When traveling back and forth from the Midwest to the Netherlands, there's always a million differences that beg to be observed. Since I'm a runner, the roads definitely are one of the top attention grabbers. There's nothing like running for a few weeks on blacktop and then switching back to cobblestone.

If you live in a Dutch city you're probably familiar with the constant road construction. But have you seen the bricks being carefully fitted back into place after the work is finished? Workers painstakingly place bricks onto a level bed of sand until a (hopefully) airtight surface is created. It's probably much more labor intensive than rolling a new layer of blacktop, but the result is oh-so-charming.

Call me crazy, but I think it's easier on a runner's legs than blacktop, too.