August 24, 2015 by carrievijil

Food and Fun in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany

August 19. 2015

I think that I have decided that Rothenburg is one of my favorite cities! We ended up staying three days in the city because there was so much to see and do. We got in on the first day and made our way to camp. It was just about 1.5 km outside of town, so it’s a very easy walk to get to the center of everything. We decided to go straight into town for the afternoon and do a quick once-over to see what we would like to do while we were here. We walked all the way around the town on the walls, which was pretty cool. Hayden had fun getting to walk along the walls and “shoot” through the arrow holes. 🙂 Unfortunately, none of the towers were open, so we didn’t get to climb to the top anywhere.

Walking the town walls

Town wall in Rothenberg

Shooting at the enemy!

Fire!!!

After doing a lap around the city (about 2.5 km), we went into the city for a few minutes. We didn’t have much time and things were starting to close so we just ended up having dinner…it was SO GOOD!! Adam and Hayden had Schnitzel and I had Pot Roast with sauerkraut and potatoes. The food was amazing and I definitely could have eaten the same thing every night!

Town square

Old town hall

View from the town wall

Covered bridge

The next morning, we came into town and did a full day walking around the city. We went to the Torture Museum, which was really cool. Those people were seriously crazy back then to think of the tortures that they did. I have to say, I was pretty amused by one of the punishments…they would lock up the prisoner’s hands and feet out in the town square and let the people come by and tickle them. They would even put salt on their feet and let the goats lick them. It was more for embarrassment than anything else, but that is probably the worst thing I can imagine! lol

Torture Museum

From there, we went to the Christmas Museum. VERY COOL!!! I wish that the ornaments were not so expensive because there were some really cool ones. Unfortunately, I don’t think they would make it back in our backpacks. We walked around the town for a while longer before we found a playground for Hayden. He (and Adam) took a break and played for a while which was a nice break. After playing, we went back to camp before dinner.

At the Christmas Museum

Playground!

Not sure who’s having the most fun!

Playground!

We came back into town to eat in “in hell”. The restaurant was rated the 2^nd best in Rothenberg, so we figured it had to be good. We were not disappointed! I had a skewer of pork, steak and vegetables and Adam had lamb with potato dumplings. Everything was fabulous!

After dinner, we came back into the center of town to go on the Executioner’s Night Tour. It was different from other tours and a nice way to see the town from a different point of view. Our favorite part was Hayden getting decapitated at the end of the tour. 😉 Just kidding!

Hayden being beheaded!

The next day was another day walking around town. We went to the top of the new town hall and had a great view from up there! It was a bit of a perilous climb to the top with very steep stairs and a tiny ladder to the top, but the view was worth it.

At the top of the new town hall

View from the new town hall tower

View of St. James Church

View from the new town hall tower

Clock in the town square

Now that’s a big teddy bear!

The other highlight (at least for me) for the day was that they had a market set up in the square and there was a guy selling fresh apple cider. I’m always a sucker for cider, so we bought a glass for 2 Euro. It was SO GOOD! We had a 1.5L water bottle with us and we half-jokingly asked if he’d give us a deal on filling the bottle. He said he would do it for 6 Euro!!! I was a very happy girl walking around the rest of the day with my giant bottle of apple cider. J We walked back to camp a little early since we need to get up early to get ready to leave for Munich.

August 21, 2015 by carrievijil

A Rainy Visit to Heidelberg, Germany

August 17, 2015

We were sad to leave our friends in Kaiserslautern, but we made it to Heidelberg and had a great campsite! We were right on the river and had a great view. If it hadn’t been raining the entire time we were here, I think that we would have really enjoyed the city! We got to town, got set up and made a quick run to the grocery store to refill our food supply. Luckily, we had a break in the rain to walk over and pick up something for dinner. After that, we hung out in the camp for the night and watched a movie in our tent (not much else to do in the rain!)

Our campsite!

Despite the rain, we planned to visit the Heidelberg Castle right in the old town. We took our ponchos and were ready for some cold/wet touring!

Ready for some rainy day touring

At the base of the mountain were the castle is built, there is a cable car to get up to the castle. It probably would have been a nice walk if it had been a good day, but with the rain, the cable car was a much nicer way to travel! It was a quick trip to the top!

Trolley to the castle at the top

The castle itself was really cool. It was built close to 1,000 years ago and is still (sort of) standing today. The majority of the castle has been destroyed; partly by the French and partly by a fire, but what is left gives you a great idea of how awesome it was when it was standing. We decided to take a tour, so that we could see the whole thing…you can only see the inside if you are on a tour. The view was very nice (although would have been nicer if it was a sunny day!)

Heidelberg Schloss

View from the castle

Inside of the castle was almost like a little town. The courtyard is huge and there are lots of places where people would have lived back in the day. The gardens were beautiful and had great views. The actual castle was built over the coarse of a couple hundred years, so you can definitely see the different styles of building. Part of the castle looks really old, medieval, and gothic, while other parts look for Renaissance. The statues/sculptures reflect this too.

Heidelberg Schloss

We weren’t really supposed to take pictures inside, but I managed to get a picture of the chapel without anyone noticing. 🙂 It was built underneath of the living area of the castle so that the royal family would have access to it easily.

Chapel inside the castle

After the tour, we went to the cellar to see the largest wine barrel in the world…holy cow…it was HUGE! You can barely see Adam and Hayden standing on top of the wine barrel in the picture below. They said that the average person drank 1 Liter of wine per day, so a 220,000 Liter wine barrel wasn’t really that crazy for a town that size.

World’s largest wine barrel (220,000 Liters)

After the tour, the rain had cleared up, so we took a nice walk back to the campsite. We knew it would be a few km, but didn’t realize that is was over 5 km away…oops. At least we got some good exercise for the day! On the bright side, the view from the other side of the river was beautiful!

Heidelberg Schloss

We are leaving here tomorrow and heading further south to Rothenberg ob der Tauber, which we are pretty excited about. It is a medieval city and looks like it did several hundred years ago. Hayden and Adam are excited to walk on the walls and climb up the towers!

August 20, 2015 by carrievijil

VIsiting Friends in Kaiserslautern, Germany

August 15, 2015

We have just finished up a really great visit with some of our friends from back in our Ft. Bragg Army days. Caryn and Roy were nice enough to let us invade their house and stay for a few days this week. Hayden had the best time playing with Matt and Lauren while Adam and I were very thankful for adult conversation, a real bed, and a washer/dryer! 🙂

Our first stop when we got there was to visit the PX to replace our broken camera. (THANK YOU!!!) We found one that works great, so we’re back up and running. We had an amazing steak dinner (forgot how much I missed steak and potatoes!) and sat up talking late into the night.

The next day, we had a great time going to a castle where the kids got to run around and play for a while. The castle was pretty cool, but they were more interested in the playground than anything else! As you can see in the pictures, they were pretty hyped up!

Castle near Kaiserslaughtern

View from the Castle

Playing in the castle

The castle had a pretty neat fossil exhibil (although it was getting ready to close, so we only had a minute or two). I’m not really sure what’s going on with Hayden’s face in this picture, but they were having fun being eaten by the huge shark.

Fossil exhibit in the castle

On our last day before heading out, we went to an awesome park with a huge playground. By luck, they had a traveling Lego exhibit while we were there, so you can probably guess that Hayden and Adam were pretty happy! 🙂 It was actually really cool…they had some great models set up that showed different parts of Germany and lots of other Lego displays.

Lego Town

Hayden and Lauren rode scooters around the park and even did a little riding around in the skate park. This was only the second time that Hayden has ridden a scooter, but he’s slowly getting the hang of it. I think it’s a little harder for him with his balance issues, but he has fun with it. He has already added a scooter to his Christmas list for this year. 🙂

Scooter riding at the skate park

After the skate park, we kept walking and went to the playground section of the park…holy cow…talk about an awesome park. There were several large play areas with all different levels of activities to play on. The slides were super tall (and really fast). There was also a rope bridge that Hayden said was “terrifying”. lol

A seriously big slide!

Practicing for survivor

All around the park are dinosaur statues, so we couldn’t resist an attack picture. Luckily, Hayden survived, but Adam wasn’t as lucky.

Attack of the dinosaurs

Adam is having fun too…lol

I’m sorry to be leaving because we have had a great time hanging out and getting to catch up with our friends. By chance, they are going to be in London at the same time as us, so the kids are already planning to go to the Harry Potter tour together. From here, we are going to Heidelberg, then on to Rothenberg as we work our way south through Germany.

August 17, 2015 by carrievijil

Fun and Games in Cologne and Frankfurt, Germany

August 12, 2015

From Belgium, we came across back into Germany to start working our way down the West side of the country. Our first stop was Cologne where they have a huge, beautiful church in the middle of the city. The first thing we did when we got into town was to find somewhere for lunch. We let Hayden choose, so we ended up at Hard Rock Café (big shock!) While we were eating, the waiter asked if we were in town for the gaming convention. We said no, but I could already see in Adam’s head that our plans for the day where quickly changing! We finished lunch and hopped online to find out where/what this convention actually was. Turns out it’s the largest gaming convention in Europe and we were in town for the last day. We ended up going over to the convention center and I have to admit, it was pretty cool. The thing was HUGE! It was in over 10 buildings in the convention center and had every type of game that you could imagine. We walked around for a while and looked at everything.

GamesCon

GamesCon…Nintendo Display

GamesCon…Need for Speed!

GamesCon…Need for Speed

Luckily for us, Hayden’s prayers were answered and there was a Minecraft section! Of course, we had to get in line to play the game (like he doesn’t get to play it enough on all of the train rides!) It was kind of fun because they were actually doing a Beta test on the new Windows 10 version of the game, so he was pretty excited to help test it out.

Ready to Beta test the new Minecraft

Beta testing the new Minecraft

After the Minecraft section, we went to find some stuff for Adam to play too. 🙂 They both got to pick up the big weapons and show the bad guys who was boss! lol

Look out bad guys!

Adam got to have some fun too…

There is a new Star Wars game coming out soon, so they had lots of props set up from Star Wars. The best part was where you could get your picture with the TIE Fighter and the Empire pilot. It was pretty cool. After that, we went over to play the new Star Wars characters on Disney Infinity. I have a bad feeling that we are going to be getting a few new games when we get home!

GamesCon with a T.I.E. Fighter

Playing Disney Infinity with Star Wars characters

Hayden also got to meet the characters from Assassin’s Creed. I don’t really know much about the game, but the set area looked pretty cool!

With the Assassin’s Creed characters

Our train was supposed to leave at 5:30 pm, but there was no way that I could drag them away from the convention early, so we ended up spending the night in Cologne. Luckily, we still had some Marriott points left, so we had a nice break and stayed in a hotel that night. The next morning, we came back to the center of town where I wanted to see the big church….unfortunately, when we got there and I went to take a picture, we discovered that the camera broke! boooooooo 😦 Despite not having pictures, the church was huge and amazing.

We made it to the train that afternoon and got to Frankfurt in just a few hours. We set up camp and stayed in that afternoon and planned for the following day. The next morning, we got into town and decided to skip the churches/museums/etc and spent the day at the zoo. They had a really nice zoo with tons of different animals. It was a nice way to spend the day. Hayden was mostly just excited to see the Okapis (since we didn’t get to the Congo in Africa to see them) and to eat a giant waffle covered in junk food!

A Serious Waffle!

From here, we are going south to Kaiserslautern to see our friends from Ft Bragg who are stationed here…YAY!!!!

August 16, 2015 by carrievijil

Waffles, Chocolate, and Castles in Belgium

August 9, 2015

In Belgium, we decided to get a little off the beaten path and skip Brussels and visit Gent instead. This turned out to be a great decision! We made it to the city from Amsterdam in just a few hours with one quick train change. Immediately when we arrived to the city, we were impressed. The town itself is decent sized, but it still looks like the old town that you would imagine surrounding a medieval castle. We set up camp for the night, then came in the next morning to spend the day walking around. My three main goals for the city were waffles, chocolate, and the castle…mission accomplished!

Gravensteen Castle

Coming into the castle, it feels like you are walking into the original castle, (even though quite a bit of restoration work has been done). The castle itself was built in 1180, so they have had to repair quite a bit of it. It was actually set to be demolished in the 1800’s, but the town purchased it and took on the task of renovating. They tried to keep it pretty much as it would have looked and the inside is basically a museum with lots of weapons.

All hail…King Hayden!

Now THAT’S a sword!

You can walk all through the castle all the way up to the top onto the roof. From up here, there is a great view of the city. We hung out up here for a while before we went back down to the rest of the museum areas.

At the top of Castle Gravensteen

Top of Castle Gravensteen

On top of the battlements

View from Castle Gravensteen

One of the coolest (although very gruesome parts) was the torcher museum. They had the original guillotine that was used in the castle along with quite a few other torcher instruments. Holy cow, those guys sure knew how to cause pain! I would not have wanted to be in trouble back then.

Ouch…

Those guys knew how to torcher!

The last part of the castle was the basement which was renovated to look like it would have back when the castle was active. It was pretty creepy. At one time, it was used to house the horses, but at some point in history, they used it as another torcher room. The well that you can see below was a regular water well, but they also used it to basically drown people as a method of torcher.

Basement of the Castle

The well in the basement of the castle

Castle Gravensteen

Gravensteen Castle

The town itself was great, super cute town square and great shops. We did find a chocolate shop…how could we possibly go to Belgium without getting Belgian Chocolate?!

Gent, Belgium

In the town, right in the town square is St Nicholas’ Church…wow, talk about a beautiful church! It was amazing from the outside and even cooler on the inside. We were able to go all through the inside, including the crypts. It was pretty cool.

St Nicholas’ Church

St. Nicholas’ Church

St Nicholas’ Church

Last, but certainly not least, we found the BEST Belgium Waffles in the country! Seriously, they were amazing. I don’t know what they do to make the batter, but I am totally going to try and duplicate the recipe when we get home. They were so good!!

Belgium Waffles…best EVER!

We are leaving here tomorrow and our next stop is to Cologne, Germany. From there we are going to travel through the SW part of Germany and see lots more castles!!

August 9, 2015 by carrievijil

The Netherlands Countryside

August 8, 2015

Yesterday was a great day; we got out of town and went on a day trip out to the countryside. Wow…talk about a beautiful place! We started the day in Zaans Schans where we visited a windmill that was built in 1607 and is still in use today. The windmill started out as a water pumping mill, but was converted to an oil processing windmill in the later 1600s. It is still used today to make peanut oil. The miller who works in/owns the windmill was there to do a demonstration of how it works. Really cool…but a LOT of work! In a year, he can process about 6,000 liters of peanut oil, but a large manufacturing plant today would make that much in 10 minutes! Luckily, with tourism money coming in, they are able to keep these windmills active and still working. The town was beautiful and had quite a few different active windmills; some were still water pumps and others made different grains.

Zaanse Schans

Inside the windmill

Windmills, Netherlands

The town itself was very quaint and nice. We only had a short time to walk around, but I definitely could have spent at least another hour or two walking around the shops and other windmills. There were tons of sheep along the walkways, which Hayden loved! He even got to reach through the fence and pet one that was right on the side. He did learn that sheep are stinky, which he thought was pretty funny.

Zaanse Schans

Sheep!

After Zaans Schans, we got back on the tour bus and went to Volendam where we went to a cheese factory. It was cool to see the cheese being made and even better to do some taste-testing. At one point during the demonstration, they asked for a volunteer and Hayden was picked. He got to be the cheese tester…his favorite job!

Time for some cheese!

Milking the cow

Cheese tester 🙂

After all of the cheese testing, we stopped for lunch at a stand near the pier. We got the local fish and chips, which were great! The weather was great, so it was nice to sit outside next to the water and enjoy our lunch. Of course a meal isn’t complete without dessert, so we found some Dutch Pancakes (tiny, sweet pancakes with butter and powdered sugar) for dessert. They were really good and I am going to make an attempt to make them when we get home.

Fish and chips on the waterfront

Best chairs ever!

After lunch, we took a ferry across the water to the island of Markam, where they make wooden shoes. The boat ride had great views of the water and the villages. When we arrived in Markam, we walked through the town for about 30 minutes. It is exactly what you would think of as a Dutch village…really beautiful!

Zaanse Schans

Markam, Netherlands

LOVE the wooden shoes on the cow sign!

We went to a wooden shoe factory/store that is still in use today. The lady showed us how they make the shoes by hand…lots of work! They have machines that make it easier, but no production lines or anything, they still do them individually. They had tons of shoes and we all got to try them on. We had a good time!

Wooden shoe factory

Testing the shoes

That’s a LOT of wooden shoes!

Talking the cow for a walk

We are on our way to Belgium next where we are going to Gent to see a Medieval castle!

August 8, 2015 by carrievijil

Chillin’ in Amsterdam, Netherlands

August 6, 2015

We are in Amsterdam now and it is pretty awesome. The trip here from Norway was LONG, but we broke it up into a few days to make the travel easier. It was about 24 hours of train travel, but we made it into a couple of shorter days spending a night in Oslo and another night in Hamburg before we made it all the way down. I think that the coolest part of the trip was that we had to take a ferry from Denmark across to Germany and they actually drive the train onto the ferry! The tracks go straight onto the ferry and it parks there with all of the trucks…it was pretty cool!

Train on a ferry!

We did (eventually) make it to Amsterdam and found a pretty good place to camp near the city with easy access to public transportation. THe only downside is that the place is FULL of young people who are here to **cough, cough** enjoy the culture **wink, wink** in Amsterdam. We smelled pot pretty much 24 hours per day. We had to have a quick “don’t use drugs” conversation with Hayden while we explained what was going on.

Our campsite…the tent is somewhere in that mess!

We spent the first day in the city walking around and it was really nice. We did manage to find a giant wooden shoe, so of course we had to take a picture 🙂 (Can’t visit Holland without seeing a giant wooden show!) The city itself is beautiful from the amazing train station when you first arrive to all of the buildings, the palace and the canals.

Giant wooden shoe

Amsterdam Central Train Station…very impressive!

While we were walking around, we did manage to find a toy store, so Hayden (and Adam) got to check out some Legos. We also managed to find a movie theater playing the Fantastic Four in English, so we got tickets to go the next day. (The boys are happy!)

More Legos…can’t seem to get away from them!

Now THAT’S a pancake

The next morning, (after seeing Fantastic Four), we went to the Anne Frank Museum. The line for the museum was over 2 hours long, but definitely worth it to get the feel of what the family (and many other people) actually went through back during the war. The museum shoes the house that the family lived in and the secret annex where thy had to hide behind the factory during those 2 years. It’s really powerful to try and imagine having to go through that. It’s crazy to think that it happened so recently.

Anne Frank Memorial

Anne Frank House/Museum

Right next to the Anne Frank Museum is the church that Anne references in her diary. She talks about hearing the church bells, but they were never allowed to leave the hiding spot.

Westerkerk (church near Anne Frank’s house)

We also went on a canal cruise which was very nice and relaxing. The cruise went through a couple of the bigger canals and talked some about the history of the city…very interesting! I think that I would love to live in one of the houseboats along the canal. Lots of them have been fixed up really nicely and look pretty awesome. Unfortunately, Amsterdam is not issuing anymore houseboat permits, so the only way to get one is to buy from someone that already owns one, so the price has been driven up to basically the same cost of a regular house!

Love the houseboats!

7 tunnels down the canal

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Although we didn’t go inside (we’ve seen LOTS of palaces), the Royal Palace looked pretty cool!

Royal Palace, Amsterdam

Tomorrow we are going on a day trip out to the country to see the windmills, a cheese factory and a wooden show factory. Then it’s on to Belgium for waffles and chocolate!

August 3, 2015 by carrievijil

Fjords, Snow, and Train Rides in Norway

August 3, 2015

First off…how in the world is it already August?!?! Time is going by so quickly and I’m getting a little depressed at the fact that we are going to have to come home eventually. 😦 On the one hand, it will be nice to get back to the US, but on the other there is still SO MUCH to see and I feel like we haven’t hardly scratched the surface. Every where we go, we find more things we want to do in the future! I already want to start planning our next trip.

We are currently sitting on a train departing Norway and making our way down to Amsterdam. Unfortunately, it’s a LONG trip, but we’re breaking it up into a few days. We left Oslo this morning and we will get to Hamburg, Germany tonight. Tomorrow, we will finish the trip and make it all the way to Amsterdam where we are going to stay for just under a week or so.

We had a great time in Norway, despite the fact that it was cold and expensive! When we got off of the train, it was so cold that Hayden had to take a pair of his socks and use them as gloves…lol. Any place that has a high of 60 degrees in July/August is way too cold for us! It’s beautiful to visit, but I can’t imagine living here (especially in the winter!). On top of the cold, it is crazy expensive. We were camping, which wasn’t bad, but the hotels are insane and food is ridiculously expensive too. It would definitely be easy to blow a budget here!

It’s cold…time for sock mittens!

We arrived and got checked into our campsite before heading out to check out the town and find some dinner. Oslo is beautiful and a great city to walk around. We found a “cheap” place to eat some dinner and just got our bearings for the next few days.

Ahhhhhhhh!

Overlooking the Royal Palace

The problem with camping in Norway is that it is light almost 24 hours a day, so a light weight tent doesn’t do anything to block the sun. It was still a little light at midnight and the sun was up again by 3:00 am. This did make it easy to get an early start on the day. We spent the next day visiting some museums and walking around the city of Oslo. We started the morning going down to the waterfront, which was beautiful. There are lots of really neat old buildings with some cool new buildings mixed in as well. The flowers and park areas around the city are kept up very nicely and are really pretty to walk through. After getting to the ferries and realizing that our tickets didn’t work for the ferry, we ended up just taking the bus out to museum island. We started at The Fram Museum. The Fram was the first ship to sail to the Arctic and it also sailed to the South Pole. The museum had the actual ship inside and lots of great exhibits about all of the different expeditions that it took. It was really interesting.

The Fram – Polar Ship

The Fram

Steering the Fram

The Fram

North and South Pole routes on the Fram

Northern lights on the Fram

At the museum, Hayden decided that he is going to plan his own trip to the Arctic. He said that he is going to take his friends and they are going to do their own exploration. He said not to worry, they will only be gone about 6 weeks or so. He’s planning to start working on his ship when we get home. 🙂

Now all we need are some Huskies!

Polar Hayden

North Pole Family

After the Fram Museum, we were planning to go to the Viking Ship Museum, but it was $25 to get in and it turned out to be really small, so we decided to skip it and spend the time in the city instead. We ended up walking through the Royal Palace gardens and getting a little lost in town. It worked out well because we hung around downtown to get dinner before going back to the campsite. Adam and Hayden were really excited that we found a giant statue of Thor’s Hammer which they tried to pick up, but didn’t have any luck. 🙂

Royal Palace

Thor’s Hammer…”I know I can get it!!!”

We got back to the campsite at a decent time, but unfortuenly, it absolutely poored rain over night! Our trusty REI tent did great, but everything was soaked on the outside. We had to wrap up the tent all wet and hope to get to dry it later.

Storm moving out

The next day, we got out of Oslo and headed towards the West coast of the country towards the fjords. It was a long, but very beautiful train ride. I wish that the pictures could fully capture how pretty it was. Here are several pictures from along the train route.

On our way to Fram

On the way to Fram

Waterfall

We got to Myrdal where we got off of the train and went in search of some snow to play in. Hayden REALLY wanted to get to snow, so after a quick climb (and a bit of a fall into a creek), we found snow! We had a great time playing, having a snowball fight, and making snow angels before we had to get back for the next train.

View of Myrdal, Norway

On our way to Fram

Myrdal, Norway

Snow Time!

Snowball Fight!!

Snow Angels in August

Playing in the snow

After a quick change of socks and shoes (he was soaking from falling in the creek), we were on the next train and ready for more riding. The trains in Europe are awesome…the trains here in particular were great. They have a family care with a large play area for kids during the ride. Hayden spent the entire trip in the play-scape and I even found him in the corner taking a nap at one point…he played himself all out!

Playscapes on the train…LOVE Europe!

Playscape on the train…LOVE Europe!

With our very wet tent still stuffed in the backpack, we decided to splurge a little and get a hotel room last night so that we could let everything dry out. We also weren’t sure of the weather forecast and we didn’t want to get everything even wetter when we had to take a long train the following day. The hotel turned out to be very comfortable and not a bad deal. We got a chance to sleep in a bed and to get everything dried out.

This morning, we got to the train station first thing and are heading to Amsterdam. We will get there tomorrow night after a stop-over in Hamburg, Germany this evening. We are planning to spend 5 days or so in Amsterdam and then head back to Germany from there.

August 2, 2015 by carrievijil

Cultrual Assimilation in Stockholm, Sweden

July 30, 2015

Our trip to Sweden was quick, but I accomplished my two main goals…to go to Ikea and to eat Swedish Fish. (Yes, I am a big nerd). We only really spent a day and a half in Stockholm, we would have stayed longer but it was rainy and the forecast called for rain for the entire week, so we decided to just cut it short and keep moving.

We started our time in Sweden with an 8 hour layover in Malmo where we were waiting for our next train. We took advantage of the free time to walk around and check out the city. We managed to find a movie theater that was showing “Minions” in English, so we spent the afternoon at the movies. 🙂 It was a nice break from all of the walking around. We took a sleeper train from Malmo to Stockholm, which was great. We had a private room for the three of us and the beds were surprisingly comfortable (or maybe it just seemed that way compared to all of the camping!) Once we got to Stockholm (about 6:00 am), we got started early with our day. We found our campground and got all set up and immediately took off for the day. We went to the Royal Palace, which was pretty cool. The outside of the palace was not as grand as lots of the castles/palaces that we have seen, but the inside was very nice. They had lots of the rooms open, so we could see a pretty decent amount of the palace.

Throne Room

Royal Palace

Throne in the Receiving Room

Royal Palace

One of the Queen’s Medals

Royal Robes/Jewelry

Medal for taking care of reindeer. lol

In the remaining part of the original castle

We also went to the treasury with the crown jewels, but unfortunately, no pictures were permitted. The crowns were really amazing…I think I would like one of my own! 🙂

By this time, it was POURING down rain. Of course, it was sunny in the morning, so we hadn’t brought our ponchos with us. We were soaking and decided to skip the Viking Museum (which was an outdoor museum) and head straight to IKEA!! We got there around lunch time and figured we would check out the lunch in an actual Swedish Ikea. It was EXACTLY the same! lol Literally…the meatballs and potatoes tasted the same, Hayden had crepes with lingonberries which were the same ones that we always get and the cookies were the same too. I guess that means we have been getting authentic Swedish food at our local Ikea. lol The funniest part of the trip was the insane line for lunch! Seriously, we waited at least 30 minutes to get to the front of the line to order. I guess everyone in Sweden really does go to Ikea. Luckily for us, they sold Swedish Fish at the store, so we got to eat our Swedish Fish AT Ikea, IN Sweden…definitely an authentic experience. 😉

Eating Swedish Fish at Ikea

Lunch Line at Ikea

From Ikea, we walked across the street to the mall and just walked around for a while. It was still raining, so we didn’t really feel like going back to the campsite. The mall was nice, pretty much the same stores that we have at home. By 7:00 pm or so, we went back to camp for the night. It actually stopped raining for the night, which was nice. First thing in the morning, we headed back to the train station and are now working our way to Oslo, Norway!

July 31, 2015 by carrievijil

The Original Legoland – Billund, Denmark

July 28, 2015

What can I say about the last three days…we spent them at LEGOLAND, so I’m sure you have an idea of who is the happiest kid in the world right about now! We decided to skip Copenhagen (crazy expensive) and come straight to LEGOLAND for a couple of days. It wasn’t hard to convince Hayden (or Adam) of the change of plans. We found that the campground at LEGOLAND was actually cheaper than anything we were finding in Copenhagen, so it actually turned out to be a good decision. The campsite was beautiful with great playgrounds, nice bathrooms, and was walking distance to the park. We got checked it when we arrived on Sunday afternoon and spent the afternoon just hanging out. We spent all day Monday and Tuesday in the park…we had lots of fun! Hayden was super brave and went on EVERY ride! (Even the big rollercoaster!) We got to see the world’s largest Lego model which is an X-Wing Fighter (from Star Wars) and we met Lego Darth Vader. We ate lunch in two of the buffet restaurants which both had unlimited ice cream…we are all about 10 lbs heavier! Below you can see lots of pictures of the days we spent there.