Part Drie: The Netherlands

It's the "extremely long awaited for Part three" of our last years Spring Break trip.  I know, I know, but after the updates you might have sympathy for me!

Our last stop on our grand Spring Break trip was-- up to the Netherlands to see the tulips in bloom.

We stopped off at Rotterdam and saw the windmills first.

We also stopped off at the Clara Maria farm.  It is very touristy, but we got a private tour and Joseph got to make a wooden shoe with help. 

We also met the proprietors wife and son who are American's.  In fact the son was in the military and had a good talk with Rob.

We stayed at a little camp ground in a trailer close to the ocean.  It was, of course, too cold for swimming, but we dipped our toes into the freezing water!

Our second to last day we went to go see the tulips.  I waited until I would be sure they were blooming nicely.  Keukenhof was beautiful and full of amazing tulips. 

We never found the elusive blue tulip, but we did find another blue flower to take a picture of.  It was a beautiful day!

Finally we went in to see Amsterdam.  I think I will avoid that city in the future.  Loved Hard Rock Cafe and the fun conversation we had with the manager/owner.

The canal ride was boring, rainy and had a very rude driver, but we can check that off the bucket list of things you have to do at least once in this life!

Parking costs us like 65 Euros for 5 hours.  We definitely should have taken the train in and found a place to rent a bike.  It was a city of bikes, just like everyone says.  Not the best place for a car.  Loved the row houses.  They lean out- that's not the angle of the camera.

This was so they could haul stuff up to the top window with a winch and not keep banging along the house as they went.  I seriously need one of those winches so I don't have to keep bringing groceries up 4 flights of stairs! 

Part Twee

Belgium

On our way to our lovely rented home in Belgium we stopped at Flander's Field museum.

It was very well done.  Our hostess was sad, however, because she had discount tickets to lots of museums and other things around the area for us to use.  Oh well.  

We also saw Brugge,

Old wall- under a hotel, now.  They let you go see it if you ask, however, and since Rick Steve's told us to ask- We did!

 Fancy Podium for the preacher depicting Adam and Eve

Brussels and Gent.

Gent was a much smaller version of Brugge, and let's face it, the highlight of touring Brussels has to be this guy- right??? The Mannekin Pis (1618).  Several stories say why the little boy peeing was where the town came to get it's drinking water from.  One, the little boy peed on a witches house and got turned to stone.  Another one, a man lost his son and said he would make a statue of what he was doing when he finally found him.  There are several others, but regardless, he's a lot smaller than you think he will be, even when forewarned by Rick!

We got lovely chocolates and we ate Belgium waffles and Belgium fries.

Beautiful, Beautiful Belgium.

I would love to live there- unfortunately they already gave that spot away for next year, so we are going back to the states.  Boo! and Yeah.  I'm of two minds about it.  Well I will try to enjoy our last year here and enjoy traveling to places like...

What do you do when you are so behind?

This year has flown by and I just can't seem to keep caught up.  Since March, I have written one blog post, but I think it is best to keep that blog post unpublished for awhile.  Instead I decided to just go slowly through and see if we can catch up to our "now" by the end of summer.  So here it is-

 Spring Break

 Part Une- Paris:

The kids and Rob really didn't want to go to Paris, but Emma decided she really needed to see it before going back to the states, so we fit it into our Spring break trip.  Our trip there started out great. We stopped at Verdun and lit a candle at the memorial there.

We also wandered around the pock marked landscape.  Think of a teenagers face who is suffering with severe acne- that is Verdun.  You look at the landscape 100 years after World War 1 and it's still so scarred and full of holes that you wonder how anyone survived!

Then we stopped at Reims and saw the Norte Dame Cathedral where all the kings of France have had their coronations.

It was amazing!  Joan of Arc brought Charles the VII here to be crowned.
After all those stops we got to Paris rather late.  We stayed in a wonderful tiny Parisian apartment in a great neighborhood.  Unfortunately it was such a hopping neighborhood it took Rob 2 hours to find a parking spot.  We were so worried about the car the entire time we were there.  Besides a little keying on the gas tank, it came away OK, however and without parking tickets!  We kept it where it was after getting it parked and metro-ed everywhere.

We saw Notre Dame (We actually liked the Reims one better.)

Although the Paris one does have an amazing rose window in blues.

We all put our feet on point zero- we were there!

I kissed Rob on the Lock Bridge

We continued our tradition and had French Fries in France!

We saw the Eiffel Tower and climbed up over 700 steps to the second platform.

Poor Max was crying most of the way, because he is so afraid of heights, but he kept going.  I took him inside the stores and museum parts to get him inside away from the wind.  That helped a lot.

We also subjected them to the Louvre.

Yep- had to be done.
And we saw her- over about 200 heads, but we still saw dear old Mona Lisa.

We also walked the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe.  Along the way we ate yummy macaroons

- our favorite were the lemon, and rode this amazing slide at a car shop.

The Arc De Triomphe circle is still as crazy as ever.  You can sit there for hours being amused and amazed that there aren't more accidents.

It's something like 11 entrances and exits all converging and diverging around that remarkable monument.  These Parisians are crazy!- so Asterix would say.  We found his amusement park-

too bad it was opening up a few days after we were there.  The kids love Asterix and Obelix. We saw it as we made our way to....