Family vacations are a whirlwind - especially in a completely foreign environment with only a week to explore. The Catanzaritis made the most out of their time in Paris, packing in about as much of the sights as possible - and then some. A bateau ride, museums, prix fixe dinners, and even Versailles - have a look into their very first trip abroad.

Poetry by Giuseppe Catanzariti.

An idle curiosity is born from

The prose of quotidian living

Piquing the mind at first

And then ever swelling

A nascent snowball cascading down a

Precipitous mountainside

Its momentum ever growing

Until it is time to go

Human creation in all its splendor

And in all its handwrought glory

Enters the soul through the eyes

Before taking up a permanent

And warm residence in the heart

Where it is nurtured forever

Mementos for those who

Couldn’t come along

And for the itinerant patrons too

Simple physical keepsakes

To stimulate happy recollections

Palatial monuments to the

Grandeur of revered leaders

Of finished states stand today

Despite the vicissitudes of time

So that every man might learn

That every man is born a king

Merrymaking is mortal

But memories are eternal

Never dying but ever growing

The towers and the churches

Beheld and felt firsthand

Are but earthly monuments

While experiences are cosmic

There can be no going back

Not as the same person

Left behind back home

As home has become nothing

More than a slippery notion

In our newfound selves