“The Tulip was an exotic flower in the golden era. The flower originates from Turkey and when it arrived in the Netherlands they were rare and extremely expensive. A tulip was the kind of flower you could actually make a statement with. You cannot imagine the kind of prices people would pay for a single tulip. The most expensive Tulip ever was named the Semper Augustus. It was worth around 10.000 guilders. For that same amount of money you could buy a canal house in the most expensive area in Amsterdam.”
“I never had a strong desire to become a parent. Neither did my wife. We took over my parents cafe instead. We worked for more than 40 years to keep the business going. You could say that the cafe was our child. When we retired we had to sell the cafe. It was hard...