Sad, Dark, Strict, Accepting

When it comes to travel do you prefer to lead or to follow? Do you prefer to travel with others or alone? If you like to travel with others do you prefer to travel with family, with friends, or with strangers? All methods of travel have advantages. The secret to enjoying travel is to be open to the experience. I would not hire a Lyft driver or an Uber driver by myself. But we met some very interesting drivers in Poland, Finland, Amsterdam and Minneapolis.  Travel with a 7 month old baby is hard on the back and the arms and on the cleanliness of my clothes. On the other hand, I would have been more nervous when we went into the Supreme Court building of Poland to use the ATM if I didn't have a smiling baby in my arms.  From the outside the building looked like a bank.  The numerous armed guards tipped us off that maybe this building was not a bank. Also, in a crowded Polish cafe, the same baby got restless so I took her to stand by the door so we could look out the window. This baby kept trying to knock over the beers and the hot beetroot soup. While we looked out at the street we heard sirens. A parade of police cars and black luxury vehicles roared by followed by more police and a couple motorcycles.  I believe the president of Poland just went by on his way to his palace.  Holy cow! I would have missed that if it wasn't for the baby. A two year old is hard to travel with. But when I become overwhelmed by so much history and so much architecture a stick in the grass becomes fascinating to me. How about we stick it in a sewer grate and pretend we are poking a mermaid? Travel with parents can be fun but they sure have a lot to carry around. I can carry a child for about a mile and then I am done.  Family togetherness is great fun.  Family separate is also great fun! If I had to condense my travel of the four countries into one word I would say Poland was sad, Finland was dark, Germany was strict and Amsterdam was accepting.