What Happens in Amsterdam

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

glance back toward the street, as though waiting for the patron saint of lost Americans to help me out, but there’s no point.

I’ll come across the most gorgeous building I’ve ever seen, and it’ll be a Burger King.

“She’s meant to do something great,” they said. “We just know it.” And then I didn’t. The only remnants of my early foray into the world are my asthma and a lingering sense that I’m not living up to the potential everyone thought I had.

Days like this, I am certain this is the loveliest place on earth. There is something dramatically different about life not just on this side of the world but in this specific city, something that goes beyond the metric system and the public transportation and the weather. Despite how foreign all this might have seemed a few months ago, I finally feel like I belong.

This quote has my absolute heart. Exactly what being in Barcelona felt like.