Top Dix (partie deux)

Check out partie une to read all Top Ten Moments with the 'rents!

Top Ten:
My Parents in Europe

5. My dad really wanted to explore Paris while riding a boat along the Seine. We forked over the big bucks to take the Batobus (14euros/person), which allows you to hop-on and hop-off at several different stops along the Seine, taking about 15 minutes between stops.

Based on the rest of the things we wanted to do that day, my mom announced we should get off the boat at the first stop! We had paid 14 euros to ride a boat for 15 minutes. A boat ride that had gone a distance that we could have easily managed on foot.


View from the batobus.

We ended up deciding to ride the boat all the way around instead.


4. After spending the day seeing the sights in Brussels, my parents and I went back to La Grande Place to enjoy the traditional Brussel's apperitif: beer, cheese, and cornichons (sort of like pickles, but completely different taste-wise).

After discussing what we did during the day, my mother admitted to liking Bruges more than Brussels, but was glad we went and explored other areas of the city because, her thoughts upon seeing La Grande Place, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was, and I quote, “This is it?”





A couple of buildings from La Grande Place... clearly nothing to write home about.


3. I took my parents to Le Ch’ti Bello for lunch, and since they had heard me talk about it countless times, they wanted to commemorate the moment in photos. My dad stood up to get a picture of my mom and I. Afterwards, I told my dad to go back and I’d take a picture of him and my mom.

Somehow, he interpreted this to mean, “Please go to in the other room, stand in between tables full of people, and pose in front of the fireplace.”


2. One night while out to dinner in Paris, my father ordered a hamburger. As it was a restaurant, the burger was too big to stand up on its own, and came with a gigantic toothpick in the middle.

After everyone had finished eating, and we were working on finishing our bottle of wine, my father thought it would be a good idea to put his toothpick to use. He started banging it upon the various different types of glassware that were on our table.



Said toothpick and glassware.


1. Trying to do as the Parisians do, around 17h30 we went out for an apperitif. My mother and I shared a 50cl of the house white wine, and my dad got a beer. After we were finished, it was still to early to eat dinner, so we walked a while, found a second bar, and got drinks. My mother and I shared another 50cl, and my father got a second beer.

Then, without telling us, my dad ordered everyone a second round. After that, we went in search of dinner, where we decided to share a bottle of red wine. But that wasn’t enough alcohol, so we ordered a 50cl of the same red wine to finish off our meal.

I won’t be evil and make you do math. I drank 116.7cl of wine in one night with my parents. A bottle of wine is only 75cl.

Needless to say, I got very drunk with my parents and was pretty hung over the next day when we visited Notre Dame Cathedral.

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Despite many embarrassing moments, laughing and traveling with my parents was a much needed dose of family and America in this land of frogs.