View from Two Weeks

Two ideas have been resonating around in my brain for the last two weeks. First , the trip has given me a sense of possibility. Two years ago we set a goal of going to Europe on two tandems and we made it happen. It was a huge task organizing our life around these four weeks, planning the route, learning about accommodations, arranging logistics and communicating the to all the people involved. It was not just our family either, family and friends pitched in to help as well. At the same time, it has been incredibly easy to snap back into the daily life of work, soccer practice, cleaning, maintaining cars, … While all these things need to be done, without the two year goal you will not carve out the hour to start planning or talk about how to approach the goal. All this makes me impatient to start the next big task although I have no idea what this should be. Another big vacation, a financial goal, extension on the house, starting a small business? The goal doesn't matter, I want to get started. The Europe trip has given me every confidence that our family can achieve whatever we decide to do.

Second, I have been struck by the history that exists in Europe. Not the history that exists in museums or dedicated historical sites but the history that exists around people as they live and work. There were many examples of cafes and stores working in the old cities right beside or in buildings that were hundreds of years old. People didn't visit history they live it every day.

Also, some of the cathedrals we saw took hundreds of years to build. I can't even imaging the commitment required to keep a project of that magnitude running from generation to generation. When you sit and stare at a building that took three hundred years to build, maybe you think that the deadline at the end of the day is not very important or maybe you think that you should try to achieve something as grand and lasting as that building. Either way it can't help but impact your view on the world.