Bali Bound

Day 5 Today the group is heading to our third destination, Stockholm.  I'd say it's the third country but were in Sweden for awhile to get to Oslo.  I'm curious to see how many Ikeas I will see going through Sweden this time.  Current Ikea count: 3. One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to check out grocery stores.  The mall we stopped at in Sweden has a few grocery stores.  And a giant candy store, that was even open at 9 in the morning unlike all the other stores in the mall aside from the grocery stores.  One had what they called the USA aisle.  Which consisted of Minnesota pancake syrup and some very strange Kraft dinner knockoff.  And next to that an entire asile of Mexican stuff, all old El Paso brand and knock off tortilla chips.  And the smallest bottles of Garnier shampoo and conditioner I've ever seen. Current Ikea count: still 3, now I'm a little disappointed. I've learned that Norway isn't a part of the EU, howev...

Giant Flag in hotel Today is Oslo day!  We're starting the day with a city tour that includes Frogner Park, which my travel agent tells me is amazing. The weather yesterday was fabulous and now today it's rainy and a little cold.  All those capri pants I packed are just a space waster right now :(  I am amused that I've had the same umbrella since around high school.  But realistically I only use it on holidays as at home it's usually more of a heavy rainfall that is steady, whereas so far it is usually just little showers that pop up and are gone right away. The hotel I'm staying at is really big.  All the rooms are around a giant atrium that currently has a giant Norwegian flag, to commemorate their national day I suppose.  I have learned that the Danes were the one who spent all their time conquering the the other Scandinavian countries.  Denmark was actually the largest European country at one point.  So the Norwegians are excited to ...

Day 3 Wow, how is it already day 3 and a new country?  It really feels like this trip is flying by already. Hamlet castle in Denmark, viewed from ferry Today we're leaving Copenhagen behind and heading to our next destination of Oslo, Norway.  Norway isn't actually attached to Denmark so we will be driving through some of Sweden along the way to get there.  And while they have the very exciting Oresund bridge, that starts as a bridge and then goes underwater as a tunnel to cross from Denmark to Sweden, we're taking the ferry because it's far cheaper and probably just as fast. The ferry is really fast, only 20 minutes.  Barely enough time to get upstairs and get comfortable before you head back down. We've made it to Sweden, and it is actually the 4th largest country in Europe which I did not expect.  It's actually just a little smaller than Alberta, with over twice the population.  I am only seeing a very small part of the country as the Scandi...

The brooder Day 2 Today started with our city tour.  We stopped at the Carlsberg Glypotek to see the brooder statue.  And if you're thinking, hmm, doesn't Carlsberg make beer, you would be correct.  The beer makers in Denmark are big supporters of the arts and Carlsberg contributes a hefty amount of their profit to the arts, hence an art museum.  They had lovely gardens and a variety of statues around the building to enjoy for free. Royal reception room The tour also included the Royal reception rooms of Christiansborg Palace.  These are the actual reception rooms and are quite amazing.  We even had to wear little blue booties to protect the floors.  The rooms aren't overly ornate and covered with gold leaf but are more simple and seem to have a big focus on animal motifs.  I'll be honest, I knew that Denmark has a royal family, but I don't really know much more than that sadly.  The Danes are very prolific as a royal family and ...

Day 1 *note on blogging, many of the Scandinavian words have umlauts, lines through letters, dots and the like.  I have no desire to be so accurate as to spend extra time to insert these properly so I'm not going to.  Also, I didn't write any of that down so I'm not looking it up either!  So if you see things and think 'hey, that should have a line through the o', I'm doing it on purpose.* I survived the Keflavic airport quite nicely.  Usually an hour to change planes is a bad plan when the only back up flight is 12 hours later, but we arrived early and the airport is small and moves you through efficiently.  I was amused on the plane that we were a mere 400 km from Churchill, if we were lower and it was a different time of year maybe I could have spotted some polar bears.  And I feel like in this world of information at our fingertips that perhaps people can do a little research.  Passengers behind me were asking the flight attendant if there was...

So I head home tomorrow afternoon.  It feels like I just left and it feels like I've been gone forever. I have however had a great time in Iceland.  I am glad that I booked things to do because all I really want to do is nap. The time change is 3 hours behind Helsinki so that is throwing me off too. My hotel is a bit further than I realized.  But they do offer free bus tickets.  Or you can walk and it's only about half an hour to the harbour.  I walked so I could wake up a bit before dinner. Yesterday I wandered around reykjavik for a bit.  Everything was closed but it's a charming little town.  Had some great fish and chips. Today I did a city tour that included quite a bit of stuff not in the beaten trail so it saves me some time having to walk and find all these places.  And this afternoon I did the golden circle tour.  It includes a waterfall, a geyser and a lookout into the valley. Tomorrow I have a boat ride planned.  He...

The trip to Tallinn was a really good day.  The ferry back was quite chaotic.  It seems as though there is some sort of floorball competition going on in Scandinavia as there were tons of sports teams dragging huge bags around and that's what they were telling people they were playing.  We saw a few teams on our overnight ferry as well. But I am in the airport in Helsinki which means that my official tour is over and it's just me for the next 2 nights.  I do have time to explore tonight as the sun doesn't set until 11 so it will be nice and bright for awhile after I get there .  Which is good because my days are filled with planned adventures. Also, I will be really happy to be able to blog on a proper computer.  The tablet likes to make up words sometimes...