Three Dutch Princes and the Girl with Skinned Knees

It was late by the time I found myself in Leidseplein. Too late for dinner, though I’d happily scoffed a cream cake and a basket of crispy fries in Jordaan that afternoon. I’d spent a languid string of hours day-dreaming by the canal and poking around the gingerbread-house shops, but as evening fell I became increasingly irritated with the tourists swarming around me. Ducking down different streets at random, I shouldered my way through a drunken gaggle of American boys and avoided the families with screaming, cherry-red children.

It was midsummer 2013 and I was in Amsterdam with nothing but a tiny rucksack, my journal and a creased, coffee-stained map. The trip was born from impulse and my mother had spent the last three days ringing my hotel and leaving neurotic messages. "Are you okay? What are you doing? Don’t run away with any strange men!" I rounded another corner, my whole body buzzing with the sounds of the city, and tripped across a crooked stone in the pavement, landing flat on my face. 'Typical,' I thought morosely. It was then that I saw the neon-lit sign illuminated in the gloom. Café Alto, it proclaimed. Bright nodes of music spilled out onto the street and three boys sharing a cigarette grinned down at my sprawled form.

"You like music, yeah?" One of them said after helping me up and taking pity on my broken Dutch. I stared at him in confusion, and one of the other boys chimed in with, "Come in, this is some good shit," sticking a thumb in the direction of the doorway. I followed them and found myself in a tiny jazz club, ambient and dark. A band were in the middle of their set, playing a goofball mix of retro jazz and trippy hip-hop, and my three new friends ushered me towards the bar. The place was full, with groups of potheads, broke students and artists, but unlike the humid streets outside it felt welcoming, strangely like I belonged. I spent the night laughing with this shimmering group of youths and dancing to an endless stream of jazz, breaking out of my shell more with each strange new face and lush saxophone solo. I suddenly realised this was the Amsterdam I had been searching for and I relished each moment spent giggling in the sooty light.

Amsterdam is a beautiful city and it offers an exquisite array of restaurants, museums and architecture, yet it's that small hole in the wall that I yearn for. When it's summertime and the ice cream drips down my wrist, I open my bedroom window and try to hear the music in the breeze.