Value the Air You Breathe

Sometimes I just feel like America is doing it wrong.

Don't get me wrong - I am proud to live here - and I'm happy for all of the freedoms that we have.  I just feel like I've seen other countries that have some things more...figured out.

Look at the things we do to our environment - the way we continue to expend, consume and waste.  The packaging.  The bottles.  The garbage that we create.  I wonder what kind of planet we'll be leaving our children.

Getting Up to Mischief in the Red Light District in Amsterdam

This week, my sister in law volunteered to babysit so Hubs and I could do some adult type activities in Amsterdam.  We rode our bikes into the train station again, but missed the first train by two minutes (luckily they come every half hour). We hadn't purchased our tickets in advance, but there was a machine.  Then we discovered that the machine only took coins or Maestro (the European version of Mastercard). The restaurant next door told us that the train's "Chief" should have change. He didn't. But he let us take the train anyway - because we'd tried our best. We had money, we just couldn't use it.  

This is the outside if the train station (as an aside, on the way home in the train the last trip, I fiddled with my new camera and tried out some of the non-auto modes on this trip.  It has a panoramic mode that was perfect for Amsterdam). 

Amsterdam Train Station, August 2014

How We Got the Golden Ticket in Amsterdam

We rode our bikes to the train station and caught the train to Amsterdam on our fifth day in the Netherlands. My in-laws live about an hour outside of the city.  It was an overcast day, but the rain held off until we went home.

When we arrived, the train station was bustling with people going everwhere. The train station felt familiar - it had the same vibe as any large station in North America.  The floors were white and sparse, there were stores and food outlets in the hallway below the platform, the scents and smells you expect in a big city.  The building, from the outside, was absolutely stunning.