Like many young people, I graduated from college with no clue of what to do next. Sure, I had a degree, but what did that really mean anyway? I still had a craving to head off on my own and see the world. I wanted to explore and put the books away for a while. I came up with the best plan ever: I would move to Amsterdam and live on a house boat with an artist friend I had met during a semester of study there.
My parents were not too thrilled with the idea, but I think they also knew that I couldn’t do much else with my degree in Creative Writing. So they eventually let me buy a ticket to Amsterdam and head off to live on a house boat with someone they had never met. Looking back on it, it feels a bit crazy and really surprising that they let me go. I guess they must have realized my need for adventure and even perhaps the good that would come from a year of living on a house boat.
I absolutely loved each day I spent on the house boat with Ana, my Dutch artist friend. We would sleep in till whenever we felt like it and then come onto the deck of our house boat to drink coffee and make small talk about the people passing by on the riverwalk or about the things...