The Broughtby's European Adventures

For Sam's fall break we headed to Prague for a long weekend.  Prague has been high on our list because everyone raves about it.  It seems like the world has caught on to this so it was somewhat crowded with the tourists leaning toward more annoying than not (see below for an example).  But still a great city! More Prague photos here:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/6pmcjC4Q3KYr65WH7 October 26: We got in late last night.  Ryan was working today so Sam and I made plans to go to the Lego Museum and a Cat Cafe. The Great European Car Tour of 2023 continues! The Lego Museum exceeded my expectations. We had just been to Lego World in Utrecht earlier in the week so I thought maybe this would be disappointing compared to that.  It was definitely less elaborate but still interesting to see Lego history and there were big piles of Legos for Sam to play with and that's a win. The  Kavárna Kočičí Prah a c at cafe was awesome as expected. Lots of very friendly cats ro...

Sam continues to thrive at school and I have been able to spend more time with him on school things given my new non-working status.  He has homework to work on each day plus special projects which are assigned on a Friday and due a week later.  This past week the special project was to create a Roman costume for Roman dress up day.  The thought was to use things from home such as a parent's white t-shirt, a red scarf and gold string. Are people supposed to just have those things around the house?  I had none. Even if I did have a white t-shirt I would not have lent it to Mr. Constantly-Spill-Things-On-My-Shirt-Guy.  Luckily I found stores that had these things for a very low cost. And, now I have a new red scarf and the start of Sam's Halloween costume (Greg from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books who wears white t-shirts). I am nailing it at Year 4 special projects at The British School of Amsterdam!  🤪 I had my first umbrella casualty!  The...

Ryan's parents stopped through Amsterdam on their way back to the US from Italy which gave us an opportunity to travel somewhere kid-free while we had babysitters.  Porto, Portugal seemed like the right place given the focus would be on wine, which Sam finds very boring.😉 More Porto photos here:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/A16vZvczQ1uZw3jx7 September 27:  6:00 am flight which meant catching a 4:45 am bus to the airport.  One of those decisions that seemed right at the time.  It did get us to Porto early with some time to explore before the food and wine tour we had scheduled for later in the day.  We walked around and hit the Porto Cathedral.  That's right - another European church!  This one was unique in the blue tiles throughout. The food and wine tour was a good start to getting to know the Porto food, wine, neighborhoods and a bit of history.  Photo below of Pastel de nata which is a Portuguese pastry.  After the tour we walked...