to kill before finding my place in an eight-bed, all-female bunker.

In a restroom by the baggage claim, I changed into a white button-down shirt, a brown leather jacket, and a new, less drowsy face—a face with tulip-colored blush, brown glossy lips, and smudgy eyeshadow that, ironically, brought some life back into my eyes.

Within the next hour, I had locked my carry-on away at the hostel and walked to a gluten-free bakery I’d saved earlier. The walk was 22 minutes. It hit me around minute four, when I crossed my first bridge over the canal, that I was actually here. I was screaming to myself inside, but all anyone could see was a crooked grin and a tiny whimper of joy that manifested in my body through arm wiggles and awkward, giddy skips.

A case of the butterflies. Except they were not in my stomach, they were in my eyes, watching the red and pale yellow dying leaves spread a lively gradient sheet over the cobblestone streets. Not even the concert of bicycles parked on every corner could erode my view.

Craft Coffee & Pastry had a line out the door. Their croissants were to die for, regardless of whether they were gluten-free. I waited next to tall, Dutch, trench-coated, blue-eyed, blonde-haired patrons of polished beauty. After, I took the ham and cheese croissant and a cannoli over to Sarphatipark, where I eventually found a bench.

Behind me, an ancient autumnal tree bent over, lazily stretching its thick branches horizontally. A group of children from a nearby school was playing football. I kept my eyes on a socially awkward, chubby, brown-skinned, black-haired little boy who clearly wanted to join in but decided giggling from afar was enough. I realized then that I felt very protective of him. Maybe because he reminded me of my twin brother as a child.

In front of me, a man was feeding fat pigeons fresh pieces of bread from a brown bag. Around me, more people did the same. If I were a pigeon, I’d settle down in Amsterdam, I thought to myself. On the creeks and ponds: ducks, a swan (I think?), and, after some research, Eurasian coots. They looked like black ducks, but they were not. Distant cousins. The croissant was to die for, indeed. I finished right as the pigeons circled me, far kinder than the ones in New York.

I sketched the ancient tree until the cold numbed my fingers. By the end, I was hungry again. My body was craving pho on a spiritual level. I walked to Pho 91 while talking to my best friend, Gabby, who was preparing to run the NYC Marathon on Sunday. I crossed the sidewalk, doing my best not to get hit by the bikes. There was a lot of clumsy running, speed-walking, and daydreaming as I paced myself along the canal beneath trees with falling leaves. I followed the main street until I stumbled upon a giant market called Albert Cuypmarkt. Street vendors selling leather gloves, bangles, scarves, waffles, sausages, chocolate, and fur coats (in no particular order) were busy catering to the slow, leisurely crowd.

My bank account guaranteed a filling meal tonight, not faux baby blue leather gloves, so I ducked into the restaurant and caught up with Gabby for an hour while eating my hot bowl of non-traditional pho noodles and tender slices of beef. Table for one, or two if you counted a three-pixel Gabby detailing how she really wanted to get the marathon over with, and me, a two-pixel Prathigna, between spoonfuls of broth breaths, convincing her to do her best to be in the moment and know that she’s worked too hard not to have fun in the run. But who was I to say anything? I could barely run a mile without losing feeling in my calves.

Anyways. At around 2:30 p.m., I checked into the noisy backpacker hostel and caught a second glance at the smoke room downstairs. I’ll be back for you later, I promised myself. I was in Amsterdam. Of course, I came to smoke myself into a new dimension. For now, I was late to see Van Gogh.

The audio tour would have made me cry at the end if I had followed its directions and not gotten lost. Museums, much like public libraries, were my church. But nobody likes a crowded church. I did whatever was the opposite of a leisurely walk through the six or seven floors of Van Gogh’s life. I stared longest at his final, unfinished painting. Tree Roots.

This past summer, I insisted on spending time in a park almost every day, which meant roots had been on my mind for months. How they connect and share knowledge, and how every time I stepped over thick, intertwined roots from neighboring trees pushing up from the earth, I wondered if I was interrupting an intimate conversation.

But two things stayed with me at the end. One: I wished I had a sibling like Theo. Two: Van Gogh decided at 27 that he was going to be an artist. A painter. It soothed a nervous wreck like me, someone who wanted so desperately to become a published writer in this one lifetime of mine. I smelled the desperation on my clothes when I left the building. Even the wind tunnel between the museum to the Albert Heijn supermarket did not cleanse it out of me. It was nauseating, and not to be dramatic, but I think it became an “everyday” scent at 25, when I realized I truly lived to write. I cannot quell it just yet, so I usually wear my Arabians Tonka by Montale instead, to pull me back to smelling something else.

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Back in my room, I made contact with a girl from Bari who was my age. She said her English wasn’t that good, but she kept answering me in perfect English, with an accent that was oh so very Italian. She was living in Amsterdam for six months on an internship at a university far from the inner city, and the hostel was just a pit-stop until her apartment was ready in two days. She didn’t shy away from complaining about the city and the weather. She said she missed Puglia’s warm breeze and her coastal home, her family, her boyfriend, and her dog.

Initially, I was jealous of her situation and found myself staring at her in awe, thinking she was so lucky every time she mentioned moving into her apartment in Amsterdam. And then I remembered she’s European. I imagined what it must feel like for a family-oriented southern Italian girl to move to northern Europe in the winter, and I forfeited whatever envy I had left. The American mind did comprehend in the end. Or at least attempted to.

The only concrete plan I had for the night was to meet up with a dear writer friend, Valerie, at a Halloween party she had graciously invited me to at Contra Jazz Bar and Restaurant. I had no costume, just my lucky cobalt-blue mohair cardigan and a black silk skirt. There was nothing I loved more than getting dressed up for an event. Cocktail attire, I convinced myself, would be enough. I got ready, suggested to the fussy Italian that we should smoke a little downstairs, and then I would go my way after.

We smoked. We connected. We laughed. The lounge was filled mostly with men of all ages. I made eyes with a few who looked like my type, but the fog in the room clouded my vision as much as my desire to physically get over my ex. Emotionally, though, I’m there. I’ve been there.

A thirty-something-minute walk through what I can only describe as a painting later, I arrived at the party. Valerie and I caught up, we mingled, we people-watched, we listened to live jazz, and we left at a reasonable hour.

The walk back to the hostel was long, and I felt unexpectedly lonely. These sorts of nights had a way of stripping me naked. Days, on the other hand, kept me warm like an extroverted lover. Maybe it was all the lights, or the tall, attractive couples in comfortable steel-grey coats holding hands, the rows of girls going to the bars in long skirts and knee-high boots, scarves wrapped infinitely around their delicate necks, hair so shiny that even the humidity didn’t dare give it attention.

It was that night, my first night, that I caught a foreign feeling that followed me home and didn’t leave until I was on my flight back to Madrid.

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Under a quarter moon, I stopped for a hot dog. Gluten and all. It was very American of me, not the hot dog, but the small talk I made after paying. I had no idea what had gotten into me; I just needed to find safety in the voice of someone else again. I had been alone for too long, so I said something along the lines of, “It’s cold, have you had a busy night?” and the old vendor laughed with his red cheeks and eyes and replied, “Oh, my night is just getting started.” It was 1 a.m., or somewhere close. Oh. On a Friday.

That interaction, unintentionally callous, reminded me that the night was young, and I was alone, devoid of exciting plans. When I was in my early twenties, I used to nurture the potential of young nights as if it were my god-given right, as if I were their mother. But now, I don’t know. The night, as young as it was, would carry on the way it was designed to. I felt equally strange and satisfied eating the cold hot dog with warm bread on the bench next to the vendor, while staring at the canal, the lights from various pubs and restaurants reflected on the water. Water that also carried the shadows of boats, trees, and bikes. I ate in silence, wondering where this bout of loneliness had come from and the extent of its depth.

At 2 a.m., the lobby of the hostel was noisy and bright. It was inviting. I walked past the commotion, the thick layer of weed, graffiti walls, the bar, and tattooed men. I was the last one in the room, crawling back into my tiny bunker with my phone as a flashlight.

My first 24 hours in Amsterdam held a feverish mingling of emotions. I felt each one as if my body were a museum, every feeling a person visiting, some lingering longer than most. Some refused to stay more than an hour, while others wandered into rooms not yet ready to be on display.

Was this the price of being in complete company with oneself?