After three weeks in countries where the only English came after confused pauses, hearing everyone speaking (accented) English is both strange and a relief.
London is amazing. We got in last night and settled into our little apartment. It’s in northeastern London, near what the apartment owner (in a very strong London accent) called “the funky area”.
This morning we hit the streets and turned all our vouchers in for tickets. And then, as is tradition, we got on the hop on hop off bus. It was amazing. Mostly empty with amazing views of all the biggest sights. The only major thing we didn’t get to today was Buckingham Palace.
Unlike Paris, the architecture here is a mash of old and new. Glass skyscrapers are surrounded by brick and marble buildings.

We caught the bus at Trafalagar Square-

And rode around past the London Eye and a bunch of other pretty things before getting genuine fish and chips.

Afterwards we caught another bus out to the Tower Bridge and Tower of London, which we’ll go into tomorrow. But those two are absolutely stunning. The Tower Bridge is a beautiful baby blue and the Tower of London is a medieval fortress dropped in the middle of a city.

London feels much more serious than Paris (the city we’ve visited of comparable size). There’s also a lack of mopeds/motorcycles, but hundreds of those distinctive red double deckers.

Our final activity of the day was riding the London Eye: a dream come true. It was beautiful.

The first day in London was amazing and I can’t wait to see more.

We’ve been in Sweden for almost two weeks now, and I like it better every day. Dad told you about our mountain biking adventures, but the next day we all piled into the rental car and went out to explore Sweden.

True to form, mom pointed out a gravel road not half an hour into our trip and off the freeway we went. It was an old logging road that ended in a round about that was suprisingly clean. An area like this at home would be full of beer cans.

The Swedish forest is really cool. All the trees are very young and thinned out because of all the logging. They also are stripped of their bark halfway up!

We were also surprised to see that the ground cover reminded us of Scotland, even though we’re farther north.

A lot of the roads are reddish, but we couldn’t figure out why until we saw the rocks out in the ‘wilderness’- they all have some mineral in them that makes them red!

Combined with the lichen, it makes for very pretty rocks.

But despite looking our hardest and even honking our horn to try and startle them, we didn’t see any moose. A fox ran across the road at one point, but the only wildlife we got close to were the bugs (Sweden has horseflies too, it turns out. Ouch).

A couple hours drive brought us to the tiny town of Nusnäs (population 729) where they make those colorful wooden horses.

We spent a couple hours there watching the carving and painting process before raiding the souvenir shops. I stupidly bought a blanket that I’ll probably regret buying until the second we get home. Speaking of souvenirs, we’re at the point where we’ll probably have to get a little suitcase just to get them home. Our carry-ons are too small. Whoops.

On our way home, we stopped beside a gorgeous lake to stretch our legs. Mom and I waded a little bit. It was suprisingly warm!

Tomorrow we’re leisurely driving back to Stockholm before catching our plane to London the next day. It’s been a beautiful and relaxing week up here in the mountains. Time to plunge back into a massive city and start touring again!

We’ve started our vacation from touring! It is really nice not to have any bus reservations, or museums we have to see.

Plus it’s is really beautiful up here. It feels and looks like the Mt. Hood/Mt. Raineer area until you look closer and see the trees aren’t really what ours look like, the buildings are constructed a little different and painted black or red. Not our normal barn red a beautiful deep burgundy red and many of the roofs are “living roofs”. I would like to know what kind of barrier they use under all that moss etc to keep the spring thaw from dripping inside the house.

About 10 days into the trip Maggie got quite homesick but that only lasted a day. Michael seems fine, dramatic sighs from time to time but overall he is engaged and I think enjoying himself. The Viking stuff interests him the most. I was glad to see the British Museum has lots of Viking history too.

Maggie didn’t think the thatched roofs worked well but I thought those buildings were dry and would quite cozy with a fire burning. I didn’t see chimneys though so I expect the Vikings lived with a lot of smoke in the winters. The king had a huge lodge and the rest had smaller huts. I’ve been impressed with the use of stones and wood to prevent mud in main streets clear back to the 900s up to the 1790s. I wonder why that didn’t get brought to America’s wild Wild West or even the early days back east. How much of the original towns used cobble stones? Guess I need to explore the east coast too. Better figure out some way to retire eventually.

For my fellow water snobs – tap water everywhere has been just fine for drinking.

It really does feel a bit like home to be sitting in a timeshare resort with lots of families walking past. The tone of voices (adults and kids) is the same but then I realize I don’t understand what they are saying and there is a bit of an accent of course 😉 The other reason I know we aren’t at home is I can’t understand the washing machine. It’s suppose to be drying the clothes now but instead it’s washing them again. Time for Google translate again – there isn’t much english up here.

Like Maggie noted earlier – we must look Swedish because all of a sudden I have to ask cashiers to talk to me in English.

The ride up hear was beautiful lots of rivers, lakes and Lupine. Unlike at home the wild Lupine hear blooms in pink, white and even variegated colors. I’ll look for some seeds to bring home 🙂

My chronic pain issues haven’t been too bad and pain meds are keeping them very manageable. Best of all is remembering to do my Physical Therapy though.

It’s fun to be on vacation where the locals vacation! We went to the grocery store and bought some stuff we’re not sure about. Wayne googled one thing we didn’t take – turns out to be reindeer summer sausage – we’ll have to go back for that!

Sorry this is all such a random brain dump. We’re using the iPad with a key board which is ok but too much effort with out a mouse to move paragraphs around and make this more cohesive.

Feel free to ask questions!

The weather was fantastic today. Lower 70’s and perfectly blue skies. So what a better way to spend the day than in a museum?
We went to the Swedish History museum and it was amazing. They had a Viking exhibit full of artifacts from Birka and all over Scandinavia. They even had a skeleton of a young girl and a reconstructed model of her face!

After the museum, we split up. Dad and Michael hit up the local amusement park-

While me and mom tried to go shopping. I say tried because we got on a ferry that took us only halfway to where we wanted to go before turning around, so we had to take a tram, and then the subway to into the center of Stockholm. By the time we got there around 6:30, most of the little stores had closed up. So we headed for a relaxing evening at home. Tomorrow we’ll go back downtown. It’s our last day in Stockholm tomorrow too.

Happy Fourth of July!

Wow, what a day. I would say we were up with the sun but the sun comes up at 3 am so…
We hopped on a boat this morning and took a two hour trip through the archipelago to Birka- a viking settlement that was abandoned over 1000 years ago.

The city just looks like a field of grass, but bits of the low wall around it and the protective fortress are still visible, as are all of the couple thousand burial mounds. We ate a quick lunch at the island’s restaurant (a delicious genuine Swedish smorgasbord) before we were taken on a guided tour of the island.
And now prepare for a history lesson.
Vikings didn’t have horned helmets- they were made up in the 1800’s to make them look fiercer.
A viking is actually a job title. Vikings were about 1% of the people and they were the ones responsible for raiding/pillaging.
The vikings wouldn’t go to battle if they weren’t positive they could win. Instead, they would trade with them.
Vikings discovered Greenland, Iceland, and Newfoundland during their era (750-1100 AD).
They believed hair held all your power, so everyone had their own special comb.
When they died, their bodies were burned in a boat (with their combs, jewelry, and knife) then covered in stones, and finally buried in dirt, which becomes a burial mound.
Vikings are awesome.

Unfortunately, it rained again today, although there was no thunder and lightning like yesterday. Fortunately, we don’t melt in the rain. After the tour finished at the very top of the island, we ignored the path back down and mountain goat-ed our way down the other side of the island. It was so cool to stand at the top of an island in the middle of a viking fortress and look out over the archipelago. Really beautiful and inspiring.

After clambering our way down, we went over to the small reconstruction of Birka and wandered around. The houses are pre-medieval and therefore extremely un-waterproofed. They also had giant fire pits in the middle of keep everyone warm during the freezing winters. Stockholm is at nearly the same latitude as Anchorage, actually. And Amsterdam is the same as Portland. I thought that was really interesting.

Dad wandered out onto the ricketiest looking dock I’ve ever seen-

There was an opportunity to cook bread over an open fire, but we didn’t want to stand around and wait our turn in the pouring rain and went to check out the museum.

All in all an amazing day. Michael made countless Skyrim references and I filled up a memory card.

Strangely, it was on the way back to Stockholm that is really struck me that we were in Sweden. I was sitting at the back of the boat, watching out the huge windows when a little sailboat came through our wake with a Swedish flag flapping behind it.

You can see the boat in the righthand corner, because I was too busy going “Oh. I’m in Sweden” to take a good picture. But that was the glorious view behind the boat, not that you can really tell because of the lighting. Whoops.

We’re not sure what we’re doing tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Also today was cloudy and we there was a chance we had meatballs. He he.

Hello! Time is flying and we can’t keep track of what day it is any more. Feels weird, but we’re having fun.

We were all laughing over tacos at home tonight about how unplanned our trip is, and how weird it is to be eating tacos in Stockholm. Don’t worry we will have meatballs one on one of our nights here. Back to planning – I use to be much more of a planner. When Wayne and I went England 20 years ago, I remember having a multi page daily itinerary for London. I think I’ve found a pretty good balance between extreme planner and just winging it.

Amsterdam thoughts – it was more relaxing than Paris. The architecture was quaint. I loved looking at all the different houses along the canals. Seemed more relaxed but with so many tourists everywhere it was hard to tell. Of course walking past “coffee Houses” while inhaling was likely to cause a relaxed attitude 😉 Along the same lines of Paris – Cheese is still amazing! Old Amsterdam is my favorite cheese and now I can say I actually ate it in Amsterdam.

Stockholm was another culture shock. The words make no sense. I didn’t realize how much of our language is influenced by French and we could often guess at what we were reading. Not here. We rode the hop on-hop off bus today which helped the words start to sound like words instead of just random noises.

Our apartment is actually somebodies home instead of just a rental property so it’s very comfortable, well stocked and has amazing internet. It was built in 1901 so it’s much newer than our Paris apartment but still has lots of character.

Some pictures of Amsterdam

Wayne in his happy place! Flashbacks to Lake Como apartment 🙂

My favorite reading spot in the house boat.

Lions on the base of a lampstand in Amsterdam’s central plaza. Gorgeous details make the whole city beautiful.

Stockholm architecture is much less ornate but colorful. Looks like the buildings are covered with stucco. There are graceful turrets on several buildings. One area they described as being based on Paris architecture. I saw some very basic similarities. Overall, after Paris and Amsterdam I can see why Ikea products look like they do. No nonsense frivolity here yet still a sense of beauty.

There are so many blonde people here.
It’s funny that in the other cities, people looked at us and switched to English immediately. Here though, particularly if Michael or I are up front, they chat away in Swedish.
Stockholm isn’t nearly as grand as Paris or as quaint/Neo-Gothic as Amsterdam. There are hints of Paris in some of the doors and windows, but most everything is practical and fortress-like. Even the palace in the center of town is a flat face of stone with more windows than decorations. But that’s not to say that Stockholm is ugly. It’s very nice! It’s just not in the same classification as Amsterdam and Paris.
We spent the day seeing the main sights of Stockholm on the bus. The most impressive thing was the palace and the nearby opera house.

Looking back at everyone’s pictures, apparently we were all so unimpressed with the palace that we didn’t take pictures. Whoops.

After seeing a few of the sights, we got off at an open air museum that showed all the different architectural styles over the years, focusing on 1400-1800. There was a beautiful old church with obviously ancient tapestries draped along the walls and a belfry that was was at least 70 feet tall and painted bright red. It looked like something out of How to Train Your Dragon.

The city was surprisingly empty in comparison to Amsterdam and Paris. Apparently only about a million people live there, but it seemed like less than that.

Tomorrow we’re spending the day at a viking village from 750. That’s right, pre-four digit dates. I can’t wait.

First things first: your finger/toe crossing worked, because the apartment we’re staying in has fast, wonderful internet. I’ll be spending the evening adding pictures from Amsterdam to all the posts. So enjoy that!

But Stockholm. Driving into the city, it reminded us all very strongly of Washington. The rural look, trees everywhere, and most of all, the drizzling rain and heavy grey clouds. The taxi ride through surprisingly heavy traffic was silent except for our driver’s occasional sighs and yawns. Not the most pleasant guy ever.

The lady who’s apartment we’re apparently borrowing was exactly the opposite. She spoke perfect English and cheerfully showed us around the amazing place. It was built in 1901, but everything is in great shape and the kitchen has been remodeled recently. And it’s fully stocked, to our complete amazement. Small comforts, eh? And we have a washing machine. We’re all very happy, needless to say.

The area we’re in seems to be suburbs. Freshly painted apartment buildings over practical stores, clean sidewalks more than a foot wide… Trees. Lots of trees. The farther north we go, to more modern things get.

The grocery store was a little scary though. If I hadn’t felt so awkward, I would have taken a picture of the prices, so you’ll just have to trust me. The first thing we saw when we walked in were bananas for 14,90 and coffee for 49,90. It’s scary to look at, even though we know everything’s in kronors (6.75 kronors for one dollar).

Tonight we’re reveling in the wifi and the chance to actually cook. Tomorrow we’re on ye old hop on hop off bus to see a lot more of Stockholm. I haven’t taken any pictures today, but watch out for Amsterdam pictures going up.

Today was an exploring day. We walked, bus-ed, tram-ed (the Max) and shopped ourselves out. I actually bought stuff for myself for the first time too. Me and mom finally found a hair straightener (since mine would just break if we plugged it in over here) so now mom can dry her hair and I can wear mine down. Yay for little pleasantries! I also found jeans that are distinctly European and the only pair bigger than size 4 in all of Amsterdam. We also bought a few souvenirs and some fancy Dutch chocolate.

But we also saw some of the funnest architecture so far. In Paris everything was huge and imposing, but the architecture in Amsterdam is much more subtle. Graceful bridges, leaning buildings with beautiful roofs, understated patterns in the cobblestones… It’s very pretty. Everything curves along the roads and canals too, showing just how long the houses have been there. The big, important buildings have a definite Gothic look (Neo-Gothic? I think I heard that on the bus at one point).

 

Amsterdam is a fantastic city. I like it more than Paris, actually. Paris was gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but Amsterdam… Maybe it’s just the presence of normal people and normal, functional city things. Grocery stores, public transportation, families, people not in suits and dresses. Casual dining. Beer available outside of corner drug stores (that double as the local grocery store).

It may just be the Portland-like weather we’ve had in Amsterdam that makes me feel more comfortable.
Everything just feels like the European version of Portland, I guess. Except that the bike culture here would put Portland’s to shame.

Either way, tonight is our last night in Amsterdam. We’re out of the houseboat at 7:30 tomorrow morning (uuuuuuggghhhhhh) to catch a plane to Stockholm. Cross your fingers, toes, and other appendages in hope that we’ll have internet there that can handle uploading a few pictures.

Goodnight!