Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Paris - Big City Hoppin with my Parents

We left Zwolle in the morning on Wednesday to head up North to Enkhuizen ... where we took a tour of the museum Zans Schaans or something like that. It portrayed what life was like in a sea port village - very neat - but sadly it was very COLD :( We had a nice time and then we left for Andijk - the village where my Dad's ancestors are from. There was no reason to spend time there so we left for Amsterdam. We arrived at our beautiful hotel and ate dinner at the Hard Rock- then walked around a little bit. We slept great and headed out to visit Kuekenhoff after seeing the Anne Frank house and finished our evening in Rotterdam. We ate at Hotel New York - right by the port in Rotterdam when the immigrants came over to America on a boat. It was a really great night except we missed the chance to go to the top of the Euromast - huge tower space needle like thing in Rotterdam - the taxi was stuck in a traffic jam and we were four min. too late. UGH! Oh well... we got a nice warm taxi drive tour of Rotterdam.

We slept in Rotterdam and woke up early the next morning to visit Delft and go on a boat tour, also we saw the church where the Canons of Dordt were held in Dordrecht... we rented bikes in that town so it was fun to see but a quick trip :) Then we headed back Rotterdam by water taxi hoping to see Kinderdijk - 12 small windmills along the water - they must have been really small because we missed them :( Sad day.

We left for Paris that evening on a fast train and arrived there around 10 pm. Found the hotel and also found it was really small but it worked for us. I wanted to go see the Eiffel at night right away but I was talked into just going to bed and waking up early for a fresh day.

We woke up and headed over to the Eiffel first thing. I wanted to go up to the top and so did my mom and sister. My dad bought a ticket for the bus and rode it around while he waited for us to return - 4 hours later - that was nuts but we did it! I went all the way up :) No I didn't climb up stairs... I missed that line ... we got in the line for the elevator but I did the stairs all the way down! What an amazing view! We went on the same bus tour as my dad after we found him back again and enjoyed seeing the hit highlight buildings - then we did some window shopping that evening at places like Louis Vuitton etc.

There are some pretty nice shops in Paris - then we saw the Eiffel at night. Oh how wonderful. I enjoyed it so much - I never wanted to stop looking at it!

The next day was Easter and we went to an American church. It was a delight! There was so much good music from the Messiah and it was so well done. I was very impressed.

Then we went for Brunch at a cafe in a cute part of town and headed over to the Louvre. Huge museum - crazy busy - saw the Mona Lisa - checked it off my list and I do not need to do that again. Ha. Then we went to Notre Dame. We wanted to go inside but the line looked long so we bought some crepes instead since we had a time schedule - leaving for Amsterdam that night.
When we got back to Amsterdam it was a great feeling- Holland is so much nicer than France. Paris has great things to see but I did not "enjoy" being there.

I got to talk to Nathan in the hotel on the phone that night so that was nice and wish him a happy easter :) We watched some of the golf PGA and went to sleep.

We took a canal cruise in the morning and while my family went to the Rijksmuseum I did a tour of Heinekein - alone ... haha. It was more fun than seeing the Rujks twice. Then we went to lunch and I had to drop them off at the airport :( It was a sad good-bye - a weird feeling to see them leave and I was not going with them.

Now I am sitting here thinking of everything I have to do this week - it will be busy.

From now until our trip to Rome is crunch time - 60 hours clinical and multiple papers/projects to send in.

I won't be writing much until Rome -I think my time needs to be dedicated to my studies and internship hours.
Thanks for reading!! Having my parents and sister here was so memorable - I loved every min.

I am looking forward to being back home but I will be enjoying the last three weeks here - so much.