Love story

I write to you now from Amsterdam, where at this moment the air is blowing a stifling 88 degrees, which here somehow feels hotter than it sounds. The sun seems to be slowly bringing the canals to a boil, and people are nearly naked in the parks. But oh, summer in Amsterdam is bliss. Pure, simple bliss eating ice cream with your legs dangling over the side of a canal and riding your bike as slowly as you can without tipping over. To leave a club at 4:00am on a Monday morning, drenched in sweat from hours of dancing, and ride through the streets with bare limbs letting the warm night air dry your skin; this is Amsterdam weather at its best. This is what makes everyone fall in love with the city all over again each year, what makes them forget the miserable winter.

And I am here. Here where I lived for one crazy year as an au pair for a family that I fell deeply in love with. It's been 10 months since I moved back to the States, and I am now merely a visitor to this place called Holland, but it feels as though I never left. Sure, the kids are older, the family is living in a different house, and I am no longer tied up in a romance with a Dutch boy, holding hands as we cycle through town, but things are mostly the same. My connection to this place and the people in it feels just as vibrant, true, and whole as it did last year. Perhaps even more so now that I've truly seen it stand the test of time.

Plus, I mean, look at that face, those cheeks as he fills them with three whole yogurts on a summer afternoon. This alone, to me, is worth the cost of the flight.

Now I'm off to don my orange and watch the Netherlands/Brazil game in a bar somewhere. Hup Holland Hup!