PHOTO CREDIT: Jessica Hast / Unsplash
For two weeks I’ve been biking across Amsterdam twice a day. Once in the morning to take my five-year-old to camp by the Vondelpark. And once again in the afternoon to pick her up. Technically, I guess I’ve been biking it four times a day. It’s good exercise and the weather is gorgeous, but I’m just about fed up with it.
When we get on the bike, either direction, she always asks me to play a game. This morning I said let’s play the alphabet game. We took turns looking on signs and license plates for each letter of the alphabet from A (in Gottschalk) near our house. To Z (Vondelpark, Amsterdam Zuid, according to the map in the park).
The whole time on the bike we were engaged, laughing and scouring our surroundings. I even saw a license plate that had three Vs! It reminded me how often we miss what’s around us, and how much fun can come from opening your eyes and looking around. As Ferris Bueller famously said, “Life moves pretty fast, you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
