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July 14-16

Most of our travel day was spent in Athens on a long layover. We briefly thought about heading out into the city for the day. However, having visited Athens a few years ago, we instead chose to stay in the airport and work on travel plans for Asia.

There also was a small fiasco regarding Michael, security, and post cards. Since our layover in Athens was our very last stop in Europe, and we hadn’t mailed a single post card in the almost four months we were here, we had some major work to do. I had been buying post cards from all over Europe while we were here, but we just didn’t make time to write them out. And since we’re trying to get postcards from every continent to the kids back home, it was important to get them mailed today.

After we finished writing, Michael took charge of the stamping and mailing process. This took him out of security. Not a problem… except it was. We had paid for an all day pass to a lounge in the terminal that we had arrived in (food, drink, wifi and a place to plug in – totally worth it for a 12+ hour layover). However, our flight out was in a different terminal and security wouldn’t allow Michael to return to the original terminal where I was still hanging out with all of our stuff. This turned into an hour long process of Michael speaking with half dozen different people, going through several rounds of security and passport review and finally convincing someone to just turn a blind eye and let him back in.

We arrived late that evening to Tbilisi, Georgia.

Despite it being a full day of travel, it went surprising smooth. We were tired, but feeling pretty good – especially compared to our previous travel day.

We woke up slow the next morning, grabbed breakfast and then headed off to a free walking tour. For being an old city, and one that has been destroyed and rebuilt many times, Tbilisi seems to have done a great job of saving as much art as possible. Here’s a mosaic that was recovered from a monastery, created in the 12th century:

Tbilisi also has some great street art and street musicians.

God loves his children…

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We arrived to Freedom Circle to meet up with Sev, our tour guide for the day. He first gave us some tips for wandering Tbilis:

1. The pedestrian crosswalks do not mean anything. Cars will not stop for you. Instead, you just need to walk with confidence, put your hand out to tell the car to stop and cross. Finally! This is something I can understand! I was always unnerved in places like Croatia and Scandinavia where the cars just stop for the crosswalks – even without stop signs or lights. I didn’t trust that they were really going to stop. But I can handle this. I just need to wait for a small break in traffic, start walking, stare down the driver and put my hand out. Although I’ll note that my extended hand looks more like a thank you wave then a stern STOP. They won’t hit you. No one wants that mess.

2. There are women and children begging. If you are going to give them something, that is great. Go for it. If you are not going to give them something, don’t make eye contact or they will never leave you. Sev had even seen children latching on to tourists’ legs, refusing to let go unless they give money. He swore the only way to get them off was to tickle them. Ridiculous.

3. You will get lost in Old Town. Don’t worry.

Having started the tour in Freedom Circle, Sev noted that all Soviet countries use to have a Lenin Square. Freedom Circle was called Lenin Square during the Soviet period and had a large statue of Lenin in the center. That statue was torn down in August of 1991. It was replaced in 2006 by this monument with St. George slaying the dragon on top. That’s right! Our old friend from the Stockholm Cathedral has made his way to the center of Tbilisi and he is still slaying dragons. If I could figure out how to link to prior posts, I would do that here. But I’m not going to pretend like I have the level of blogging knowledge.

It makes sense to have St. George here, since we are in Georgia, after all. Apparently 23% of all boys born in Georgia are named George. The only thing more amazing than this is that 24% of all girls are named Nino. More on that in a bit.

Here are the Freedom Circle griffins. Apparently these are two of the few things that have survived, nearly intact, throughout all of the destruction to this city over the centuries. However, people are known to remove their claws and fit them on necklaces. As they are removed from the statues, the city continues to replace them.

Our next stop was the Catholic Cathedral, Assumption of the Virgin.

Where the cathedral now stands, the first Catholics settled in the 13th century. First a Dominican monastery, it then became an Episcopal church in the 14th century dedicated to St. John the Baptist until the 16th century. In the 17th century, Catholic missionaries returned and built a new church dedicated to the Annunciation which is a very important date for all to remember – March 25th.

The current cathedral was built in the early 1800s. It was closed during Soviet times. Sev joked that communism was the only religion during Soviet times.

The cathedral was beautiful. It was pointed out that although it is a Catholic Cathedral, there were Russian Orthodox icons in the cathedral along with an orthodox cross. However, our parish back in Chicago, St. Teresa’s also has icons, so this didn’t surprise me very much.

My favorite part of this visit was the music. In the choir loft, someone was playing the Mozart Requiem on the organ with a woman singing along. How do we know it was the Requiem? Michael – which is a surprise to no one who has been paying attention. There is something to be said for silence, but absent complete silence (which is often hard to find), I believe beautiful music is just so moving when visiting a religious site.

Our next stop was two churches – an Georgian Orthodox Church directly next to an Armenian Orthodox Church. The Armenian Orthodox Church is currently being renovated, so we didn’t explore.

The Georgian Orthodox Church, however, we were able to enter. Called “Father Cross”, this church was built in the 16th century. Fun fact: the word mama in Georgian means father. Second fun fact: this church has very small windows because it was also used as a fortress.

With such little natural light, we were lucky that there was a religious ceremony while we were visiting so the lights were on.

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It was a really cool experience to be able to enter while they were praying.

On the left in this painting above you have St. Nino – who I previously mentioned.

St. Nino is called “Equal of the Apostles and Enlightener of Georgia” on the internet. That’s some title! Here’s her story:

The virgin Nino of Cappadocia was a relative of St. George, our dragon slayer. Her father was a Roman army chief and when she was 12, her parents sold all of their possessions and moved to Jerusalem where Nino’s father became a monk and left his family. At this time, Nino’s mother, Sosana, was ordained a deaconess. She left Nino in the care of an old woman who raised Nino in the Christian faith. Nino learned that Jesus’ robes were in Georgia, a country of pagans. Nino prayed to Mary for her blessing to travel to Georgia to venerate the Sacred Robes. Mary appeared to Nino in a dream and told her to go to Georgia and preach the Gospel. Mary gave Nino a cross of grapevines and told her to “Receive this cross as a shield against visible and invisible enemies”. When Nino awoke, she was holding the cross in her hands. She tied the vines securely with strands of her hair (the internet also said that the hair might have been that of the Virgin Mary).

There are quite a few stories associated with her travels to and in Georgia, but the main point is that everywhere she went miracles were performed and those who heard her preach were converted. Nino and George are the most venerated saints of the Georgian Orthodox Church. That grapevine cross that she is holding in the painting is the symbol of Georgian Christianity.

Here is a Jewish Temple, one of two in the city.

Mike asked Sev if all of these different religions get along in the city or if there is conflict. Sev noted that it is stated in Georgia that all religions get along because they have good wine. Now that is a great segue to the next part of the tour: Georgian wine.

Wine dates back to 800 years before Christ in Georgia.

Here is a statue of Tamada, the Georgian toastmaster. The horn comes from pagan times. The main idol in pagan times for the area was the moon, so people sacrificed bulls to the moon because their horns had a crescent shape. This made bulls sacred animals and people would drink special toasts from their horns.

In Georgian culture, the tamada, or toastmaker, was responsible for supervising the feast, organizing toasts, and telling jokes and stories. The entire mood of the feast was his responsibility.

The Georgian rule for toasts is that the first toast is always for God. Per the internet, this story is often told along with the first toast… After the creation of the world, God divided the Earth among the people. Georgians were late because on the road they had been drinking. When they arrived, the entire world had already been given to other people. But God had reserved a small plot for himself and decided to give this plot to the Georgians. This is why Georgia is Paradise. It is the best land in the world.

After spending time with our friend, Tamada, we popped into this traditional Georgian bakery.

This underground bakery was originally built to bake breads for the seminary above it. And this passage way originally was a direct passage to the church across the street.

I will say – Georgian breads are incredible. I could eat them all day.

This is the Eastern Orthodox Church which we didn’t enter. They were having service and, being more conservative than the other churches we visited, our guide thought it best we glance and keep walking.

Candle or sausage? Candle or sausage?

We had seen these items hanging around town. I was pretty confident they were candles. They are not. They are actually a traditional candy called churchkhelas. Almonds, walnuts, hazelnut and raisins are threaded onto a string and then dipped in thickened grape juice before being hung to dry. Since they are high in caloric value, Georgian warriors and travelers would carry churchkhelas along with them on journeys. They were delicious, but perhaps a bit waxy tasting.

Our final stop on the tour was the Bridge of Peace which crosses the Kura River.

This wasn’t suppose to be our final stop, but we were hit with torrential rains and we had to call it a day. Sev took this opportunity to note that from Soviet times until 2003, Tbilisi was a really dangerous city. In November 2003, there was a pro-Western peaceful change of power in Georgia called the Revolution of the Roses. This revolution consisted of widespread protests over disputed parliamentary elections which ultimately ousted the Soviet president at that time. After this, Georgia pursued pro-Western foreign policy and declared integration with Europe to be its main priority. This has led to tensions with Russia which we heard mentioned several times during our time in Georgia. This revolution also was the beginning of a revitalization in Tbilisi.

From the Bridge of Peace we could see Kartlis Deda which is a statue erected in 1958 to celebrate Tbilisi’s 1500th anniversary.

The name translates to Mother of a Georgian. She is in Georgian national dress and symbolizes the Georgian national character. In one hand she holds a bowl of wine to greet friends, while in the other a sword for enemies. Here is an up close shot that I borrowed from the internet.

Since our tour was ended a bit early, we made the best of it and continued our Georgian education with a trip to a wine cellar.

Tsangala’s wine shop and bar:

We let the guy there pick out a bottle for us. We went with dry red that is made in the traditional Georgian style. This traditional Georgian winemaking method using Kvevri clay jars is on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List. The idea is that these clay pots are filled with wine and then buried in the ground, thus storing the wine at ground temperature. Some remain underground for 50 years.

The wine was great, plus we got some cheese and churchkhelas to pair with is. Michael wanted the sausage but the guy refused because it wouldn’t pair properly.

The next day we had just one job to do: watch the World Cup final! We found this great wine bar, arrived a bit early and secured great seats.

With wine and some delicious Georgian food, we had a great afternoon.

After watching Croatia beat England with a crowd cheering almost exclusively for England, it was interesting to be watching Croatia vs. France in a crowd cheering exclusively for Croatia. Apparently former Soviet countries stick together! I don’t think there is anyone who needs this information, but for posterity I will note that France won with a score of 4-2. But it was looking a lot closer the first half…

Here are few of our nieces and nephews along with my mom watching at home and sporting their Croatia jerseys!

On our last day in Georgia, we wandered around the city, had a great lunch at a place called Lolita’s and then celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary from a beautiful vantage spot at the top of the funicular.

Michael and I always take our anniversary as an opportunity for some reflection on the year behind us and the year ahead. This past year has obviously been a crazy one – with a lot of changes and new experiences. We are very excited for this next year which is looking like it is going to be just as insane. There are a lot of unknowns, especially as our travels are winding down, but we’re ready to figure out together what’s next.

July 11-13

With just two full days in Capri, and almost zero research done by us regarding this small island, we were super lucky to be meeting up with Leigh, his partner Craig, and Leigh’s daughter Mietta. Thankfully, they had things under control.

When we woke up on the 11th, after our travel day, we met up with them for breakfast to get our day started. Most of you will remember Leigh from our Antarctica expedition. He was the Australian that we met and with whom we spent most of our time. We think he’s great. So when he mentioned that he was going to be in Capri with his family, and asked if we’d be around, we shuffled our schedule a bit and decided to end our time in Europe with them in Capri. It did not disappoint.

First off, both Craig and Mietta are as great as Leigh is. No surprise there! They welcomed us into the group immediately and it truly felt like we were all good, old friends.

For our first day, Craig organized a boat trip with another Aussie couple. A little before one, we met up with Guy and Madeleine and their kids, Aston and Coco, at the harbor.

Knowing Leigh, and now getting to know Craig and Mietta, it is no surprise that this little family is also amazing!

We spent the next four or so hours boating around the island, checking out the grottos, swimming and just enjoying being out on the water with a little rose. Aston can tell you exactly how many bottles Craig brought on the boat if you’re wondering.

We also drove right through Faraglioni, Capri’s most iconic sight, which are coastal rock formations eroded by waves.

And we saw this famous house, Casa Malaparte, which is on the eastern side of the island and was built 70 years ago. The 45ish degree angle facing the cliffs are steps that climb up the side of the house to the roof-top patio. It was also the location of a Brigitte Bardot movie, Le Mépris, in 1963.

And, of course, the grottos! I love the contrasting colors here – the purple and the really striking blues.

After retreating to our hotels for showers and quick naps, we all met back up in the center square to watch the World Cup game: England vs. Croatia.

We had a great time – with most of the area rooting for England and just little old me and a few others pulling for Croatia. Perhaps no bigger England fan that Leigh… sporting a jersey with his own name put on the back.

In a shock to probably everyone there, Croatia actually won. Leigh is now on to supporting France. Not so much a spoiler, because at the time of writing this, the World Cup is over, but I’ve seen facebook and Leigh also has a French jersey. No way of knowing if it has his name on the back. But at least Leigh finally got his victory!

As the game was finishing up, a few bizarre things happened.

First of all, while I stepped away from the table to chat on the phone with my mom for a few minutes, a random woman came over to the table to chat with our group. Coco and Guy had already headed back to the hotel, but the rest of the crew was still there. She was young, quite drunk and looking to party… with our crew which included a nine year old. Craig was immediately trying to get a little distance from the woman and I think everyone had some concerns about hanging out with her. But she ordered shots and everyone felt a bit obligated to sit with her for a minute.

By this time, Michael is waving wildly at me to come back. At the time, I thought he was just annoyed that I was being rude by staying on the phone. It turns out he wanted me to come back and help manage the Chelsea from Chelsea situation. That’s right, her name was Chelsea and she was from Chelsea (in England, not in NYC). Chelsea from Chelsea seemed to be full of stories with questionable amounts of truthfulness. First of all, she is David Beckham’s stylist. She told them that she had been coming to Capri for 20 years, but she was only 27 years old. Chelsea from Chelsea wanted to take our crew to a jazz club that she just loves. She had a story about how she also has a boyfriend, or someone with her, who had left her at the restaurant to watch the game by herself. Plus everyone knows her because she comes there all the time. Whatever the story, our crew was nervous that she was trying to stick us with her bill. I finally finished my call and walked back to the group.

At this point, I approach our guys to see what was going on. Craig was trying desperately to find an exit strategy away from Chelsea from Chelsea. I’m not sure why we didn’t think we could just walk away, but I think there was concern that there would be a scene. So in a panicked fashion, Craig was throwing out ideas when Michael and Leigh made eye contact and Leigh said excitedly, “It’s Rod Stewart!”

Suddenly, the Chelsea from Chelsea issue was of zero concern. We had a new purpose in life and that was following a rough looking, definitely drunk Rod Stewart down the street. As we all started walking, Chelsea from Chelsea starting coming with us but was stopped by restaurant staff demanding that she pay her bill. She made some comment about it not being a problem and that she was going to “dial Rod” because she knows him and then she started manically pounding on her phone like she was dialing his number from memory.

That was the last we saw of Chelsea from Chelsea.

Madeleine took this as her opportunity to take Astor back to their hotel and the rest of us followed Rod and his entourage up the road to their waiting taxis. Once Rod was settled into a taxi, Leigh came up next to him and said, “you’ve got Bette Davis eyes” and Rod said, “I like that” and shook his hand before riding off.

We were pretty geeked about it. Leigh is now practically famous. I wouldn’t really even say I’m a Rod Stewart fan, but I was pumped to see him!

The next day, we did the fashionable thing to do in Capri and got reservations to a beach club for the day.

This is the view from our hotel window along with a few other shots from the hotel below:

These are from our walk to the beach club.

Since Capri is quite rocky, these clubs have lounge chairs, restaurants and swimming areas. There are varying degrees of exclusivity at these clubs. The one we went to was mildly exclusive and situated right next to the super exclusive club where Chelsea from Chelsea and her good friend Rod were probably hanging out.

We had a great time – got a lot of swimming in and met a few more friends of Leigh and Craig. They were a family were staying nearby and had chartered a sailboat for the day and just sailed right up to our club to have lunch with us. Apparently Capri is quite the place to visit if it is winter in Australia!

Here, Aston and I are watching one seagull eat another seagull. Gross? Yes. But really hard to look away.

Our ride back from the beach club:

And an extra taxi once we realized the boat dropped us off at the wrong harbor. Whoops!

That night, with a slightly smaller group, we grabbed a fancy dinner at Monzu which served beautiful local cuisine. This photo is courtesy of another breathtaking walk to the restaurant. Definitely should be in a fashion magazine…

The meal was wonderful and the wine provided by Claudio was excellent, but the conversation was truly the best part of the night.

The beautiful Mietta!

Oh – and those fireworks over the water that Michael had planned for us? Nailed it.

After two great days meeting new friends and spending time in such a beautiful place, it was hard to find anything that could make this visit better. And then we walked back to town. After dropping Madeleine off at her hotel, the five of us continued back through the center square. While passing the restaurant where we watched the World Cup the night before, we saw… Bono. True story. Bono was there, being introduced to a table of people by the owner.

It did not take long for word to spread that Bono was there and a crowd started forming. Both Leigh and Michael got selfies with the legend.

My favorite part was seeing Bono. My second favorite part was all of young, beautiful, stylishly dressed women who knew he was famous and had no clue who he was. Two 20 somethings asked us who he was. Michael responded, “Bono” and when I saw this didn’t clear anything up for them, I said, “from the band U2?” Still dead stares. So I told them to take the picture and google U2 later. There was a similar situation with two dads who were 50ish and their daughters. The dads were completely freaking out and their daughters were bored and confused.

What was cool about the situation is that Bono was a really good sport about all of it. He posed for a ton of pictures and didn’t mind being crowded. Eventually, someone did come over to save him, but he put up with it for 5 or 10 good minutes before heading to his car.

Awesome.

So that was it! Michael and I were on the 5:50 ferry back to the mainland to catch a flight out to Athens the next morning before heading on to Georgia.

We got to end our time in Capri with a sunrise over the harbor – really full circle from the sunset when we arrived.

This was definitely an excellent place to have our last stop in Europe for this trip. We loved spending time with our good buddy, Leigh, and felt so lucky to have been invited to share part of his vacation with his amazing daughter, Mietta, and wonderful partner, Craig. Plus spending time with Guy, Madeleine and their kids was a total bonus. We have a bunch of really cool kids that we love back in the States that we’ve been missing a lot lately, so it was a treat to have a little more time with some awesome kids while traveling. Thanks for including us in your incredible holiday! We hope to see you all soon in Australia!

July 10

We were struggling for our 6:30am alarm, but with big plans to meet up with our friend Leigh in Capri, we got moving. It was destine to be a day of travel struggles. We could not find a taxi to get us to the airport and we didn’t have enough time to take the train or a bus (let alone the patience to figure it out on short notice with bad internet). We ended up just wandering around for awhile and lugging our heavy bags, until our aimless wandering finally paid off and we found a taxi.

We made it to the Copenhagen airport with plenty of time and checked into our first flight with EasyJet. Both flights were actually with EasyJet, but they wouldn’t let us check in for both. We had to pick up our bags when we arrived at Berlin and then go through the entire checkin process again. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal since we had a five hour layover.

When we arrived in Berlin, we went straight to baggage to grab our checked bags. It took 45 minutes to an hour to get our bags. So now we’re down to just four hours left. When we left security, we were in major need of some food. The exit area had a few restaurants and the pizza smelled pretty good. It was a struggle finding a place to sit, but I took care of that while Michael tried to grab food. The area reminded me of Lima’s airport. It was crammed with people just standing around. Michael came back and informed me that they were out of pizza and told us to come back later. They were just too busy. Ok…

So we changed directions and went to check in our bags instead and grab our second round of boarding passes. We still had 3 hours remaining at this point in our layover, but the EasyJet employee wouldn’t let us get in line. We had to wait another hour to check our bags. So we sat on the ground (definitely no available chairs anywhere) and waited for our hour to be up.

After about 30 minutes, I realized that a pretty legit line had formed for our airline checkin. So Michael waited with the bags and I joined the line. By the time I found the end, it had snaked back and forth three times – and that was before you could even enter the gated checkin area.

Michael joined me in line another 30 minutes later. We were now officially “allowed” to check in our bags. But then came the most Un-German thing that has ever happened. It is unclear what the cause of the issue was, but the baggage group ran into problems and stopped accepting bags from the counter employees. So basically, counter employees could not help any new travelers because the conveyor belts were stopped and they had no where to put the bags. Everything completely shut down.

This picture shows the agents just standing around, confused.

And here are the bags piling up, with nowhere to go.

After being in line for nearly two hours, and fairly close to the front of said line, the worst thing for us started happening. Since it was such a disaster, they started taking certain flights all at one time. So entire groups of people got moved ahead of us in line. There was also a counter employee shift change at this point, so we got to see new employees showing up for work to a huge disaster. You could just see the look of horror on their faces. I’m sure all of them wished they had called in sick.

We finally got checked in and went back to grab a slice of that pizza we had our eyes on earlier. We made it through security without issue, arriving at the gate just in time for boarding. You read that right – we needed all five hours to get our luggage, check that luggage back in, have a slice of pizza, and get through security. At one point in our planning we had considered trying to run out to see Berlin for a few hours. What a joke that would have been.

By some act of God our flight was only about 30 minutes late arriving. It was on this second flight that I read that EasyJet article about Hija de Sanchéz. Hopefully their restaurant selection process was better and more thought out than their check in process.

Upon arrival to Naples, we had about two hours before we had to be on a ferry to Capri, so we had the taxi drop us off at L’antica Pizzeria Da Michele. Established in 1870, Michele’s is considered to be THE place to get pizza in Naples. It has won a ton of awards and was the pizzeria that Julia Roberts visited in Eat, Pray, Love. They claim to be the oldest pizzeria in Naples.

All of the awards:

The place was packed – but we only had to wait in line for about 15 minutes to get a table.

Michele’s serves margarita and marinara. That’s it. Obviously we grabbed one of each to make sure we had a thorough experience.

The pizza was good… but we’ve had better. It is cooked on an open fire which left the crust tasting a bit burnt. The sauce and the cheese were both really good, but meh on the crust. Cool experience, though!

Then it was off to the ferry. In a day that had already had two cab rides and two flights, it was only logical that we’d have issues with the ferry. Michael had bought tickets online because we heard the ferries sell out. So we were all set with our electronic ticket when they began boarding at 8pm. We got to the front of the highly chaotic crowd of pushing Italians and the man told us we were in line for the wrong boat. Crapola. So we ran over to the next boat, got in that line of pushing Italians, got to the front and the man told us that we had to take our electronic ticket to the box office and exchange it for paper tickets. Crapola.

Michael dropped his bags and ran to the ticket office. I sat there anxiously waiting. It was the last boat of the night, so we were in a tough place if we missed it. The captain came over and asked why I wasn’t getting on the boat. He gave me a huge deep sigh after I told him the story and then pointed to every man he could see, one by one, asking “is that your husband? Is that your husband?”

“No… no… no… no… there he is! The one who is running at us.”

So Michael returned to inform us that the ticket office was closed so he couldn’t exchange the tickets.

We had been traveling for about 13 hours at this point and were pretty haggard looking, which I’m pretty sure is why the captain gave another deep sigh, took pity on us, and just told us to get on the boat. Stressful, but completely successful! The ride was about an hour long and brought us into this beautiful harbor right at sunset.

This is the first true sunset we had seen in weeks, finally being far enough South to get complete darkness at night.

We grabbed an open air taxi cab and were jetted off to our hotel in the center of the island. After a day of tough travel, we had finally made it to luxurious Capri (pronounced “kuhhh-pree” apparently).

Then, so excited to have made it to such a beautiful place… we went to bed. We can meet up with Leigh tomorrow…

July 8-9

After a bit more sleep, Michael and I got moving and grabbed a bus to Copenhagen. These bus rides are not getting any easier, but they are cheap! And since Scandinavia is so expensive, now is a great time to cut costs while we’re flying solo.

We didn’t spend much time in Copenhagen – we mostly popped in because we could find reasonable flights out of the city compared to Oslo. We arrived, dropped off our bags and went out to find some dinner. Our plan was to check out the Tivoli Foodhallen. Just walking the mile or so to get there, we were already jazzed about the city.

The city was alive with a lot of people walking around and great street performers.

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The food hall did not disappoint either. We had bao (steamed buns filled with stuff like a sandwich) and they were awesome.

We were pretty exhausted after our bus ride (and the fact that we’ve been moving nonstop for weeks), so we went to bed fairly early that night.

The next morning I had an errand. Spoiler to avoid my mother and sister having anxiety while reading this: I’m completely fine. But here’s the story. A few weeks back, in Russia, I fell. It was while we were in a huge crowd of people and I just missed a step. It left me with a banged up knee, a banged up elbow and a busted wrist. The knee and elbow healed quite nicely but the wrist was still giving me some problems. I was starting to get nervous that there was something wrong with it, and didn’t want to have to deal with a “health issue” in Asia, so I figured Denmark is a great place to get it checked out.

I called into the emergency room phone number and got an appointment. In Denmark, you have to call in advance or they won’t see you. I got an 11am appointment, so I showered and headed over. This is it:

I arrived 15 minutes early. They took me immediately and checked me in. I had to show them my passport and provide contact info. Then I went into a waiting room. The building reminded me of an old city hospital – the kind that would be really scary if it was night or if you were in it alone. But it was fine during the day. Sterile, old feeling, but clean. I shared the waiting room with one other woman. About 2 minutes into my wait, a nurse popped in to ask me if I’d like a juice. I declined and she smiled and walked away. About 2 minutes after that, she came back and asked if there was anything else that could make me more comfortable. I said no thank you. I was in an examination room within 10 minutes.

The doctor (or nurse?) was really nice, went through some standard questions, and then sent me off to get an X-ray. Now the service has been really great so far, but the weird thing is that they just sent me off. No one accompanied me – he just pointed at a yellow line on the floor and told me to follow it to X-ray and return when I was finished. I did follow it past open rooms with supplies sitting out. My first thought was: aren’t they worried about people stealing this stuff?

The x-ray room was a bit more crowded – 10 or so people ahead of me, but it was my turn within 10 minutes. I got the scans and headed back to the emergency room. Only thing to note about this was that they didn’t give me one of those pads to make sure the rest of my body didn’t get radiated. Apparently that is not standard practice abroad. They also didn’t ask me 45 times if I’m pregnant or could be pregnant. No litigation in Denmark?

A new doctor saw me a few minutes after I returned and told me the X-rays were clean. Great! I went to reception to find out what the damage was. FREE! I had to ask the question a separate way to make sure we weren’t working with a language barrier (with two women who speak perfect, unaccented English). Totally free. I said: Denmark is the best! To which one woman did remind me that their taxes pay for it.

Now to compare quality of service, I would say everything was as good, but faster. I was out the door in under an hour. However, in the US, the doctor would probably order more tests – send me off for an MRI or something. Or at least say that it’s probably a sprain, wear this brace for a few weeks and follow up. Nothing like that here. He gave me a compression slip which just made me feel silly and sent me packing. So I guess I’ll just wait for this to get better on its own.

After my free healthcare experiment, I met back up with Michael at… another food hall! Torvehallerne.

This one was chosen because it has a specific restaurant in it: Hija de Sanchéz.

This taqueria is owned by chef Rosio Sanchéz who is first generation Mexican-American from Chicago, who moved to Copenhagen to work in two-Michelin-starred NOMA which is considered to be one of the best, if not the best, restaurants in the world. It’s hard to get reservations there and expensive, so we grabbed these tacos instead! This taqueria is routinely included in best restaurant lists for Copenhagen and best taco joint lists around the world. It has also been called the best street food in Europe by EasyJet Traveler magazine. Remember that airline – I have a story about them in my next post. Hija de Sanchéz also was highlighted on the new Netflix series “Ugly Delicious” which I think just came out last week.

They might not look like much, but these tacos did not disappoint. Hija de Sanchéz makes their tortillas from scratch using Oaxacan corn. The tacos were so good, that later in the day when we walked by their other location, we stopped in for more tacos. These are the first really good tacos we’ve had since leaving the US eight months ago. That is a long time to go without good tacos.

After tacos, we grabbed a few beers from Mikkeller. We have visited a handful of their brewpubs around the world, but this was a bit special as they are actually from Copenhagen originally. The bartender there told us that we had to go check out Christiania. So we did.

Christiania is a self-governing “free town” established in 1971 in in the city limits of Copenhagen. Apparently some hippies moved into an abandoned military barracks to create an alternative to mainstream culture. The area is “green friendly” despite it being illegal in Denmark. We did see cops walking around, but it seems like they just let people do whatever they want. It is a very strange place. They claim to be anarchist but the area is equipped with rules, stores, even credit card machines. They use electricity and water, I’m assuming from the city, and I’m also assuming they pay taxes. So it seems to me to be less anarchy and more of a community that wants rules that are different than the city in which they are located. Weird place.

No pictures are allowed (to avoid anyone getting in trouble for illegal activity), but we did manage to snap a few while being screamed at for doing it.

The area was surprisingly safe and clean. The internet told us it was safe before going, but I was still nervous to go in. However, as soon as we stepped foot in I knew there was nothing to be concerned about. We hung out for a bit and wandered around before calling it a night.

And, no – it doesn’t get dark here in the summer either.

Copenhagen – you are a cool city and we at least need to come back to see if this is truly a blockbuster video store.

July 5-7

There is a very magnificent Stave Church very close to our farmhouse. So the handful of us that could get moving a little faster the next morning jumped in the fiesta bus and headed down to grab the ferry.

This ferry…

…that we missed.

So instead we grabbed a coffee and waffle at this super cute cafe…

…and Katie got a picture with the framed photo of the stave church instead.

Getting ready to leave the farmhouse:

The good news is that it didn’t take us long to need another ferry once we had the rest of the crew with us.

And we got some more pancakes with sweet cream! These were a great find a few ferries ago. A huge hit among everyone, except Michael.

Some more beautiful scenery on our drive:

And this beautiful shot at a gas station, because Norway:

And we got to drive through the Laerdal Tunnel which is 15.25 miles long. It is the longest tunnel for cars in Europe. (There is one in Switzerland for trains that is longer). It took 5 years to build and opened in 2000. It was really long. It took us around 20 minutes to get through it. And it had these cool colored lights in certain areas.

The last stop on the great fjord adventure of 2018 was the city of Bergen. Bergen use to be the capital of Norway from the 13th until the late 18th century. The city was founded in 1070 as the sole trading post between Northern Norway and other countries. To this day, Bergen Port is Norway’s busiest in terms of both freight and passengers.

Bergen is on the southwestern coast, surrounded by mountains and fjords, including Norway’s longest and deepest fjord, Sognefjord.

We arrived at our Airbnb late afternoon, dropped our stuff and headed out to grab some dinner at the fish market. We figured out pretty fast how cool this city is.

First we got to hang out with Edvard Grieg – renowned composer. Of course, I had never heard of him, but Katie remembers her Grandpa playing Grieg when they were growing up.

Then it was off to the fish market for dinner. We wandered around for awhile and found Bergen to be a pretty diverse community. This made stopping at each food stall fun for our bilingual family. I will say that bringing Katie and crew around gives Michael and I a little travel street cred. We are constantly dealing with people who know 2,3,4 languages while we are speaking English and stumbling through some Spanish. It is cool to not be the dumb kids on the block when it comes to languages for once.

Some reindeer sausages – Sofia was sad to eat it, but thought it was delicious:

Checking out the largest raspberries we’ve ever seen:

Ordering some fish from our favorite food stall:

King crab!!!

After dinner, we made it to another lego store. We owed the kids some prizes for a range of bets Michael made with them and what better way to pay them off than with legos! Also, how cool is this huge Harry Potter lego man?

Cosmic bowling styled bathroom – Sofia was too freaked out to use it. I, however, have used toilets on the Inca trail, so I was just fine with it.

The next morning, Katie, Michael and I went for a run around the closest park before starting our day.

Then it was back to that same park to grab some photos with the kids.

And, of course, the weird angry baby fountain:

Then we met up with Michael at the harbor and tried to find a boat that would drive us around for an hour or so.

We found this one that would drop us off a bit down the harbor at the Norwegian Fisheries Museum. This did not seem to me like what we were looking for, but when Michael heard the guy talking about it, he jumped right on board (literally and figuratively). OK – we’re doing it.

The boat ride left something to be desired. It was hard to see outside and it wasn’t a very long ride. But then it dropped us off at this fish museum which turned out to be AWESOME! I never would have expected it. We ended up spending a few hours there. Every room had activities for the kids (and the adults). Many of them gave scores which of course Michael and I can’t help but make into incredibly competitive games.

Some information about Geiranger Fjord that we visited a few days prior:

We’re not sure why Liam’s fish face went missing, but here are the rest of us!

There was also a treasure hunt for the kids that was actually a bit tough and required them to really pay attention to some of the educational stuff in each room. Good thinking fishery museum. Of course, the kids dominated and were rewarded with T-shirt’s and some other trinkets.

After finishing at the museum we were dragging a bit and super hungry. On our trek back to the harbor, we walked through Bryggen. This is the Old Town which has colorful wooden houses on the old wharf and is a World Heritage Site.

And then finally we made it to lunch. We found a great sushi place and we just demolished. I love watching kids eat (and enjoy) sushi.

On our walk back we saw a random BB8:

And some hilarious Star Wars conspiracy theory street art:

The next morning it was another drive back to Oslo. We made our first stop just outside of Bergen at a Stave Church that Katie wanted to visit. Fantoft Stave Church was originally built around 1150 in the eastern end of Sognefjord. It was to be torn down in the late 1800s but instead was moved outside Bergen. In 1992, the church was destroyed by arson. Wikipedia tells me that there was a string of church burnings by members of an early Norwegian metal scene. Very strange story. It has since been rebuilt.

Some more beautiful scenery with more grass covered roofs. Can you even see the houses back there?

We had a great lunch at Gretteberg Kafe, at the top of a mountain, overlooking a beautiful lake.

The best part of lunch was definitely how excited Liam was about this piece of hot dog.

“Hey! Will someone take a picture of this!” Yes, I will.

That night, we checked into the first hotel of their trip. We were staying at the hotel that is right in the Oslo airport since Katie and crew had a very early flight. We hung out in the restaurant and watched some more World Cup – Croatia v Russia. Croatia won in shoot outs. Another crazy, exciting game!

The next morning, Michael and I woke up a bit before 6am to say goodbye to Katie, Oscar, Sofia and Liam. It was hard saying goodbye, but we are so grateful that we had so much time and so much fun with them! We have been missing family a lot lately, so we’re really lucky to have had so many of you come out to travel with us. We could not have made it this long without these visits. Thank you!

Norway’s Specialty

Did you know that the movie Frozen is based off the country of Norway? The scenery and the villages are iconic Norwegian views. Another huge Norwegian fact from the movie revolves around trolls. Trolls, as some of you may know, are only active during the nighttime. During the day, they disguise themselves as ordinary rocks. Trolls can only come alive (to the best of my knowledge) in Norway.

Sofia and Liam found a few trolls that were disguised as rocks during the day. Sofia left them a note before going to bed to see if they were actually trolls, or just rocks. AND THE TROLLS RESPONDED DURING THE NIGHT!!

The second night, Sofia wanted more details about which troll was which rock during the day. We also picked up a few new trolls to hang out with. You don’t want to be calling them by the wrong names! What we found out the next morning is that most of the trolls only speak Norwegian. Only one, Lucy, can speak English. Thank goodness for google translate! Lucy had all of the other trolls tell Sofia and Liam what their names are and what they like to do when they’re awake.

Sofia had me take pictures of the notes so we wouldn’t forget which troll went with which name. It was very cool to see the great responses from the trolls and how excited Sofia and Liam were to hear from their new friends! Norway truly is a magical place!

July 4

We were back on the road, driving through the fjords to see what we could see! Our first stop at Hornindalsvatnet lake was just as picturesque as what we’d seen the day before.

Now, with all of these cool rocks to climb on, the first thing I said to Liam was:

“Liam, be very careful where you step. If you fall in this lake, then Michael is going to have to jump in after you and then his clothes are going to be all wet. So be very careful.”

Let’s just say, I saw it coming. Liam, sure enough, went head first into this lake. First things first – he was completely fine. Wet, and a bit upset, but fine.

But when he landed in the water, face down, he freaked out. Then he accidentally pushed himself deeper into the lake when he freaked out. That’s how I end up knee deep in the lake with my jeans and tennis shoes on.

Now I would like to say that I was upset about it. But when a child thinks you saved their life? Well that feeling is awesome. He kept saying that I “rescued” him. Michael was laughing at me while I was soaking it up – worth the soggy shoes for sure.

Our next stop was Loen, where Katie, Michael, Sofia, and I grabbed the gondola from the bottom of the fjord up to the top.

Katie wasn’t nervous at all.

From the gondola and from the top of the mountain we got a great view of Nordfjord.

We grabbed lunch at the top which included Sofia’s delicious and local Loen apple juice.

And then made our way back down.

These guys got down a bit faster:

Michael enjoying the beautiful river before we got back into the fiesta bus:

Next we were off to see a glacier! But first we had to get past these pesky cows.

This cow actually had a thing for Michael and would only come closer to him and the car as Michael tried to shoe it away.

We saw the Jostedal glacier at the Bøyabreen glacierarm. The Jostedal glacier is the largest glacier on the European mainland. It covers an area of 474 km2. The icecap lies about 1600 meters above sea level and the highest point is 1952 meters. It’s about 80km long and the ice thickness is 5-600 meters.

About 20,000 years ago, this glacier covered almost all of Scandinavia. They believe this glacier melted away almost completely 8000 and 5000 years ago. The current glacier that we see had its peak during the “Little Ice Age” in 1750. Fact: The Jostedal glacier contains as much fresh water as the entire Norwegian population would use in a hundred years.

The Fjaerlandfjord, formed through several ice ages, was carved over 2-3 million years by the glacier. It is still digging and shaping the landscape and every year soil and loose rocks pull away from the bedrock. The glacier is alive and always in motion.

Second fact: glacier ice was used as the podium of the Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer in 1994. Boo to Michael who told me 1992 while I was writing the last post. Now I’m going to have to amend.

The kids loved making bets with Michael about who could stay in the water longer or who would go in the furthest. Michael definitely won… but the kids were pretty brave as well in the freezing glacier water.

Our last stop of the night was Fjaerland, a town which is called “international book town” for its ten bookshops.

Sounds awesome! We are a crew who loves books, so what could be better?!?

But when we arrived… at 7:05pm, everything was closed down. So we walked around for a minute and then moved on.

The airbnb that we stayed at in Hafslo is actually a traditional farmhouse. This was super cool for the kids who got to hang out with the baby ducks on the property! We also ate some fresh eggs the next morning. There was some hesitation from the kids, but in the end… it’s breakfast.

July 3

About a third of the 6 or 7 hours we drove today was along Mjosa lake which is Norway’s largest lake, as well as one of the deepest lakes in Norway and Europe. Its maximum depth is 449 meters or about 1475 feet. At the furthest part north of this lake, we drove through Lillehammer which hosted the Olympics in 94. As you’ll see over the next few days in the fjords, we did three things during the day: drive, jump out to explore, and take ferries.

Our first stop of the day, at Mjosa lake:

A lot of the houses have grass roofs. I’m not sure what the point is – insulation? Disguise? Decoration? Something funny for tourists to take pictures of?

Our second stop of the day, overlooking the Geiranger Fjord:

That ferry in the background is the one we were rushing to try to get on!

After doing switchbacks down the mountain for what seemed like forever…

…we finally got down to the docks at Geiranger, pulled up to the ferry, pulled right onto the ship and they took off. Perfect timing!! We are ferry experts!

So the fjords are like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Two things to mention:

1. These pictures are gorgeous and do absolutely no justice to what we actually saw.

2. I’m not going to bother mentioning how beautiful, massive, expansive, breathtaking, awesome they all are. I don’t have the proper words to describe them. I’m just going to show you the pictures and tell you that they are incredible.

First things first: the snack shop. They sell Geiranger beer on the boat, so…

And here is Liam geeked about the fact that I spelled out his name on his hotdog in mustard:

Now onto the main event:

These waterfalls are called the Seven Sisters. Legend goes that they are kept on their side of the fjord, dancing playfully down the mountain.

While across the fjord, unable to reach his love, the Suitor Waterfall is depressed and drowns his sorrow in a bottle of wine. Can you see the bottle in the falls?

When we got off the ferry, we had just a short drive to the town of Stranda where we were staying for the night. The airbnb overlooked the harbor and was beautiful!

Michael cooked us dinner and we watched the Colombia v. England World Cup match (which is why the niños wore their jerseys all day). It was a great match with Colombia tying in stoppage time. Although Colombia lost in shoot outs, it was a blast watching with our Colombians!

You can see how excited Katie was.

Here are some pictures from our balcony, the next morning, before we left.

Michael jogging. He apparently ran less than a mile and was attacked by seagulls the entire time.

And the kids with Michael and Katie after finally finding Liam a Lego store!!

Off for more fjord adventures!

July 1-2

The drive to Oslo wasn’t too bad, but we also started an amazing thing: Star Wars! Sofia and Liam had never seen the original 6 Star Wars movies and Michael and I have them downloaded on the iPad (obviously), so we started supplementing some of the beautiful scenery with Darth Vader! The drive was beautiful and the kids were in great spirits. Once we got checked into the airbnb in Oslo, we finished up the movie we were watching, grabbed some pizza from around the corner and relaxed.

Tell me this isn’t super cute:

The next morning we were off for another marathon day of sightseeing. First stop:

Edvard Munch is from Norway, hence the museum. He’s the “Scream” artist.

The adults were pretty excited for the museum and it ended up being great for the kids as well.

It wasn’t too big and they had a few things that the kids loved, like giving them some space to draw their own masterpieces:

It wasn’t until we got to the drawing area that we realized the sad truth:

That’s right – “Scream” apparently is not in this museum. It’s in the national art museum down the road that was closed on Mondays. It was still definitely worth the visit.

Here we are walking around town, enjoying the public transportation and the squares:

After that we were off to the Nobel Prize museum. That’s right – there is another one in Oslo because Oslo is actually the city where the prize is awarded. This museum was really well done. The kids had a great time with the interactive exhibits. The info was very thoughtfully presented and it was quite on point.

Plus there was a soccer exhibit associated with equal education for girls – two things I love.

After a street food lunch, we headed off to see a few Viking war ships!

And then the Norsk Folkemuseum. Now, this was a hard sell to some members of the group. We had been to quite a few museums and the next pending activity was the beach. This museum is another open air museum with historical buildings laid out to create replicas of Norwegian villages.

The location contains over 150 buildings which came from all over Norway, including a Stave Church.

Now, we may have gone with our feet dragging a bit, but the museum was cool and very informative. Especially the information about Stave Churches which we saw in a few other locations in Norway throughout our fjord visit.

Stave Churches are medieval wooden churches that use a specific type of timber framing where the load-bearing posts are called “stafr” in Old Norse or “stav” in modern Norwegian. Some of the stave churches in Norway date back to the 1200s.

This church, the Gol stave church, was built in 1212. That’s really old… and really beautiful.

The below was what they’d use as an iron. You just had to push on the fabric a long time. Also – this is what men would give to women when they proposed marriage. They would either carve it themselves or pay someone else to do it. If the woman turned them down, they could not regift it to the next woman. They had to start over on a new one.

Once we checked out the church and did a short tour, we were on our way to the beach! Oslo has a cool city beach that is easily accessible by bus from downtown, so the area was filled with locals who had come out to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Has anyone noticed Sofia and Michael’s matchy shirts yet?

That night we grabbed food at the restaurant below our airbnb and… you guessed it… watched the futbol match. Belgium v. Japan – Belgium won 3-2.

The next morning, we were looking to get on the road quite early to get a jump on the fjords, but Katie and I had a few things we needed to see before leaving, so we went for a run to get a glance at the Royal Palace:

And the Cathedral:

And these huge bears:

Do it. Hug life.

Next off to the fjords!

June 29-30

Liam and Sofia finally made it into Oslo around 3pm… and Katie and Oscar too! We were anxiously awaiting their arrival. We grabbed a few pizzas and some coffee for the adults so we’d be able to get right on the road. Then it was off to our fiesta bus! Michael and I found out that there are no good rental car options for six people. Lots of options for 5, but 6 people require an 8 passenger van.

Here is us with the van.

With all the great people in front of it, you may miss the incredible Hertz advertisement on the side. It’s bright yellow and huge. We were not blending in by any chance for the next 10 days.

Fiesta bus! Fiesta bus! Fiesta bus! Fiesta bus!

The day before, Katie and crew had driven to Toronto from Ann Arbor to then fly to Copenhagen. They had a lay over long enough to get out into the city and wander around a bit before their final flight to Oslo. It was quite a trek – especially for two little ones. So we did the only natural thing: we piled everyone in the fiesta bus and drove six hours to Stockholm. Hey – sometimes it’s hard work traveling with Michael and Sasa.

The drive was tough – but we had time to catch up and we saw 6 moose!! Katie and I were out of our minds excited about it. Here is a blurry picture for your viewing pleasure:

We also stopped into McDonald’s for a bathroom break and snack. It’s important that the kids get to really experience the culture of Sweden.

We arrived at the Airbnb around 9pm and were fairly fast to sleep… or at least as fast to sleep as two excited kids can be when in a new place and overly excited by Michael running around with them.

The next morning, we headed into the city which was just a 20 or so minute train ride away.

I didn’t really know this before, but Stockholm, which is the capital of Sweden, is an archipelago in the Baltic Sea made up of 14 islands and more than 50 bridges connecting those islands. The public transportation in the city is really quite spectacular. In one day, we took a train to the old town, a commuter ferry to another island and a bus back to the airbn. Here’s a google map of the city so you can get an idea.

We were staying southwest of Gamla Stan, which is old town and the first stop of the day.

We spent half of the day on Gamla Stan, starting with the all important coffee stop and waterside photo shoot.

After being properly fueled, we wandered over to the Royal Palace in time to see the changing of the guard. Well – we couldn’t see the guards too well, but we could see and hear the royal band!

Then we casually popped into the nearby church for a quick visit. Google maps called it Storkyrkan and we also saw it was called the Church of St. Nicholas. But upon entering, we found out it was also the famous Stockholm Cathedral that we had been looking for.

It has flip flopped since 1527, when it was built, from being a Roman Catholic Church to Lutheran and back to Catholic, which it still is today. Several royal weddings, funerals and coronations happened in this cathedral. A few cool things that we saw:

The royal pews with Princess Sofia ready for her coronation:

St. George and the Dragon:

The legend of St. George is quite interesting. Apparently there was a terrible dragon that demanded human offerings from a town somewhere in Libya. The Cathedral pamphlet and the internet are a bit confusing on this legend. Regardless, on the day that the King’s daughter was to be sacrificed, St. George happened upon the town. St. George convinced the town to convert to Christianity and in exchange he slew the dragon. Slew? Slayed? He killed it.

The princess rescued by St. George apparently represents the kingdom of Sweden with the dragon representing an invading army.

Fun fact: the lance with which St. George is said to have killed the dragon was named Ascalon. This name was used by Winston Churchill for his personal plane during WWII.

Fun fact #2: George is included in some Muslim texts as a popular prophetic figure, with some sources stating he was among a group of believers who were in direct contact with the last apostles of Jesus. Apparently he was martyred three times by the King of Mosul for his beliefs but was resurrected every time.

There is a historical debate about his life and his deeds… besides slaying the dragon, of course, which is a known fact. Scholars believe he definitely existed and was probably martyred. The quote I like from Wikipedia, attributed to Pope Gelasius I (never heard of that one before), is that George was among those saints “whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God”. I can get behind that more than I can get behind George, dragon slayer saint. Now, enough about George.

This incredible candle globe and the darling Sofia:

Having thoroughly examined the church, we were back off to the Royal Palace.

Since the changing of the guard was completely over, we were able to enter.

The Royal Palace is still the home of the Swedish monarchy and is where official head of state stuff is done. However, apparently the royal family lives somewhere else. The palace has 660 windows, over 1400 rooms, and is one of the largest palaces in the world per the internet.

Awesome photo bomb:

The palace really was pretty big, so we had enough patience and energy to visit just the museum and the royal apartments.

And of course… the gift shops.

Sofia’s shield for the Order of the Seraphim:

This is the highest order, awarded to foreign royalty and heads of state. For the royal family, they are knighted with this order at birth or when they marry into the royal family. When a person is awarded the order, a shield with their coat of arms is created. This insignia is then worn on their clothing. Princess Sofia became a member at her wedding to Prince Carl Philip in 2015. For any additional information about the Swedish royal family, feel free to reach out to Katie. She had an immense knowledge base of Swedish royal facts and gossip.

This is the fancy throne in the Hall of State, where the King still has official meetings or something.

After the Royal Palace, we stopped in the square to grab lunch. Actual Swedish meatballs!! They were delicious, in case you were wondering. No pictures – but it happened.

Post lunch, Katie and Oscar went to the Nobel Prize Museum while Michael, the kids and I took a ferry over to a different island to check out the Vasa Museum.

On August 10, 1628, this ship set sail on her maiden voyage and immediately sank in the Stockholm harbor. Haha. Not a very good boat. Apparently the ship was too tall and too skinny. Plus there wasn’t enough weight in the bottom of the boat to keep it upright. So when a tiny breeze hit the ship, it started to rock back and forth and then began taking on water through the canon holes. Thirty sailors died.

After 333 years under the sea, the wreck was salvaged in 1961. The vessel was brought back to the top of the sea and was then reconstructed. Today, 98% of the vessel is original, including many of the beautiful sculptures and even some of the original paint.

This frog sailor statue:

It was cool seeing the huge ship, and the kids (plus Michael) loved bringing up the anchor and steering the ship in the interactive section of the museum.

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After getting our fill of the warship, we met up with Katie and Oscar and headed to Skansen. Skansen is the oldest open-air museum in the world. It showcases Sweden through buildings, farmsteads, gardens and a zoo which focuses on Nordic animals.

See what I did here with the shadows?

Wolf cubs:

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Moose up close!

Yes – Katie and I are still totally pumped about the moose!

Did you know? The moose is Sweden’s largest land animal. More than 95% of all the meat Swedish wolves eat is moose. A pack of wolves kills an average of one moose every three days. 350-400 wolves in Sweden kill about eight thousand moose per year.

The moose was almost completely eradicated in the early 1800s, but the population has slowly recovered since and has increased dramatically since the mid-1900s. This is mostly because of hunting regulations and a reduction of the wolf population. Sweden has around 350,000 moose each summer, of which about 80,000 are shot in the fall – and those other 8,000 killed by wolves.

Also people in Europe use the names elk and moose interchangeably for what we know as a moose. While in the US, an elk is a completely different animal (albeit in the same family).

Reindeer in need of a good molting:

At this point we were ready for some dinner and another World Cup match was about to begin. So we did what every good futbol fan would do – we booked it over to the ABBA museum to get dinner and watch the game.

That’s right – we hung out at the ABBA museum and it was amazing.

Uruguay beat Portugal 2-1.

Super long day:

That was basically it for Stockholm. We crammed a lot into just about 36 hours. The next morning, Katie and I grabbed some runs. I got us a teeny bit turned around which ended with us climbing through a construction site.

And then we were back on the road. No rest for the weary! We had six hours back to Oslo where we were going to spend a little time. But this time, we found a better rest stop than McDonalds. We pulled into a random gas station that had a restaurant next door. It was authentic Swedish cuisine! We ordered meals and then we got free drinks and salads to accompany it. Most importantly, I got my second round of Swedish meatballs. When in Rome!

Now off to Norway for our next set of adventures with Liam and Sofia!