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...

A big milestone on our new adventure - the start of school. Sam is in year 4 (3rd Grade) of The British School of Amsterdam.  He is very excited and loves that the school used to be a prison. Sam also started a football (soccer) league.  He has a long way to go but enjoys it.  

Now that school has started and we are settling in Amsterdam, we are exploring new activities. First, Ryan convinced me to come out of volleyball retirement and play on the Saturday meetup he found. I haven't played volleyball since before the pandemic.  This is 3 hours of playing with random people on random teams.  This allows for flexibility and no commitment to play every week which is good.  I lasted 2.5 hours which may be the longest I've ever played volleyball since maybe the days of beach volleyball afternoons in Chicago.  It was hot, I was out of "volleyball shape" and my arms were confused by what was happening to them. I was super bruised and sore. Yes, I did this to myself and will probably do it again. On Wednesday I signed up for an expat fitness meetup. This was a choice of yoga, bootcamp or boxing in the park.  I chose yoga.  The yoga teacher didn't show up so they offered me a spot in bootcamp which I reluctantly accepted. Similar to volley...

Spoleto is a small town in the Umbra region of Italy - kind of right in the middle of Italy.  Ryan's dad and stepmom discovered this town years ago and we have visited before.  After spending a couple days in Rome it is a nice reprieve from the crowds. More Spoleto Pictures Here:   https://photos.app.goo.gl/wA1gCf1rbemMy93z7 Initially in Spoleto Ryan was working so Sam and I explored the town.  We spent time in the main piazza, walked around the Rocca (fortress), stalked stray cats (there are many in Spoleto), hit a museum and enjoyed the views.   My friend Gretchen who lives in the UK with her husband Jim (see the previous Red Hot Chili Peppers/London/Girl's Weekend entry for more details on Gretchen) happen to have a house in Mogliano which is about a 1.5 hour drive from Spoleto.  They also happened to be there when we were in Spoleto.  So we rented a car and went to visit them.  I have a separate photo album from our short time visiti...