Bringing back memories:

An Amsterdam Bimble from my parents’ youth, by Freya Holden

Our experiences are so much part of who we are as individuals. It feels really important to me that we hold onto good experiences.

Re-visiting places from earlier in our lives triggers long forgotten memories, bringing back conversations, encounters and emotions that were felt where the memory was created. Just like a photo album reminds us of particular moments in time, Bimble is the perfect medium for us to recall places we have visited even when we can’t go back to them right away.

Thinking about the connection between memory and place inspired me to talk to my parents about their lives in Amsterdam in the 1990s. Living there in their mid-20s, the prime years for exploring and experiencing new things, they were bound to have plenty of fond memories attached to special bars and restaurants.

We had a long conversation about their favourite places in the city, and the more we spoke, the more memories were evoked; from my mother roller skating most weekends in Vondel Park, to them both watching the world go by on the canals from the chairs of Café Luxembourg.

Looking back at photos and listening to them talk, I realised how happy they were living in this city, making memories and new friends; it shaped who they are today! Our house is always stocked with Dutch stroopwafels and the tulips adorning the table are a symbol of their previous life in Holland.

Unsurprisingly, they couldn’t recall the names of all the places they had loved but I created a Bimble to keep track of the ones they remembered and which have remained open over the past three decades.

The discussion with my parents has inspired me to make plans to visit their favourite spots in Amsterdam, to get a taste for what their life was like when they were just a few years older than me today!

Through these Bimbles, their cherished memories of the places they loved have the potential to become my future memories — and who knows, possibly yours too if you add them to your own Bimble. Obviously, places change and evolve, but often the character of places through time remains constant and I will imagine my youthful parents laughing and happy in each of them when I go. Check out my Amsterdam Bimble here.