We sat next to the large, open windows looking down on the busy Prinsengracht (Prince's Canal) in Amsterdam, the late sun streaming down on the thousands of colourful boats passing every hour.
It must be a regatta, I said happily.
Next day, the canal was just as clogged.
This is Amsterdam at play. When the sun comes out, so do the shorts and the fun-filled days and long evenings.
Boats of every shape and size imaginable fill the canals. Boats with entire families on board, picnics spread out, glasses lined up. Bikini-clad lovelies lounge on plump cushions, dogs gaze longingly at landlubber cats (there is a moored barge, the Poezenboot, dedicated solely to stray cats), children wave at us and jump into blow-up paddling pools on the roomy decks.
The Dutch are addicted to coffee, and everywhere there are people at pavement tables just inches from the terrifying cyclists (more bikes in the Netherlands than people).
There were four coffee shops in a row next to our apartment, and as we walked past them each day we breathed deeply, hoping to cop a cheap fix from the rookers' legal spliffs.
To our great joy, we'd found one of the few(ish) really great apartments for rent, right in the centre of Amsterdam. It was enormous. Apparently, in a city pressed for size, this was an amazing find.
We were there to work, mostly. We were writing a book about the Afrikaans writer and poet, NP van Wyk Louw, who'd spent eight years in Amsterdam as Professor of Afrikaans, and we needed more than a hotel room to work in.
Booking on the internet for the first time, I'd clearly had some beginner's luck.Like most of the city's accommodation, it is lengthy inside (homes used to be taxed on the width of their frontage, which is one reason the houses are so narrow).
Once we'd heaved our luggage up the carpeted staircase, as steep and narrow as a ladder, we felt the need for a little lie-down.
Then we checked out the space. A large bedroom. Double doors opening onto a larger lounge/dining room. There was a second, smaller bedroom and a large, fully equipped kitchen with dishwasher. A laundry. Three televisions. And those deep windows looking onto the canals, jammed with jolly life.
We needn't ever leave here, I beamed. Then we discovered we were around the corner from the Rijksmuseum. Whenever we felt the need for a bit of greenery, we strolled across and sat (free entry) under the leafy trees in its sunken garden, gazing over rows of herbs and blue cornflowers, drinking great coffee and oohing over brilliant brownies sold from their little kiosk.The Dutch are the tallest nation in the world, friendly, informal and helpful. It's a paradise for young people bent on a good time, though it was a grey-haired American tourist who seemed determined to find it. Standing one morning outside the Palace, she demanded to know where the "red light district" was.
"Well, I don't think it can be here," I replied, gesturing at the sedate surroundings. "I must see it," she insisted, a worried-looking chap on her arm.
On our last night in Amsterdam we took a final stroll through the streets and discovered a large cache of windows rimmed with red neon lights, featuring uniformly buxom women wearing a scrap or two of black lace, some chatting on cellphones - just 100 or so metres from where I'd misinformed the determined sex-tourist.
Oops. I do hope she found what she was looking for...