Amsterdam

It’s late afternoon at our Airbnb in Madeira, and Venecia and Alice have just gotten up from their afternoon nap. I spent the last couple of hours going through all the photos I’ve accumulated after just two and a half days on this island, and we’re about to head out to visit one of the world’s highest ocean cliffs.

Alice visited Amsterdam with her mom in late 2023 after quitting her job, and she was excited to show me all of her favorite spots in the city. In the 36 hours we had here, we ate pancakes in Europe’s smallest restaurant, watched a man sing over a plain cello accompaniment about the tulip bubble in a museum, and saw a lot of cute Dutch houses.

A tiny European city

Amsterdam was like a cartoon of a tiny European city. In the late afternoon, people would spill out onto the sidewalks, sitting at little tables facing the street as they sipped whatever it is Europeans sip at golden hour. Cyclists were everywhere (living in Amsterdam seems to demand a level of spatial awareness that I do not have), and the houses along the canals were about as cute as houses can be.

Tulip mania

We happened to arrive in Amsterdam in the middle of tulip season. We learned how the business of tulips is centered around the garlic-looking bulbs of the plant rather than the flowers, and at Keukenhof Gardens, we saw what can happen when natural selection meets human ingenuity, with tulips of every shape, color, and texture (including fringe) dotting the grounds.