Paris

Our trip to Paris was quick. The weather was gorgeous, but the kids were in various stages of crud, so we didn't stay long. Mitch "talked me into" having a million dollar bottle of champagne. For lunch. Because Paris. I was against it, of course. HAHAHA! Just kidding, day drinking is the best.

Paris notes: Not one person was rude to me. I felt like I would never be able to see everything even if I stayed for a month. Traffic sucks so hard. The food we had was insanely good. A tiny bottle of sparkling water was SIX EUROS. That's about $7.25 USD, or $1 per sip. You have to pay to use the bathrooms. WHAT'S WITH ALL THE FRENCH BULLDOGS? A member of our family purchased a beret because he thought it would be funny. We'll see how funny he thinks it was when he gets the divorce papers. Smoking is still a thing there. It was clean and there really are cafes on every corner.

Required:

Amsterdam

We did SOME of the touristy stuff one does in Amsterdam. 

Turns out, windmills are actually a thing in the Netherlands.

Van Gogh Museum. So good.

Tourists, yo.

 Not really a coffee shop. 

Amsterdam was a cool city, but man was it cold that day. The line to get into Anne Frank House was over an hour wait outside, but since I forced the kids to spend their mid-winter break studying the Holocaust, watching documentaries, and reading The Diary, we were determined to wait. It turned out that three of the gentlemen in line behind us were from our old neighborhood in Brazil, so we passed the time practicing our very rusty portuguese.

You Can't Swing a Dead Cat Without Hitting a Castle in Belgium

Castles are to Belgium as waterfalls are to Brazil.