Since I was only in Amsterdam for two days, I knew I had to schedule my visit like an army general with a passion for bullet journaling. I was dropping in on my friend Sophie, who was staying with her uncle and his husband for Pride. We had arranged to travel around all the classic tourist sites together: the Rijkmuseum, the Van Gogh museum, and the aggressively named Dam Square. The first day had gone according to plan: we had arranged a boat to view the event itself, watching the brightly decorated floats sail by and cheering ourselves hoarse at the Dutch drag queens. Afterwards, all of us travelled through the main canals for some leisurely sightseeing. Amsterdam, as seen by boat, looks like nowhere else on earth. The architecture is unmistakable - joyfully quaint houses from a children’s book, stacked together like chocolate boxes. Leaves skimmed the water, and we waved hello to cyclists and smoking teenagers alike. The next day, instead of taking off for another adventure, we woke to absolute chaos. The uncle’s husband had suffered a suspected cardiac event in the night. “Get out of the house and have fun, I’ll probably be rushing in and out of here all day.” Her uncle’s instructions left no room for disagreements. “If you really want to help, take Douglas for a walk.” Douglas was their 7-year old cockapoo, who wheezed and walked slowly and craved attention at all times. We took him along a canal, dodging the onslaught of speeding bicycles, and talked about what we were going to do. Sophie didn’t want to see our scheduled tourist spots. “I just really wanted to visit them with my uncles,” she said apologetically. I didn’t mind at all. I was too busy feeling guilty about intruding on someone else’s family emergency. We still needed lunch, and couldn’t decide what we wanted, so I persuaded Sophie to try something I vaguely remembered reading about in the Oud-West neighbourhood. The indoor market ‘Foodhallen’, found in the De Hallen cultural complex, gave us around 20 street vendors to choose from, and a charming atmosphere provided by the historic architecture of this former tram depot. With Dutch bitterballs and dim sum in hand, we wandered out past the hall’s diverse crowds in search of something else to see. I decided to ask a stranger for ideas, and, in perfect English, she directed us towards what I would later find out was a ‘hofje’ (a secret courtyard surrounded by almshouses, built between the 12th and 19th centuries for poor elderly women.) We walked through the doorway and entered a Rembrandt painting. The courtyard unfolded before us in centuries-old golden light, filled with greenery. Charmed, we rested for a while in the strange quiet area before continuing our exploration of the city’s streets. Sophie and I had been walking all day in summer weather, and by late afternoon, the only thing that sounded appealing was a swim. So, based on nothing but a patch of blue we had seen on a street map, we took a train a little further west to somewhere called Sloterplas. There was absolutely nobody in sight around the lake, we realised as we dragged our now exhausted bodies around its edge. The water was as still as glass, and the grassy patch where we changed into our swimwear was hidden by overhanging branches. Besides some swans lurking warily on the opposite bank, nothing interrupted the view of city buildings rising from a foreground of weeping willows. As we swam, a feeling of overwhelming rightness settled on me - that we were in the perfect place at the perfect time. It felt like the exact right song coming on shuffle, or unexpectedly seeing someone from home in a foreign city: a surprisingly familiar warmth. While we basked, Sophie reached for her phone and revealed the latest update: her uncle’s husband was fine, it had been a false alarm. “Are you annoyed we didn’t do the touristy things like we were supposed to?” she asked. The thought hadn’t entered my head at all, I realised. We had found completely unscheduled tranquility in the midst of chaos: how could I wish we were anywhere else?