institute of the University of Amsterdam, on Herengracht, toward Rokin. I happened to spot a book on Frans Hals, which turned out to be the 1989-1990 catalogue, of the last major Hals exhibition, which took place in Haarlem, Washington D.C., and London. I would have no idea that when I bought that book that day, it would lead me to writing two MA theses on this most celebrated of seventeenth century Dutch painters. Walking through Amsterdam, as opposed to cycling through it, enables the experiencing of the city at a slower pace, literally. And because of that, new things are seen by the eye, that are not seen when passing the same places and spaces, on a bike. Today, while strolling through the same book market at Spui,fond memories of living in Russian Hill in San Francisco, in 2006 and in 2007. I worked in SoMa, and could not have stumbled into a more exciting or welcoming place to work, when I was all of… 20 years old. Suddenly I found myself in San Francisco, free from everyone and everything I had ever known prior, and suddenly found myself as a temporary resident of that city–which I had twice visited before, in the 1990s and early-2000s. I would often leave my house in the mornings, stumble down the avenue to Mason Street, and, if approaching, hop on the next cable car, as it made its way toward me, coming up Russian Hill from North Beach. Often times I would eat fruit on the way to