It’s about the way it feels

It’s about the way it feels. Because this is just a regular Amsterdam park on a regular winter day - not very pretty at all.

But is is about the friends who are only a 5-minute walk or 10-minute bike ride away. The memories of lazy summer picknicks in this park. Of long covid-walks, emotional conversations over coffee, late-night tipsy bike rides, kisses and holding-hands and will you be my?- moments here.

It’s this feeling of home that is so hard to pinpoint, it just is. It does not have to do with beauty, or good weather (ha! ☔️) or “this place is better, because…” arguments.

Home is where the map of your city is not made up of street names, but of memories and people. It’s where you feel a certain way in a certain street because you remember the boy you kissed there, or the cinema you went to with the new girl who now is your close friend. It’s the coffee shops with owners who seem to always be there, whether you leave for 6 months or go in every day. It is going to the doctor and running into your old neighbor, doing groceries and knowing exactly where to find what, it is getting cash out and not having to look up your new pincode. It’s not having to check Google maps at all, because you know where to go based on memories and memories of memories and friends of friends and jobs you’ve had and volunteer work you’ve done and …

It is cycling home late-night as a woman - alone - and feeling safe.

Travel is bliss and ecstasy and excitement and feeding endless curiosity and zest for life. But oh how sweet the return is. How much sweeter it gets, every single time.

(And maybe it’s me seeing through the rose-colored glasses of my recent return… but doesn’t this look like a little slice of heaven to you?)

Day 22 (or so) of #the100dayproject with my #100daysoftravelnotes