We have been going hard for weeks now. We have all been thoroughly enjoying our travels but have gotten pretty exhausted by the pace we have been keeping. We have all begun to have shorter tempers and frustration levels.
Paul and I had initially talked about planning some rest days in our calendar, but somehow when you only have 2-3 days in any given place it is hard to make yourself stop. There is never enough time to see and do everything!
Last night we were out until 1:00 am with the kids. The Milan Expo 2015 was fun and worth our time there, but we are wiped out now! You should have seen us dragging ourselves home.
The USA Pavilion at the Expo. Interesting, but not as impressive as many of the other exhibits.
So, we slept in until after 10:00. Then we got up, hung laundry out to dry, I cooked some food (Risotto was a hit!), and we proceeded to stay in our pajamas…for hours. I admit, it is nice! We parents took care of some travel details. The kids worked on blogs, caught up on social media, and read. But that is all.
Trey working on his next blog.
I’m sorry, Milan, that we have missed almost a whole day of time with you, but I am not sorry for the day we are enjoying! I promise we will hang out tonight.
All in all, it has been a good day. A necessary day. Congratulations, Kamaile: it is 4:00pm and you are the only one dressed.
So, today I am going to blog about foods we have had through our Europe trip! First, I’m going tell you what I thought that country’s food was, then I’ll tell you what it actually was.😊😉🍴😋
I’m going to start off with Germany, the first country we went to.🇩🇪Before I came to Germany, I thought German food was all bratwurst and schnitzel. I didn’t even know what a frankfurter was until I heard we were going to be landing in Frankfurt.😂 And to be honest, I had no idea what a schnitzel was either, It just sounded German-ish. Until I actually went to Germany. 😏😂🇩🇪
When we got to Germany, the first meal we had was in a German pub.🍻 I ordered a schnitzel, Dad ordered shweinshaxe (pork knuckle)🐷, Mom ordered a schnitzel with mushroom sauce🍄, and Trey ordered a frankfurter with lentil soup. It turns out, a frankfurter is basically a german hot dog. And a schnitzel is sliced, breaded, and fried meat☺️. I had potato wedges with my shnitzel and they were good, but the shnitzel was amazing!
My schnitzel!😄
The next country we visited was France, which I knew a little bit more about than some of the other countries we visited.🇫🇷
Before we went to France, I thought French food was all croissants, baguettes, crepes, escargot, and macaroons. And mostly, that’s what it was! ☺️
We stopped to get some baguettes on the way down from the Eiffel tower and ate them on the grass. They were yummy, but nowhere near as good as the jambon (ham and cheese) baguettes we got on our first full day in paris!😜
Baguettes in front of the Eiffel Tower😋
We took an awesome walking tour of Paris but unfortunately, it was rainy and cold.💦We got some yummy crepes to warm us up!Warm, toasty crepes on a rainy day☔️
On one of our last nights in Paris, We found a little resturaunt in the heart of the city and ordered some escargo!🐌 I wasn’t super excited to eat snail, but I was willing to try. I actually thought I might like it, because it smelled okay and you could eat it with bread and cooked veggies. When I tried it, it was worse than I thought it would be! It was sort of like a mushroom, (I don’t like mushrooms either!) only it was saltier (and yuckier!). Escargot!🐌
Then, we went to England. Before I came to England I thought all English people had Fish and Chips all day, every day. Plus some tea, and a bit of bubble and squeak (stir-fried veggies) for breakfast. Until I went to England. My theory about fish and chips was sort of correct, people did have a lot of it, but they didn’t have it all day, every day, just alot.🐟🍟 My tea theory was also only sort of true. Did you know that The U.K. Is as much a coffee country as it is a tea country?☕️
Coffe in the crypts at St. Martin-in-the-Fields near Trafalgar Square…☕️ Poppies fish and chips that we got in London. Yum!🐟🍟 They were so good! Especially with tartar sauce.😉
The last country’s food that I’m going to talk about is Italy. Before I came to Italy, I thought Italian food was pizza, pasta, wine,🍷 tiramisu, and gelato!!!🍦😄
One of the first Italian Queens, Queen Margherita, ate so much of this type of pizza they named it after her. It is also why the Italian Flag is red, white, and green. Red is tomato sauce, white is mozzarella cheese, and green is the basil topping. I can understand why the Queen ate so much of that pizza, it’s delicious!Margherita pizza!🍕
Handmade pasta!🍝 Some of the best I’ve had in my life. Perfectly cooked and yummily made.☺️Tiramisu in Italy is the best! 😛 So yummy!
I think I’ve had Gelato almost every single day in Italy so far. It’s amazing! 😛😋🍦
And that is basically all I have had so far in Italy😂😂 But there are a couple other things that I had no idea about that are very Italian. For example, bruschetta! Bruschetta is lightly salted bread with olive oil and tomatoes on top! It’s soooo gooood…
So far, we have been in Europe for about three weeks. I have accumulated many photos of the different places we have been to, so I thought I would share a few with you guys. Below you shall see 5 pictures from Paris, Frankfurt, and even Brussels!
This is a view of the Frankfurt city skyline. This specific shot was taken from on top of a shopping mall, which is kind of odd. This is right after a free walking tour round Frankfurt that showed us cool stuff, like medieval churches, and sad stuff like drugs and prostitution, which is a pretty cool idea. This is the Venus De Milo in the Louvre in Paris. The statue is a marble sculpture that was originally meant by the sculptor to be viewed only from the front. You can tell because of the relative lack of detail in the back. Also, the statue is actually from Greek times, so it should probably should be called the Aphrodite De Milo. By the way, I still don’t get why so many Greek statues are usually half nude! This is a graffiti inscription that I found on a lamp post in Paris. I find this inscription amusing because Paris is known for amazing food and Parisians love their food! This is the European Parliament in Brussels where most of the government works except when they go to meetings in Strasbourg once a month for four days to vote. This seems odd because it means thousands of people each month, which must be an extreme hassle. There are tons of people clogging up the train stations and other systems that cost a lot of money. This is one of the many lock bridges in Paris where couples buy a lock, write their names on it, lock it on the bridge, and then throw the key in the river to symbolize their eternal love. This is a odd tradition to me, because it seems like eventually all the bridges in Paris could collapse due to the weight of the locks, like the original lock bridge almost did.I am super glad to be able to travel to all of these awesome places, and I can’t wait to go see more in Europe! See ya later!
Ps. Many of you probably know that we are already in the UK, but as I am going through all of my photos, I will make sure to post the best in the next blog!
Today we did a free walking tour in Soho, Picadilly, and Chinatown in London, UK! 🇬🇧🚶🏽🚶🏽🚶🏽
In the morning we left our Airbnb around 9:30 and walked to the metro, which, here in London they call the “tube”.🚈 We rode the tube into Picadilly Circus where we met Gregory, our guide for the tour, outside a donut shop. 🍩
We walked through Picadilly, Chinatown, and Soho. These are a cuople of the interesting sights we saw:
1.
The Bag O’ Nails theatre! An old theatre that used to have shows every night, but now it is a private venue. One thing Gregory told us here was that if there is a blue plaque somewhere, READ IT!😋(Cause they’re special😅) At this place, these were the blue plaques👇
The first plaque read that, here at Bag O’ Nails venue on May 15th, 1967 Paul McCartney met Linda Eastman. Cool! I love the Beatles!😄
The second plaque read that, here on November 26th 1966 Jimi Hendrix first played here. Gregory told us that Jimi came to the venue thinking he was there to watch a show, but then, he heard his name and was called up on stage!😆 There, he played his right hand👋 guitar🎸 upside down for the show. (Jimi was very poor at the time, and when he was 15 his dad saved up to buy him a guitar, but it was right handed, and Jimi was left handed! So Jimi played his right hand guitar upside down.😛) After the show, someone came up to Jimi and told him “That was one of the best shows that I’ve ever seen.” That someone was Jimi’s idol, Eric Clapton. Wow! That must have been so awesome!😄
2.
The Spirit Of Soho mural! St. Ann’s dress is the neighborhood of Soho with the streets,🚸 resturaunts,🍴 shops,🏣 and everything else. On the bottom of the mural, there are four people standing in front of a yellow clock. Those people are (from left to right) Mozart, (Mozart lived in Soho for one year from age 8 – 9 while he was doing his tour of Europe.) Karl Marx, (He has a big red book in front of him. He appears to have a red thing in his left hand. It used to be a can of Coca Cola but the mural is so old that it fell off😓) Theresa Cornelys, (Opera singer and actress) and Casanova. Every hour Casanova blows a kiss to Theresa, (thats why his mouth looks so odd) and Theresa winks back. (thats why her eye looks so odd) We were there for the hour and we saw the Wink-kiss exchange and it looked so odd!😳😂 😉😙😂
So, those are some of the things I saw on our London walking tour!
✌️ ⭕️⛎➕ (aka peace out)
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