I chased love to the Netherlands at the dawn of my home-free life. That love transferred from a woman to the smallest big city in the world, Amsterdam. This city that swallows the sea became the closest thing to belonging felt throughout the years I spent without a place of my own. Even now, those giddy butterflies that fill my belly upon boarding a plane to somewhere beyond my country’s borders is a reminiscent echo of that first flight to Schiphol with a head full of hope.