Days 5-9: Absurdly Beautiful Norway

In case you missed it:

• Days 1-3: Glasgow- Euro Trip Begins!
• Day 4: Edinburgh and A Lot of Rain

About a year ago my Dad sent me an email with a power point presentation about a crazy hike in Southwest Norway called Preikestolen, and I have been hell-bent on doing this hike ever since. And that is how we ended up in Norway for the second leg of our trip. For some reason it is cheaper to fly from Scotland to Norway than from Sweden to Norway (look at a map… this really doesn’t make sense!), which is why we flew to Glasgow first, and then on Day 5, we flew from Edinburgh to Haugesund, Norway. From the teeny tiny airport of Haugesund, we took a 2 hour bus to Stavanger, Norway. From there we took a bus to Stavanger airport (Norway infrastructure is crazy. Partly because they were poor up until recently, and partly because they have a zillion mountains and fjords which makes building a straight line next to impossible). Anyways, after waking up at 4 am in Edinburgh, by about 1 pm, we were finally in our rental car and ready to take on our first hike- Preikestolen (also known as The Pulpit Rock).

The hike was quite crowded, probably since it was a really nice day. I think we missed most of the crowds though since we got there later in the day. There were definitely more people making their way down than there were going up, so that was good. You can see from the picture above that the hike isn’t too steep, but there were a few parts that required at least some physical strain.

It took about an hour and half to get up to the top, and when we got there- wow.

It has an amazing view of the fjord (Lysefjord) and the sheer cliff was just mind blowing. We carefully dangled our feet over the ledge and took a peak over the edge out of sheer curiosity. I typically don’t have a problem with heights, but it really did make you dizzy. No one has ever fallen off the cliff, but I am aware that I am particularly clumsy, so I tried to be more cautious than I probably normally would be. Check out some of my favorite pics:






After we took our fair share of pictures, we headed down since we had a long drive to get to our hotel. Our hotel was in Lysebotn, Norway, which can only be reached by ferry (which we had missed) or by taking a very long, out of the way, one-lane winding road through the mountains. Blake had to do all of the driving since it was a manual, which I still haven’t learned how to drive. The drive itself was spectacular though. The funny part was all of the sheep that just roamed freely along the side of the road.

At the end of the drive, we had to drive only 7 km downhill, which was so windy that it took almost a half hour. Isn’t this road the craziest thing you have ever seen?

When we finally arrived at our “Bed and Breakfast” at 11 pm we were a little disappointed to say the least. First off- this was our curtain situation:

Mind you, we were on the ground floor and anyone could just walk right up to our window. Not to mention that the sun barely goes down in the summer. Then we noticed there were no towels (for the community bathroom), one of our doors wouldn’t shut properly, and it didn’t look like there were sheets on our bed. At this point I was pretty cranky- all I wanted to do was take a shower and go to bed. I was upset to say the least. So I went down to the reception desk and calmly (I swear) explained that there was a problem. I said that there were no curtains, no sheets and no towels. To which he replied- “Oh, we rent towels, but we ran out.” Uh… are you kidding me? No where did it say to bring your own towels! We hadn’t showered in 2 days and we had been hiking all day… we needed a shower- badly. Then another lady that worked there, started yelling at me, about having just put clean sheets on. I insisted that there weren’t any (turns out there were sheets, but they were weird Scandinavian sheets (they really don’t know how to do sheets here)). I did start to get upset at this point since this lady was yelling at me. I said that it was completely unacceptable that there weren’t towels available and that we had no curtains! I mean, I can even understand the towel situation, but seriously- not having curtains that cover the window? WTF?!!! I find it hard to believe that no on had complained about that before. We couldn’t even get dressed in our own room! They said they would take care of it though, and I have to admit that they did. They found us a couple of towels, and they brought us a blanket to hang up as a curtain.

The bad part was that it was a small place, and now everyone hated us. We were staying there for 3 days, and there was no other place for about fifty miles to stay or to eat- we were stuck there. And yes- part of me could have perhaps handled it better. But no towels and curtains?! That is their problem.

The next day (after showering and sleeping in) we were ready to take on the next hike- Kjeragbolten (also known as The Mortised Boulder). Luckily we were a short drive (well we had to drive up that really crazy windy road that we had driven down the night before). When we got to the start of the hike, which starts at this adorable café that is literally hanging on the edge of a cliff- it was pouring rain. We inquired about the weather, seeing if it would clear up, and everyone said that the weather up in the mountains changes all the time, so we decided to tough it out and start the hike in the rain.

You can see from the picture of the hike above that this hike was going to be a lot tougher. It was very steep in some parts, and you had to climb and descend 3 peaks on the way there. And like I said, it was raining, which made the rocks very, very slippery. After the first 20 minutes, a family stopped us, asked us where we were from, and after we replied we were American, he told us that it was too hard and that we should turn around. This guy obviously doesn’t know Americans- that was motivation to finish the hike right there! Pssshh… turn around? Fat chance! The hike had a bunch of chains that were quite necessary (especially on the slippery rocks) to make it up.


The rain finally stopped right about the time we reached the top of the 3rd peak, and managed to stay sunny the whole time we were at the top (we had a 45 minute walk across fairly flat terrain after we reached the top of the 3rd peak).

Then we were finally there!


You can step right onto it from the back, but it really was just wedged right in between 2 cliffs. And it was just hanging about a 1000 meter drop! One misstep and it would have been a long way to fall! Since the weather had been so crappy, we had it all to ourselves! Which was cool at first, but I wanted to get a picture of Blake and I together on the rock. I figured out how to put my camera on a timer, but I only had 30 seconds to start the camera and run over and jump onto the rock. Probably not my best idea… but isn’t it awesome?!

After a quick lunch we were ready to head back down. The sun stayed out until we started the decent, and then it started to rain… a lot. And it didn’t stop raining the entire rest of the hike. Most hikes I have done are usually mostly uphill on the way there and downhill on the way back. Not this one. On the way back we still had to go downhill, uphill, downhill, uphill, and then finally, downhill. In the pouring rain.

Well, regardless- we finally finished! It was pretty miserable on the way back, but it was totally worth it! Here I am with my celebratory beer! Huzzah!

The next morning we took the long drive back to return our car and go to Stavanger and stay in a real hotel. There wasn’t much to do in Stavanger, but it was a cute town. We walked around the harbor where there was a giant pirate ship from Sweden!


After some much deserved relaxation in Stavanger, we took a (five hour) bus ride to Bergen to meet up with my friend Johannes. Bergen is also adorable, and it was fun to hang out with a local.


Johannes is Norwegian, but grew up in the States. I met him through my old roommate Lisa- they were both studying Econ at UW. Got all that? Anyways, he was nice enough to offer us a place to stay. The weather wasn’t great in Bergen (it never is), so we spent most of the time relaxing. On Saturday, Johannes took us on a hike that would have been spectacular, but- you guessed it- it rained! Like true Scandinavians, we made it to the top and didn’t complain!

Johannes showed us a great time in Bergen but then we were ready to head to our next adventure- Dublin!

Now normally, I just say, oh- click here if you want to see all the pictures. But this time I insist- no wait- DEMAND!!!! THAT YOU SEE ALL THE PICTURES!!!! Seriously… you won’t be disappointed! Norway is by far the most beautiful place I have ever been! Check it out HERE!

Day 4: Edinburgh and A Lot of Rain

In case you missed it: Days 1-3 in Glasgow

On the 4th day of our trip, we took the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh with Tom to meet up with Blake’s other “English guy studying in Glasgow who also studied at Lund” friend, Derek (a fellow Ginger as well). When we got to Edinburgh our plan was to drop our bags off at our hostel, then get some sight-seeing in before Derek got into town. After we walked all the way from the train station to the hostel though, we discovered that there was no safe place to leave our bags. Not that we had anything valuable, but they just suggested leaving our bags sitting out in the lobby all day. Since everything I would need for the next 2 weeks was in that bag, I didn’t really want to risk it. So we walked all the way back to the train station looking for a storage locker. All they had to offer though was a service that charged 7£ per bag! Per bag! What a rip-off. We are cheap, so we walked even further to the bus station, where we at least found a locker for 4£ that we could put both of our bags in. So that was good, but by the time this fiasco was all settled, we had wasted well over an hour, and we only had half of a day to being with in Edinburgh. But by then, Derek was there, so we met up with him and we were ready to begin touring the city.

So we started walking and it started raining. We popped into a pub to grab a beer and wait out what seemed like a short burst of heavy rain.

The rain did go away and we made our way towards Edinburgh Castle.

On our way we even saw a fox in the middle of the city! Blake and I were shocked, but Tom and Derek said it wasn’t really a big deal.

The Castle cost quite a bit of money, so we just saw the outside, snapped a photo of all of us there, and called it good. Actually we had to get 2 photos taken, since the first random stranger apparently thought it was more important to get all of our feet in the picture instead of the Castle.


(Side Note: Why can only about 15% of the population take a decent picture? It isn’t that hard people! If we are in front of a landmark and ask you to take our picture, wouldn’t you assume that we would want the landmark to be in it?! When people ask me to take their picture, I do my absolute best to give them a picture to remember, but apparently I am just more courteous than most people. Or smarter. Who knows?)

After the boys got their picture with a dragon, we just walked down the Royal Mile, which was really cute, but unfortunately we had no idea what we were looking at. Blake and I made the mistake of assuming that Tom and Derek might be good tour guides since they had both been to Edinburgh before. Don’t get me wrong- it was a ton of fun to hang out with Tom and Derek, but tour guides they are not (no offense guys, really!).

At the end of Royal Mile we were all trying to decide what to do, and Blake mentioned taking the hike up to Arthur’s Seat. At the time of this decision, the rain had subsided, and this activity was free, so we set off for the hike. It wasn’t a hard hike at all, but then, it started to rain. We were already half-way up so we decided to keep on, keepin’ on, even though none of us were remotely prepared for the weather. The rain luckily stopped while we were at the top. It had a great view, but the monument was a little underwhelming to say the least.



After we “bagged” that hill (that’s what the Scot’s say when they make it to a peak), we started to make our decent and our 25 minute walk back to the city when the heavens just opened up. Luckily we weren’t at the summit when the thunderstorm started, but it was down-pouring. It was absolutely miserable, and like I said, none of us were prepared. When we finally found a little but of shelter, I took this video to capture the atmosphere:

We were pretty much done with Edinburgh after this, since we were all freezing cold and soaking wet. So we just grabbed some dinner, and Tom and Derek went back to their homes, and Blake and I went to bed in our 10-bed hostel dorm room since we had to catch a very early flight the next day.

To check out all the Edinburgh pictures (there aren’t that many, I promise), click here!

(Editor's Update: I just re-read this post and it maybe sounds perhaps a little negative, but we loved Edinburgh! The bad weather and the not knowing stuff turned out to be pretty comical actually. Plus Tom and Derek are hilarious, which made everything funny.)

Days 1-3: Glasgow- Euro Trip Begins!

So Blake and I started the trip- packed our bags, took the bus to the airport, we were both pretty pumped for our big 2 week trip. To set the stage for the following story- you need to know a few things. Actually, you just need to know one thing. My visa for staying in Sweden expired (oh, about a month ago). I thought about applying for a visitor’s visa, but the way I interpreted the rules was that I could stay in Sweden without a visa for 3 months. To be honest, even I don’t really believe that, but my plan was to play stupid if a problem arose while trying to get back into the country. Key word is that we were worried about getting back into Sweden… no thoughts about getting out of the country. Back to the story, there Blake and I were about to fly to Glasgow, and we went up to customs, and… Holy crap- I thought I was going to get deported right then and there. Blake made the mistake of saying that we both lived in Sweden, he saw my expired visa and started asking a lot of questions. My heart was racing. Thankfully… whew, he let me start my vacation. Then we realized we were flying in and out of the “Schengen” region, which meant we would have to go through customs at every, single, stop. That’s just freaking great.(For those of you dying of suspense right now, I am writing this from Sweden, so obviously I did make it back in, but it was not fun.) It definitely added an additional level of stress to the trip.

Anyways, we did make it to Glasgow on Friday night, and stayed at a classy hostel (I joke… you had to pay 1£ for the TV and it was super super loud.) and we were ready to explore beautiful Scotland the next morning.

We started the day with a train ride out to the countryside to the cute little town of Stirling to visit Stirling Castle.




It was pretty cool, I must admit. You pretty much have to like a place decked out in unicorns, am I right?

Later that day we headed back to town and checked out the Glasgow Cathedral, the Necropolis and explored Glasgow in general. Glasgow gets a pretty bad rep, but Blake and I both really liked the city.

A cool pic by Blake from inside the Cathedral:


After dinner and some drinks at O’Neill’s (generic Irish bar in the UK, but I liked it, because, well, duh)- we met up with Tom, who was our host for the rest of Scotland. Blake met Tom while they were studying in Lund, and he was nice enough to offer us a place to stay for 2 nights in Glasgow.

The next day, Blake and I hoped on a bus to head out to the countryside again, but this time, we were going to go to a whiskey tasting. I have only just recently started slightly appreciating whiskey, but Blake is a big fan, so we couldn’t pass up trying some while in Scotland. The 45 minute long bus ride out there was absolutely miserable though. I have only been motion sickness one other time in my life, and we both felt sick when we finally stepped off that bus. The driver was just speeding through the winding hills at break-neck speeds and neither of us felt like tasting much whiskey when we finally got off the bus. Luckily we had some time to rest and drink some water before the tour started, and we were able to actually enjoy it. We went to Glengoyne Distillery, which is right at the start of the Highlands and was really cute. We toured the facility, learned how it was made, and got to taste their 10 year, 17 year, and 21 year whiskeys. Their 17 year one is award winning, and it was actually really nice.





The ride back to Glasgow wasn’t nearly as bad, and we met up with Tom who gave us a tour of the University of Glasgow, which is absolutely gorgeous.

The rest of the evening we just relaxed and made some tacos for his Italian roommate who had never eaten a taco before. Isn’t that weird?

It was a great start to the trip, but stayed tuned folks, because we are just getting started! Next up... Edinburgh!

To see more pictures of Glasgow- click here!

The Griffins Take Stockholm!

Very very early the morning after our big 4th of July Spectacular, the Griffins (better known as Molly and Clifton and their kids, Jacob and Maddie) came to visit Blake and I in Stockholm for an extended layover on their way back to the States for vacation. We were super excited to see them (albeit a little tired) although Jacob was just excited to ride some trains. (In his defense, he is not even 4 yet.)

After some breakfast (Pork products are banned in Doha where they live, so immediate bacon was a must) we went for a walk to check the city out.

They immediately loved it (Who wouldn't?!) especially how child-friendly and walk-able the city is. After a 7 hour flight with the kids, they weren't sure how much the kids could handle on the first day, but they seemed to be doing fine so we hopped on a boat and headed over to the Vasa Museum. Jacob was pretty excited about being on the boat (not as exciting as a train though)

By the time we got inside the museum though, Jacob was just about done with the whole thing. Blake and I really thought a huge boat would be really exciting to an almost 4 year old, but we were wrong. He feigned some interest, but he was more excited to get back on the ferry boat so we got out of there quickly.

That was it for day 1, but the kids rested and rallied for day 2.

First on the agenda for day 2 was a train ride! Hooray!

Since the weather wasn't cooperating (although a break from the heat was nice for them) I took the Griffins to a butterfly house a little north of the city (Blake had to work unfortunately). It had an awesome Koi Pond:

Jacob rushed us through the other exhibits because he was really excited to see the butterflies. Unfortunately when we got there, the butterflies were a bit much for him. (Some of them were quite big, and they do fly right at you. As a little kid, I am sure that is terrifying)

Maddie (who loves everything) enjoyed being pushed around though:

That was about all the kids could handle, so after a long bus and train ride back, we just went back to my apartment to relax and let Maddie nap. Jacob had fun watching the original Tranformers cartoon movie (yes- Blake owns it) and playing with the Swedish flag:

When Blake got off work we met him at our favorite restaurant for Swedish food- Kvarnen's. Jacob was at first excited to try some Swedish meatballs, but then started complaining about being tired, and then just zonked out right at the table before his food came. That kid really can't handle his wine! (ha- jk!)

We adults had a great dinner and Molly and Clifton got to enjoy some fine Swedish cuisine (reindeer included).

The next day (and sadly the last day) Molly and Clifton had yet to see Gamla Stan (old town, and definitely the highlight of Stockholm), so we headed that way in the morning. On the way there we happened to see a Garbage Truck, which Jacob is obsessed with (he wants to be a garbage man when he grows up- how cute is that!) and it just so happened to be Blue, which is the color of his favorite toy garbage truck. This was the highlight of the trip for him:

Then we took the uunnecessary train ride to Gamla Stan (it is a 10 minute walk) just to keep Jacob happy:

Maddie was just there to look cute:

Clifton even got to experience "stroller accessible" stairs:

Gamla Stan was quite crowded but cute as ever.



After exploring around that island for a little while, we jumped on a boat to go to Skansen- the old historic village. I thought the animals would be more of a draw for Jacob (moose, bears, seals- what isn't to love?!), but again, he was more interested in the mode of transportation we were taking on the way home (a bus). While we were there, they did get to try some Mjukglas (awesome soft served ice cream) and Swedish hot dogs:


We did get to see the bears, and then ran through the rest of the park to get to the bus and to keep Jacob happy.

Later that evening we had a nice pork meal at home and then we had to bid farewell to the Griffins. It was sooo soo great to see Molly and the fam again and hopefully the rest of their trip goes well! To see all the pics, click here.