Days 13-15: London, Baby!!!

In case you missed it:

• Days 1-3: Glasgow- Euro Trip Begins!
• Day 4: Edinburgh and A Lot of Rain
• Days 5-9: Absurdly Beautiful Norway
• Days 10-12: Everyone’s Irish in Dublin

After my (hopefully) last ever Ryanair flight, we arrived in London on Tuesday evening for the last leg of our trip and we made our way to Colleen and Dale’s apartment. We had never met Colleen and Dale, so it was really really amazingly awesome of them to let us stay with them at their cool flat in London (especially since after 2 weeks of traveling, we were running low on money).

Colleen has known Giselle, Blake’s sister, for quite some time when they used to dance together, and Giselle had mentioned that they might be nice enough to let us stay with them. Not only did we have our own room, but they had an adorable French Bulldog- Ozzy.

After a good nights sleep, we woke up on Wednesday ready to see some London. We were only a short walk to the Tower Bridge, so we decided to start there.

I had gone into the Tower of London when I visited London with my parents in 2004, and it was very cool, but since we were pretty much broke at the end of our trip, we just walked around the outside and across the bridge.

It was a beautiful day out though, so we had a good time just meandering along the water and enjoying the city.

In the afternoon, we made our way over to the Tate Modern. Blake took this cool pic of me in the escalator:

And then he did this:

So as we were walking out of the museum we noticed a RSPB booth and some telescopes for a pair of Peregrine Falcons have made the 99 meter (325 feet) high chimney of the Tate Modern their home. I wanted to see the Falcons, so we took a look-see into the telescopes, and sure enough- there was a nesting pair! After we looked they asked if we would sign a petition or something, and we said yes, and as we were signing, I heard someone behind me ask a stupid question. There was a box of stuffed animal falcons that I noticed earlier was clearly labeled 7£, and I heard someone ask, “How much for these stuffed falcons?” I thought to myself, “Idiot.” Then I heard someone else ask, “Can I take a picture with you?” To which the person replied, “Umm, no, I don’t allow pictures.” At this point, I turned around and noticed Leonardo Dicaprio was standing 2 feet behind me waiting for me to finish signing my name. Since I heard no pictures already, I just asked if I could shake his hand and said that I was a big fan (I’m not, but I do think he is a good actor). He said yes, I shook his hand, and then made eye-contact at Blake who looked at him, and then looked at me, and gave me the, “Who the hell is that?” look. Then I handed Leo the pen, and Blake and I walked away. As we were walking away Blake asked casually, “Who was that?” To which I replied, “Umm, Leonardo Dicaprio!!!!” He thought that it was some indie band guy or someone that he could care less about. You see, Leo was all in disguise, and really wasn’t much to look at up close. He was shorter than I thought (probably just barely 6 feet tall), and had nerdy glasses on. But it was cool that he was just hanging out and supporting the falcons and trying not to draw attention to himself. Even though he said no pictures, when we were a safe distance away from him, I whipped out the camera:


As we were walking across the Millennium Bridge, we were laughing about how random it was that he was there, and Blake mentioned that he was curios to see if he actually signed his real name after mine. So we ran back to see if he did sign it, and sure enough, he did! Right after mine- pretty cool, huh?

After that we ran home to update my facebook status to brag about meeting Leo. JK- we wandered around London some more before heading back to the apartment, and after much relaxing, then I posted it on facebook. I mean, give me a little credit here!

The next morning we decided to take another one of the free walking tours, since they had been so good in Berlin and Dublin. This one wasn’t as good, I think mostly since it was all about royalty, which I could honestly care less about. We did see the changing of the guards though (in the rain- surprise, surprise!) and apparently the Queen was at Buckingham Palace:

The tour ended at the Parliament, and the rain had cleared up, which made for some good pictures of the Parliament and Big Ben:


From there, we went to Brick Lane for some pretty good Indian food, and then over to the Natural History Museum. Since we were only in town for 2 days, we only had time for one of London’s many world-class museums. With Blake’s obsession with dinosaurs, the Natural History Museum was a no-brainer. Here is Blake and all the Dinosaurs he could ever want:

Blake took this cool one:

By the end of the exhibit, I think he thought he wanted to be a dinosaur!

From there we took the tube to Piccadilly Circus, which is one of my favorite areas to photograph (during my last visit I took some really cool pictures there. Pre-digital era, unfortunately).

Then we made our way back to Dale and Colleen’s flat to cook them some dinner for being great hosts. We had to catch another early flight back to Stockholm the next morning, so that was that. We were sad to leave London, but after 15 days of living out of a suitcase, we were ready to be back home in Stockholm. And luckily since we flew through Germany, there were no issues about my visa and we were back relaxing at our apartment by Friday afternoon. The end.

To see all of the pics from London, click here!

Days 10-12: Everyone’s Irish in Dublin

In case you missed it:

• Days 1-3: Glasgow- Euro Trip Begins!
• Day 4: Edinburgh and A Lot of Rain
• Days 5-9: Absurdly Beautiful Norway

We woke up very early on Day 10 after a late night hanging out with Johannes to catch a plane to Dublin. The flight was uneventful (always a welcome surprise) and we were tired but happy to be in Dublin. With both Blake and I being part Irish, we were pretty excited to see our “homeland.” Blake felt right at home with all of the gingers and the sun block:


While I was excited to see O'Neill stuff everywhere!

We didn’t have much on our agenda, so we just walked around to get a feel for the city the first day.





Dublin definitely lacks some of the charm of other European cities. I mean, there are some cute parts, but as a city goes, it was rather uninspiring. Except for the Leprachaun on a smoke break that Blake got a picture of, who inspired a lot of laughter:

The next day we took a “free” walking tour. We took one from the same company in Berlin- you take a free 3 hour tour and then tip what you feel like or can afford at the end. It is hard to compete with a city with as much history as Berlin, but we were very happy with the Dublin tour as well. You learn a lot of fun little facts, like how this Justice statue in the Dublin Castle courtyard is terribly wrong. First off, it isn’t blindfolded (so Justice is not blind), second- when it rains, one of the scales tilts, so Justice isn’t equal, and last, the statue has her back turned away from the people.

After the walking tour, we headed over to the Guinness Factory Tour. It doesn’t show any of the factory, but it is in an old Guinness Storehouse, and it is really really cool. It was a little on the spendy side, but definitely my favorite thing in Dublin. I’m not even a huge Guinness fan, but after learning about it for 2 hours- I was craving some Guinness for sure! Here are some of mine and Blake’s inspired photographs:






Later that evening we decided to try one of the “free” bar crawls offered by the same company as the walking tour. This time, by free, they really meant 10 Euros, but it had free beer for 45 minutes, and then a free shot with every purchase at all the bars. It was an excuse to get out and see the town, so we were in. When we first got there a group of rather large 19-20 year old American girls were obnoxiously blocking the bar. After the first 45 minutes of free beer, they were already dancing on the bar. The night did not look good. Blake and I are a little sensitive to the “stupid American” stereotype, and the last thing we wanted to do was have to hang out with a group of them. But we eventually did meet other Americans and Europeans that were slightly older and much cooler, and ended up having a great time.

The next day we only had a half of day before we had to fly to London, and we had already seen most of everything that we wanted to see in Dublin, so we just wandered around the city some more and enjoyed a sunny day. (It only managed to rain a bit off and on the first couple of days, so it wasn’t as bad as Edinburgh or Norway).

We had a great time in Dublin, but I would say that it was a let down in general. After talking to a few other people though, they all said that the countryside in the South of Ireland was absolutely amazing, and that Dublin is nothing like the rest of the country, so now we know that next time we will have to get out of the city. Also, next time I will have to bust out my Irish dancing moves since I didn’t have a chance to do so this time!

To check out Dublin via pictures, click here.

Next up, one last Ryanair flight to London for the last leg of our trip!

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!