In my neighborhood, there are little chanels of water which line the road and separate the houses from traffic. When there isn't any wind to stir the water around, these chanels get covered in lime green algae. The plants get so thick that the canals look like they're covered by astroturf.
The Netherlands is below sea level. This means that the land here is at a lower elevation than the water in the ocean, so the Dutch people have had to work for centuries to build natural sand dunes, dikes, dams and floodgates to prevent the country from flooding. Because of all their hard work keeping the Netherlands above water, there is a saying here: "God made the earth, but the Dutch made the Holland."
