I had been to Amsterdam a couple of times with Eric; we loved the museums and the Concertgebouw (it was here that I first heard Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, in Dutch). We loved the canals lined with tall, stepped houses; the old Hortus Botanicus and the beautiful seventeenth-century Portuguese synagogue; the Rembrandtplein with its open-air cafes; the fresh herrings sold in the streets and eaten on the spot; and the general atmosphere of cordiality and openness which seemed peculiar to the city.