Europe!

The kids have off for Chinese New Year this week so we decided to check out a few places in Europe. We spent Saturday and Sunday in Amsterdam, visiting a long-lost, dear friend of Tim's. We had a lovely time. Amsterdam is such a beautiful city, architecturally - I had no idea how esthetically deprived we are living in the modern Chinese city we do! So nice to just look around and see all the beautiful buildings.

Did you know that the Dutch are TALL?? Wow, I seriously felt short walking around in Amsterdam - in Asia I feel relatively normal but not in Holland.

We went to Ann Frank's house - walked through the same bookshelf she and her family hid behind before being carted off by the Nazis. It was one of the more emotional, humbling, sad and inspiration places I've ever been. Go there and remember, because she was just one of millions.

We went to the Van Gogh museum, which was beautiful, of course. We took a canal tour on a boat, which was warm. And a bus tour of the city - we caught a small glimpse of the red light district without the kids noticing what we were looking at - I was able to avoid a few uncomfortable explanations there! We saw a lot of "coffee" shops.

Monday we took a train to Paris, and have been staying at the Disneyland Paris Hotel. Very nice, and incredibly close to the park - like a few steps from the entrance. Any other Disney park, it seems we have to walk quite a ways to get there. Here, we just head out the hotel and into the park. Cool!

It's cold and rainy and completely crowded on a Tuesday in February. Go figure!

More to come...