Thoughts On the Road to Amsterdam

Is it weird that I love being in a place where I can't read the signs? If I was driving, it would probably stress me out, but I'm not, so I love it. It's so...not boring. To struggle through language barriers can be difficult and awkward, but it's always interesting and enlightening (if not about the meaning of the words, then about the culture or the language itself). It makes the world seem both bigger and smaller - bigger than America (which can feel like the whole world sometimes) and smaller than all the mysteriously foreign places beyond. Because they're not foreign anymore; they are reality, and I am the foreign one.

Also, I just passed the PlayMobile headquarters. I cannot stress to you how much I freaking love PlayMobile. :D

On a completely unrelated note, I want to live in an old old row house in a European city, with houses squishing up against it on either side and a little tiny paved area in front with a little bench and a gate and steps up to the door. I want it to be three stories tall and very narrow and a little bit droopy with a stepped roof, but also somehow have a garden up there. I don't want a backyard and I don't care if the house is small and creaky and looks out onto the traffic instead of on a quiet suburban street. But there should be a park down the street and a metro station nearby, and fresh produce in small groceries on the corners. And I want a dog named Bijou and a cat named Little Wing and a library and a silly little car like a vintage Mini or a Fiat or a VW Thing. Yep. That would be great. :)

Something a little bit like this: