“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller
There are times when we have a great idea. We get excited about it. We love the idea. We take the time to share it with others. Then we execute the idea, and it does not work out. We can do two things after that. One, we can just give up and forget about it. This to me is the easiest way. This way we do not have to fully process why it failed. We just grieve a little over the failure and move on. The second way to process an idea that failed is more difficult. We not only see the failure of what we did, we also process why it failed. We look at what went wrong and how it can be improved. I do this a lot with photography. Oftentimes, I will take a photo, and sometimes it does not turn out the way I like. I try to go back and look at the settings, whether the weather that day, or any other factors that might have affected the photo. This way, when I go to capture a similar one, I will be ready.
Something I learned about traveling in Europe is that it involves a lot of walking. I spent most of our trip there walking from place to place. Don’t get me wrong, it was great. We saw a lot of amazing sights, and getting in my daily step count was not a problem. One of our walks in Europe led us to these World War II bunkers in IJmuiden, Amsterdam. The bunkers in IJmuiden were part of Nazi Germany’s Atlantic Wall. The Atlantic Wall was built by Nazi Germany along the western coast of Europe during the Second World War. Its purpose was to prevent an Allied invasion of occupied territory. The defensive line ran from Norway, through Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, all the way to France, near the border with Spain. The bunkers here in IJmuiden have seen better days. Since these bunkers were built by the Nazis, I’m sure there isn’t much love for them. Most of the standing ones have been covered in graffiti. Here are a few photos I captured while on this walk around the bunkers.
