Baby Went to Amsterdam (and some other places too)

I'm so sorry I have been so horrible at updating my blog lately. It has been so hard these past couple of weeks to even get an e-mail sent out. One thing I learned on my trip is that hostels lie when they indicate on their website that they have free wifi. They don't.

We embarked upon our European adventure about 2 weeks ago. From Netanya, we headed for Amsterdam, which we deemed to be the Las Vegas of Europe. In the evenings, we would take strolls in the Red Light District. The streets are littered with narrow alleyways lined with large windows. Prostitutes stand behind the glass following you with their eyes. As the night progresses, curtains veil nearly all of the windows, indicating that the prostitute has a customer. Although we had a good time in Amsterdam, we were ready to leave after 3 days. It is a gluttonous circus town.

Unique display of decorative condoms at Condomerie, the world's first condom specialty shop (Amsterdam)

One of the highlights in Amsterdam was taking an evening canal cruise and imagining what it might be like to live in a houseboat. The only thing that could have made the cruise better was a pair of rainbow glasses.

After Amsterdam, we took the train to Paris. Paris was all about sightseeing. Since we were only there for a couple of days, we spent a whole day navigating our way around the city (via Metro) to see as much as we possibly could. We did pretty well for ourselves if I do say so myself.

Dani and I eat at a Parisian cafe for dinner; French food was a little more rich than the foods we were used to eating in Israel

Taking a dip in the fountain in the courtyard of the Louvre museum

From Paris, we took a train to the south of France, specifically Cannes. My cousin, Natasha, lives there with her family and was so nice of her to take us in and put us up for a few nights. I had never met her children, so it was very special.

The view from Natasha's balcony

Me and my new little cousin!

After Cannes, we left for Barcelona. It was a struggle to figure out how to get from Cannes to Barcelona in a timely fashion since the train from Nice to Spain was booked for two days straight. Instead, we took a train back to Paris and flew to Barcelona from there.

Out of all the places we've been this trip (besides Israel), Barcelona was my favorite stop. Even though it's a filthy, gritty city that smells like a giant toilet that hasn't been flushed in days, the energy there is incredible. It was also a lot of fun because both Dani and I can actually speak Spanish, so it was easy to get around and meet people.

And yes, Dad, we made it to Los Caracoles just for you! And here is a picture to prove it:

For dinner, we started off with gazpacho, mussels, and asparagus with mayo. For entrees, Dani had the monkfish and I had the paella (complete with mussels, crawdads, shrimp, squid, and other objects that still remain unidentifiable). It was an eating adventure!

We just got back to Netanya last night. Dani and I are both trying to recondition our eating and sleeping schedules. I was surprised that I got up before noon today. Actually, I consider it a major accomplishment. Maybe that means I'll finally get to sleep before the sun comes up for the first time in a week? Maybe.