Knorr Family Adventures

Continuation of our trip to Netherlands:   Saturday was an interesting day for us.  We went to The Hague which has most of the official buildings in Netherlands but it was rainy and dead so we drove through it without getting out of the car and headed to Delft.  Delft is famous for their porcelain which I really wanted to see but Chris was a bit skeptical.  Delft also has a church where Dutch Royal family is buried.  Well, the church is not that interesting.  In fact, it was kind of creepy because it feels like you are walking on tombs because the floor is covered with names of the royal family.  Moreover, this church has a tower which is supposed to have this amazing view but kids under 6 are not allowed to climb up so none of us went.  The porcelain museum surprisingly was a hit with our family.  I think the key to that was the audio guide that was really engaging.  It also helped that we walked through the factory where ...

When we say that we moved to Germany to have different experience, I certainly did not mean that I want to have a stint in the hospital.  Nevertheless, there we were ... Anton and I ... in the hospital ... while Chris was in Boston and my mom was visiting and ended up having to take care of Andrei and Ilya full time. Anton woke up Sunday morning wheezing and coughing and throughout the day he kept getting worse.  My mom and I debated for some time and decided that I should take Anton to ER just to make sure that his breathing is ok.  Well, his oxygen was in the mid-80s and they couldn't bring it up so they admitted him.  That's where our adventure started.  I was not ready - no change of clothing, no diapers for Anton, no charger for my phone and I had the car parked by the hospital leaving my mom stranded at home with no money and no car! The rooms are shared so our roommate was a 4 year old boy with the same breathing issues.  There are 3 beds for pat...

Three random facts about our latest trip.  Netherlands is the official name of the country; however, Holland is considered more tourist-friendly and also 2 provinces that make up Netherlands are North and South Holland.  Second fact - spoken Dutch and spoken German have NOTHING in common!  I was always under the impression that the languages are kind of close and when you see it written, you can kind of guess what it says in Dutch if you know German and English.  Spoken Dutch, however, complete different story!  Random fact #3 - Dutch are pretty well known for their love of bikes; however, on this trip we noticed that very few people (including kids) wear helmets.  It was a bit odd since Germany is extremely bike-happy as well but usually at least kids wear helmets. Because Belgium had horrible traffic, we decided to leave Wednesday night and drive about 3 out of the 4 hours and spend the night in Arnhem.  Arnhem is a really small city but famous for...