Travel does something wonderful to the mind. It gently removes the familiar guardrails of daily life and replaces them with curiosity. Suddenly, everything feels new. Even the ordinary becomes an event.
That’s exactly how it felt wandering through the countryside outside Amsterdam.
The air was different. The light was different. Even the sounds felt slightly foreign—like the world had been tuned to a different radio station.
As we made our way down a narrow country path, every few steps delivered something new.
Birds we didn’t recognize.
Goats with personalities that suggested they were running the farm.
Sheep that looked like they had been professionally styled for a wool convention.
Ducks conducting what appeared to be an extremely serious meeting near a drainage ditch.
Travel, you see, is a parade of firsts.
Every turn of the road whispers, “Look over here… you’ve never seen this before.”
Then something unexpected happened.
As we passed a farmhouse, a small pond caught my eye. Nothing dramatic—just a quiet little pool of water tucked beside a barn. But something in it stopped me mid-stride.
Water lilies.
Beautiful ones.
Naturally, I walked over because photographers have an incurable condition known as “pond curiosity.”
And there they were. Floating peacefully across the surface of the water.
White petals.
Green pads.
Perfect symmetry.
And here’s the thing.
They were identical to the ones back home.
Now you might think that soil differences, water minerals, climate variations, continental drift, or perhaps several thousand years of botanical evolution would produce some subtle variation.
Maybe a different shade.
Maybe a different shape.
Maybe a European accent.
Nope.
I. den. ti. cal.
The exact same lilies that grow in ponds back in Rhode Island were calmly floating in a Dutch farm pond like they had always lived there.
And that’s when travel offered one of those quiet little lessons it likes to sneak in.
Yes, travel shows us the extraordinary differences in people, culture, food, architecture, and language.
But sometimes…
it reminds us how much of the world is wonderfully the same.
Birds still sing in the morning.
Farmhouses still watch over ponds.
And water lilies—apparently—have decided that perfection requires no regional adjustments whatsoever.
And honestly?
There’s something comforting about that.
More on this tomorrow. 🌍🌿
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