Martijn and I live right beside the train tracks. (whether we're on the right side or the wrong, I have no clue...) When I was still in the States (and China), Martijn and I would talk on the phone and when he was outside, I could hear the trains rumbling by. Loudly.

So, when he asked me to come live with him I thought "How am I ever going to tolerate these trains screeching past my home 10 times an hour?"

Well, I've come to find that you can't really hear them when you're inside and even more than that. I LOVE seeing them whiz past my windows. At night, you get a fleeting glimpse of the people sitting in the brightly-lit cars and you know that they're headed home to their families... or traveling to some interesting locale...

This affection must stem from my inherent wanderlust. It somehow makes me feel secure to know that within minutes I could be at a train station and on my way to Rome or Budapest or even to close-by Amsterdam.