Belgium really knows how to do fries.
Then, Brussels!
We were determined to have beers outside, which is the Belgian thing-to-do. We braved more torrential rain to do so.
The next day, the weather was waaaayyyy better, so we got quite the pretty view everywhere we went.
We also went to the city center, to get more awesome pictures and buy absurd amounts of chocolate.
Here I am trying to pretend that the chocolate isn't extremely heavy.
We also finally gave into the tons of people trying to get us to go into the millions of Italian restaurants. The neighborhood we ate in is behind Mom and Dad in this picture:
Then, Mom jetted off to Germany for a meeting, and Dad and I took the train to Amsterdam. They stayed at a hotel with stairs that were actually more like a ladder, which was run by a slightly eccentric lady and her wiry, ancient dog that she played with during breakfast.
Dad and I lucked out on our weather and headed out bright and early to get him a bike. I am pretty sure this city was made for my father, because biking is the way of life here. Everyone does it. He was totally friends with the bike rental guy before I even arrived. Dad took to it immediately, to my extreme amusement. The typical rental bike is bright red with a large sign on the front, and the people living here use them to identify hazardous tourists. Dad kind of flipped that on its head and was dinging his bell to get people out of the way like a local after about five minutes.
We biked all day. That sounds crazy, but it's not an exaggeration. We biked. All day. We stopped only to poke around the Van Gogh museum, and stopped for a beer at the best cafe in Amsterdam.
It's smack dab in the center of Vondelpark, which is essentially Amsterdam's Central Park, but way prettier and nicer.
It was surreal to have my parents there. When we got Mom back that night, we did more exploring. We took a canal cruise and visited the Rijksmuseum, which had only a small portion of naked baby angels and a large dose of fancy pottery Mom loves.
It was so great. I kind of forced them to say that it was their favorite stop on the trip. I did not force them to drink any Heineken. I am not that cruel.
The last night we found a place where I could get chili--spicy food of any latin nature is hard to find here--and had some type of Brazillian drinks.
I was sad to see them go and return to a world in which I have to cook for myself.
Oh, and two more things:
1. I got back from Berlin yesterday. You know, that place in Germany? Yeah. Kind of historically important. Stay tuned for that blog. If the lateness of this post is any indication, expect it in...like...a month.
2. A Christmas song just came up on shuffle and I didn't skip it. I feel kind of ashamed. I just had to confess, internet. We can tell each other these things, right?
