Back to blogging! Sorry, Mom. I was just exhausted from all of the late nights and early mornings and sensory overload that is France. I started this post in September of 2018, and now, four years later, I’ll attempt to finish it!
In case you’d forgotten, sister Sara was studying abroad in Paris in the summer of 2018, and Mama and I decided to visit for a week.
Next on the agenda was the little town of Giverny. A 45 minute train ride from Paris, Giverny is where the famous Claude Monet spent many of his years and created so many of his iconic water lily and cathedral paintings. I’d discovered the day trip when researching where Sara and I could visit on my first weekend in France, but she realized her class was already scheduled to visit before I would arrive. She loved the experience, so I knew Mama and I would, as well.
Another early morning got us to the train station around 8am to pack our bags with breakfast and snacks for the day. After a quick jaunt over, I was a bit flustered to find that the Giverny train situation was a bit reminiscent of my little Pompeii adventure of last year. That is, the main train station is in no way close to the main attractions of the city. Unlike in Pompeii, however, the folks of Vernon and Giverny capitalized on this opportunity and had tourist busses and mini trains eagerly awaiting our arrival just outside the train station. I tried to figure out another way to get to Monet’s house, but I couldn’t figure out the standard local transportation quickly enough and ended up forking over about $20 to the little mini train driver. Gah.
The train played some silly song on repeat the whole ride, but it did have some interesting narration which told us a bit about the towns of Vernon and Giverny, so I suppose it wasn’t all a bad deal. We drove past some pretty buildings from long ago…
But soon, we made it to the heart of Giverny.
Too gorgeous! Lots of rain means lots of green, I suppose.
A little walk and a short line later, and we found ourselves inside Monet’s very own garden.
The gardens are serviced daily by volunteers, students, and resident gardeners alike.
Now please prepare yourselves for some breathtaking flower photography:
The task sure is made easy when there are so many gorgeous flowers to choose from! The main flower garden is just a maze of blooms and lush greens. Makes for lots of smiles.
And then we walked around to the water lily pond. Gah! We stayed here way longer than planned. It wasn’t hard to see why Monet was so fascinated. I could easily spend hours here admiring the view. It made me want to go home and paint!
Guys, you don’t even want to know how many hundreds of pictures I have of this pond. I swear this is just a very small sampling.
And of course, we can’t forget the Japanese bridges:
Just a few more pictures here….
And some silly ones!
More flowers…
And then back to the gardens for even more flowers! Hahaha. Sorry, guys. Just tryna share the beauty.
Eventually, and reluctantly, we made our way to Monet’s house.
His private gallery was filled with many famous paintings. When he lived here, he kept his front room stocked with the pieces most special and dear to him.
The upstairs had some amazing views looking over at the neighbors and down at the gardens.
We also had some fun admiring the interior decorations of the house. I was especially a fan of the kitchen.
In the end, as we exited Monet’s house and perused the gift shop, I realized we’d actually missed our ride to get back to the train station! In planning the trip, I gave us four hours between drop off and pick up because I knew two would be too short. Seems I’d forgotten how patient my mom and I can be. But no matter! I shelled out a little extra to extend our stay yet again so that we could look around a bit more.
Honestly, I can’t remember what happened after that, but after some more trials and tribulations, I think we ended up just walking back to the train station instead of taking the tram. Along the way, we stopped to see some beautiful paintings at the Musee des Impressionnismes.
Further along our walk, we stopped in some beautiful churches and snacked on some delights from a patisserie. Yum!
Finally, forever later, we arrived back in Paris and went straight to see the Eiffel Tower again. We spent the early evening enjoying the Jardins du Trocadéro, though not as much as all the locals dipping their toes in! We also got a nice crepe to snack on.
A first for me, Mama and I decided to take a river tour along the Seine. We got up close to the Louvre and the Notre Dame Cathedral, and we had to repeatedly sit down and duck to get under the myriad shallow bridges spanning the river.
After our lovely little boat ride, we returned to see the Eiffel tower in my favorite hour – sunset!
Then we picked up Sara and had dinner with a view of Arc de Triomphe.
The waitress was very friendly and chatty, but I was exhausted! Sara and Mama had way too much energy for me after such a long day, so I was a little cranky. When we finished dinner and it started raining, the two of them wanted to be crazies and dance in the rain by the Arc. I did not partake. Ha!
Such a long, beautiful, and fun day. I was so ready for bed, though! And it was our last day in Paris before we took a little weekend trip. More to come on that later.
Phew! Another busy day. Apparently we aren’t allowed any relaxing days on this trip, though. Maybe things will be a bit quieter this weekend.
Sara’s teacher Ellen invited us to join her class on a nine-hour day trip to Fontainebleau and Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte. Ellen was so positively wonderful, and we really lucked out being on this tour today! We got a free ride on the bus, a free picnic lunch, free entrance to Vaux-le-Vicomte, and I got free entrance to Fontainebleau. What should have been a €70+ day ended up costing us €12! Merci beaucoup, Ellen!!!
Mom was a little hard to wake up this morning, but we made it out the door and to Sara’s dorm one minute ahead of schedule, despite my being trapped in a metro station at one point because I misplaced my exit ticket. A nice Parisian woman let me follow her through the gate. Whoops!
The bus ride was chilly with the air conditioning, but I slept most of the way, nonetheless.
Fontainebleau’s buildings were short but wide-reaching.
The interiors were charming…
But the facade and its famous horseshoe staircase were much more impressive.
Some more rooms were to be viewed in the main part of the castle after entering through this grand staircase.
After a lovely tour by Ellen, we were free to roam the gardens and admire the swans in the small pond.
Then back onto the bus for a drive to Vaux-le-Vicomte.
We had a little picnic outside of fruit and sandwiches, but the masses or yellow jackets quickly turned our settle meal into a whirlwind of running and frantic, periodic yelping. These yellow jackets seem to be everywhere in France, and they are not scared of swatting hands. It makes eating outside a risky adventure every time!
We got another tour of this castle, which belonged to the young King Louis IV’s trusted advisor, Nicolas Fouquet. Unfortunately for the advisor, young Louis IV was so maddeningly jealous of this man’s showy display of wealth and power in this mansion that he was tried for treason and imprisoned for the rest of his life! Louis IV then went on to copy and emulate much of the design in Versailles later on. The story made me so sad for Fouquet! Kings can be so pig-headed….
Ellen kept saying that this was a small house, but it took us just as much time to walk through here as it did at Fontainebleau.
The gardens, on the other hand, were much more extensive, manicured, and designed in an orderly fashion. I wish we would have had the time and energy to walk the whole garden, but at our sleepy pace, that likely would have taken two hours.
Oh. And we accidentally twinned again. I swear this wasn’t even planned!!!!!
We had some fun with pictures on our own before it was finally time to turn back to the bus.
Sounds like a full day, no? Well, according to Mama, no.
I just wanted to take a nap, but Mom wanted to see all of Paris, and Sara was willing to oblige. So after much pulling and nagging, we were up and out once again. This time, we headed to meet our friend Thailer from back in Auburn! He was here just for the day on a little European adventure of his own, so we met up for some flower-shaped gelato.
We took our gelato and ventured over to Sara’s favorite place in Paris, Jardin du Luxembourg.
It was quite a sight, and a lovely retreat from the bustling city streets!
I thought we would never convince Sara to leave. She was so content to just lay in the grass and chat all night. We finally pried her away from the grass to walk around a bit more.
We stopped at a little cafe for some hot chocolate and wine…
We grabbed some deeeelicious hot dogs along the way…
And then….
Woohoo! The Eiffel Tower! Finally! Strange to have been here four days without ever catching a glimpse, and this was Mama’s first time seeing it.
I don’t think I could ever take enough pictures from enough angles to be satisfied that I had captured the surreality of being underneath the Eiffel Tower with my mom and sister in Paris! Sara couldn’t stop voicing her disbelief at the same event.
Hahaha sorry for so much leg action there from Thailer.
We had to stay around to see the sparkles, though!
It was a lovely and mesmerizing foodless picnic. I didn’t want to leave, but suddenly everyone else was tired and had crawling into bed on their agendas. How come they couldn’t just nap with me early to gain some energy!? Psh.
Anywho. We had a good time today, but we have another early morning tomorrow! Talk soon!
Well then. Today was a busy busy day. My mom just arrived to Paris last night, but I managed to convince her to set off for a day trip to Luxembourg right away! My feet are throbbing, which is somewhat unusual, so either I’m out of travel shape or we worked hard today. I believe it’s likely some combination of the two.
I didn’t sleep well last night for some reason, so the 6:30 wake up call was a bit of an inconvenience. Nevertheless, we stuck to schedule and were out the door by seven to walk to Gare du l’Est, the main train station for trains within France and the surrounding area. We had plenty of time to grab some snacks and breakfast before boarding the train. We never went through any security, and we didn’t even get our tickets checked the whole way. Gotta love the EU.
We spread out at a table with the back half of a car to ourselves and settled in for a pretty ride through the French countryside.
We each grabbed ourselves a Luxembourg Card which gave us full inclusive access to public transport and museums within Luxembourg City and most of the rest of the country. We didn’t have time to hit up those far reaches of public transit, unfortunately, but now we know what to do next time. We set off on foot in the vague direction of the city center and stumbled upon the Luxembourg City Museum in search for a restroom.
Though my tiny bladder is annoying to no end, it sure has forced to me check out some pretty cute places while traveling. Ha! The museum terrace provided a great view of the city.
There was also an exhibit which displayed the uniforms for the army throughout the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. These little guys were adorable!
What I found more fascinating than the contents of the museum, though, was the building it lived in. Thought to have been built originally in the ELEVENTH CENTURY, this sturdy stone building with arching ceilings and cavernous staircases to nowhere had been reinforced and redecorated to create a truly intriguing mix of the very traditional and the very modern.
There was even a room-sized elevator which lifted us through a giant stone chimney of sorts.
The museum told the history of the city of Luxembourg and its growth and deconstruction as a military fortress. Bits and pieces of the old fortress walls remain today. More pictures to come later. Another highlight of the museum were all of the adorable miniature city complexes which displayed the city at different times in its history. Sorry, this is the only one I snagged a picture of, from approximately year 1000:
Too cute! We took some more pictures on another terrace on the building:
And then we headed off to a cathedral across the street which was holding service.
Next was the national library, which was impressively small and uneventful. The halls were very narrow, and as far as I could tell, only the first floor was accessible. There was a nice courtyard, though, and in one corner stood ‘The Wind Book, which was a large hardback left out to the elements as an art piece. I’m honestly surprised it wasn’t in worse shape.
Lunch was next, with salmon tartare and a bagel sandwich on the menu. I meant to order something I saw another customer eating, which was salmon tartare in a large salad. However, what I actually ordered was a hamburger-sized patty of salmon tartare with another hamburger-sized patty of avocado underneath, with a side of toast. Delicious, yes. Possible to eat in one sitting, no.
Then on for some wandering! We scoped out the rest of the hustling bustling center city streets before walking off in a quieter direction. The first thing we spotted was this gorgeous building.
Upon further inspection, it turned out to be some sort of nursing home! I told Mom to study up on her French and German so she could end up there in her older years.
Now, I’m not proud of it, but next I took a nap on a bench in a park.
Sorry about all the leg, haha. Mama got to read with a nice view over the canal, though so I think we were all good. She finally started getting antsy, so up and at ’em we went, stumbling this time into a ‘panoramic elevator’ which started at a large glass overhang.
Beautiful views!
Mom refused to walk out onto the glass, so we eventually went down the elevator to explore a quieter side of Luxembourg called Pafendall.
There were bits of the old fortress down here…
Along with a pretty creek running through the valley…
What we found next turned out to be the BEST. PART. OF THE DAY.
Labeled on the map as ‘foot bath,’ my mom was instantly intrigued. When she saw the slowly trickling and the stone underneath which made the water look brown, though, her instant reaction was, ‘Uh, no thanks.’ I at least wanted to read about it.
TANTALIZING? I THINK SO.
Unsurprisingly, I convinced my mom to try it with me. The water was so cold! We were supposed to walk in a marching fashion in the water until an extreme cold feeling was felt in the feet and legs, upon which we were to leave the bath to warm up and repeat several times, drying our feet with our hands rather than with towels. The tradition promised multiple health benefits and lots of fun!
Please enjoy these action shots.
And video!
It was seriously so much fun, and it felt soooo good on my tired feet. At one point, an adorable little family joined us and had me show them how to do it. So cute!
The fun could only last so long though, and soon enough we were climbing another hill.
After a small hike, we made it to the top of the hill where an old fortress stood, providing great views from the other side of the canal.
I believe this fortress dates back to the 1500s, but it was still in great shape.
Inside was a little museum, with tunnels and staircases throughout.
There was a glass building behind the fortress which was a modern museum, but we didn’t have time to peek in there before our train back to Paris.
However, we did have time for a little wandering to find the bus and one more stop in the city center for gelato! Delicious…
Then to the train station and the train.
I’m thinking (and hoping) we’ll turn in early tonight for another early morning tomorrow with Sara and her class! Stay tuned for more.
This afternoon, I start my blog from the line to the Sainte-Chapelle Cathedral on Ile de la Cité. It’s slow moving, but I think it will be worth it! What better way to pass the time than to reflect on the start of my day?
I woke up fairly early this morning to some confusion over my plans. I wanted to visit the opera house with Sara and her class, but I was having trouble coordinating check-out and check-in with my respective Airbnb hosts. I ended up alternating between napping and planning until about 11 when I packed up and set off for the streets. The Airbnb roommate was shocked when I emerged from my room, and then she went on to apologize for playing her music so loud. I had to ask her to repeat herself in English, and she explained that she didn’t know I was home. I’ll admit I was a bit peeved when she began blasting the music at ten, but I was too tired to get up and do anything about it, and I managed to nap through the noise just fine. I said one last goodbye to the my pretty street in southern Paris before making the trek down the six flights of stairs.
I had yet more confusion connecting with my new Airbnb host in the Northern part of Paris. ‘My apartment is the one next to the stairs,’ he said. I arrived on the landing of the third floor to find five doors, all equally spaced from the stairs. I had a moment of relief when I found one with his name on it, but nobody would answer the door! I tried one other closest to the stairs, to no avail. In the end, I paid €5 to use WiFi in the building for 24 hours and contacted my host online. Almost immediately, a young woman emerged from one of the other doors.
Ha! Quite a mess. The apartment area and building are a smidge sketchy, but I positively love the interior of the apartment. I would definitely live here! No pictures yet, but trust me when I say it is adorable. Now to figure out if the bottle of wine and two glasses on the coffee table are for us….
I was upset about paying for WiFi, but it was worth it in the end. About two seconds after setting my things down, I got a mysterious message from Sara. After a quick exchange, she let me know that her teacher had accidentally purchased an extra ticket to the opera house, and if I could get there quickly, I could take the ticket for free! Don’t have to tell me twice. I was up and at ’em in two seconds. I stopped quickly along the way to grab un petit brioche poulet at a little street shop, and it hit the spot as I walked along a bustling shopping street.
It really reminded me of Strøget in Copenhagen, so I felt at home! I was a little worried about finding Sara at the Opera, but as I rounded a corner, the gargantuan building loomed above, and I saw Sara’s smiling face and frantic waving down below in line.
I ran across and joined her, and we began wandering in awe inside as we searched for her class.
Her teacher, Ellen, was so sweet and knowledgeable. I love having tour guides at these historic places, so that was lovely! And the interior of the opera house was divinely gorgeous.
Ooh! Ahh! Oui! Oui!
I could live here. I just wish the ballet was in season! They’re currently in rehearsals for their September show.
After thanking Ellen profusely, she invited my mom and me to join the class to Fontainebleau later this week, so we might do that, too! I also got to see the class do some mini presentations, and I was extremely impressed with the students’ accents. They were just all blabbing away while I watched in surprise.
Afterward, we were free to roam the opera house.
There was an adorable library in one wing!
And there was an exhibit on Picasso and dance downstairs. I love it.
Sara left a bit early to go back to class, so I stayed and enjoyed the view from the balcony for a while.
Then I went on to shop a bit, fresh squeezed orange juice and pain au chocolat in hand.
I decided to head to Sainte-Chapelle Cathedral, where I started this blog. The cathedral is famous for its stained glass windows.
C’est belle!
What I enjoyed even more though, was the Palais de Justice.
This giant courthouse was either out of business hours or out of season, because the place was completely empty.
I spent about an hour just roaming the giant, silent halls, never sure if I was allowed to be where I was. I opened doors that I thought would be locked and walked past empty reception desks with signs I couldn’t read, tiptoeing and looking over my shoulder the whole way.
It was so fun! I kept wanting to go upstairs and see if I could peek into any courtrooms, but I chickened out in the end and had to get back to meet Sara.
I did manage to grab a crepe on the way, but while I was trying to put away my purse, I tilted it on accident and the entire mound of whipped cream on top came tumbling to the ground in a giant splat. It was so sad. I picked up the little spoon and ran away so I could enjoy my now-only-nutella crepe in peace.
I found Sara’s university campus, and it is adorable!
Also, the art in her dorm is Lizzy-approved.
We did a little bit of shopping…
And wandering near the Notre Dame Cathedral…
Lastly, we picked up Mama from the train station!
She made it all the way here on her own. Go Mom! We stopped for some delicious Napoli-style pizza, navigated the trains once more, and now we sit cozy in our little apartment.
Our host left us wine to drink, so that’s exciting. Tehehehe. Off to Luxembourg tomorrow, because why not?
Sleepy in Paris as I write from the metro after a long day with my special guest:
Sara!!! My baby sister is studying abroad for the month of August, living and learning in Paris! This has been a dream of mine for her for a long time. Bahahahah. Silly, I know, but she has been positively enthralled with France and the French language since she started taking French classes in high school. When I studied abroad, I discovered how amazing it feels to connect and interact with people in their own language, and I knew she would get a kick out of getting to do that every single day. So now, three years later, here she is!
And here I am! Couldn’t pass up such a good excuse to head to Europe again. I’m here for the week, and another special guest joins us tomorrow! Stay tuned.
We had a slow start to the day because I was passed the heck out. I told Sara to wake me whenever, but it hurt my face to move when she attempted to rouse me at eleven. I finally managed to open my eyes all the way around 11:30, but Sara was cranky because she’d been waiting around since half past eight. We finally made it down our six flights of stairs a bit later.
No elevator makes for a long walk and a nice view.
We got trapped at the bottom for a while because the exit door wouldn’t open. Thankfully, some guys came in and showed us that our problem was we weren’t pushing hard enough! Whoops. We also discovered that we were accidentally wearing the same outfit.
Next was some confusion at the train station, but a bunch of nice people helped us to finally find the correct train tickets. Pain au chocolat in hand, we boarded the train just before 2pm and were in the little town of Provins by 3:30. A late start, maybe, but our day was still full and eventful!
We chose to visit this little town because of its medieval castles and architecture, and Sara wanted to get out of Paris for a day. We began our day with a pleasant little walk from the train station to the medieval city, and Sara could not handle how pretty everything was.
It was a long walk up a long hill, but we finally made or to Cesar’s Tower!
And you know how I feel about towers, so that was our first activity!
I swear Sara liked it even more than I did. “I can’t handle this. Shut up. This is so cool! This is beautiful! Wow. I cannot handle this.” And so on and so forth.
To give her credit, the climb and the views were quite amazing.
Next, we mosied across to the cathedral, where we peaked in on Sunday evening mass. It always floors me that people go to church in beautiful places like this because I am used to the minimalist style of small Christian churches back home. The small congregation of about 15 people were singing and the sound echoed around the wide room, ringing beautifully.
We wandered after this in search of some food and came across a little rose-inspired boutique. There is a famous rose garden in Provins, so all the gift shops were filled with rose-scented things and floral tea sets. We grabbed a bottle of this Rose Limonada, which I thought was lemonade. Imagine my surprise when I shook it up a little bit, popped the top off, and instantly had my hand and forearm covered with fizzing pink soda.
Ha! More like Sprite than lemonade. It sure did hit the spot, though, under that hot French sun.
We wandered a bit more and shared a salad that I was too excited about to take pictures of, and Sara regaled me yet again with her French skills. She’s amazing! And she’ll never even know I said that because she never reads these blogs. Hahahahaha. She was impressed when I asked for the check in French, though. Go me!
We spent our remaining hours in Provins wandering and admiring the sights.
Lots of things were closed by this point, including a bunch of adorable doors!
Tehehehe. A kindly older man asked if we were lost at one point, and Sara had the cutest conversation with him. First he tried to offer us a ride to the train station, then he told us we needed to come back next weekend for a party that was happening (he showed us a flier for some sort of Renaissance-themed festival), and then he talked a bit about our trip. All in French! So impressive that Sara was chatting away like that!
There were more wanderings, more slow-moving creeks, more pictures…
And then I slept the whole ride back on the train. I also took a little nap in the middle of the street at one point, but I’ll save those pictures for another time. Haha.
I’m on my own tomorrow, but we’ll meet back up in the evening to pick up Mama from the train station! Woohoo!
Okeedokee then. London has officially wrapped. I write from the train to Paris! I had a bit of an ordeal at the station, seeing as I took the ‘Please check-in at least half an hour prior to departure’ to be a light suggestion, and it turned out that check-in actually closes then. I arrived 10 minutes after gate closure and dazedly walked to the Eurostar ticketing office, hoping at the very least that I could be put on the next train without paying a surcharge. Luckily, the wonderful gentleman I approached was the perfect combination of subtly helpful and dazzlingly bored, so he walked me across the station and swiped me through a bunch of gates through to Premium Business security. No line, no wait, straight on the train. It happened so quickly I didn’t really have time to express my gratitude beyond a wide-eyed ‘Thank you so much…’
However, going through business security put me near the business class train cars, and I was pretty lost. I couldn’t tell which direction coach was, so finally I just asked a lady if the current car I was in was coach. Her response was, “Yes, this is the first one.” Kind of confusing, but good enough for me at the moment. I settled WAY in, fairly certain the section was way too nice to be coach, and hoped I could stick around until someone came to check my ticket and could point me in the right direction. I mean, the seats were slick, roomy, and had little pull-down cosmetic mirrors on the backs, so I plugged in my phone, changed to comfier clothes, and did my eyebrows! Ha!
It wasn’t until another couple got on and spent a minute or two trying to find their seats that it dawned on me that I might have an assigned seat on my boarding ticket. Sure enough, I was sitting in Coach 1 – Business Premier, but I was meant to be in Coach 10 – Standard. That’s why the lady said I was in ‘coach.’ My ‘coach’ was her ‘standard’ and her ‘coach’ was my ‘car.’ Hope you followed that. In the end, I did the looooong walk of shame nine cars back and find myself with an obstructed window view. On the bright side, I have this row and the row across from me all to myself, I don’t need the mirror anymore, and I finally managed to find the charging ports on these Standard Class seats. They really are still about four times more comfortable than those airplane seats last night.
Okay. Backing up. I said my farewells to the adorable waiter at The National Dining Rooms and found time to explain the Seattle is not exactly ‘near’ LA just because they are both on the west coast. Then I managed to get the aforementioned book! Behold!
Excited to read this on the trip if I ever manage to find transit time where I’m not sleeping or blogging.
And speaking of sleeping on transit, I did kind of a weird thing. I decided to skip out on Shakespeare because by the time I was finished with tea and book shopping, I would have only caught the last hour of the show (out of three). I was/ am also so very exhausted since I’d been up for almost 24 hours by then. I’d purchased standing ‘seats,’ so I didn’t want a repeat of my last dizzyingly tired experience at the Globe when I could have a perfectly enchanting time at the Natural History Museum instead.
Things get weird when I decide to take the bus (about half an hour) instead of the underground (about 15 minutes) to the museum. I like the double decker busses because they’re comfy and quiet and I get a view while I’m riding instead of a bunch of time spent looking across the train at other tube riders and trying not to stare. However, the bus was SO smooth and quiet, not like my Seattle buses I use to get to work. Man, I’d get an extra two hours of sleep a day if my commuter buses rode like these double deckers! Needless to say, I was basically out cold, and when my stop came around, I made the semi-conscious decision to stay on and sleep some more. I’d get off eventually and just get on the same bus in the other direction once I felt the museum calling my name.
And that’s how I ended up taking an hour and half long bus nap. It was beautiful.
Also beautiful were these pastries (and the man who served them to me – hehehehe) at a little French patisserie between the bus stop and the museum. I got two because I couldn’t choose, and boy were they wonderfully mouthwatering. My soul thanked me and my pre-planned fake budget for the day shook its head in disappointment. Those things were not cheap.
You know what WAS cheap, though? That free museum admission aaaayyyyy.
I always forget just how much I love natural history museums until I find the whale skeletons. They are my favorite thing. I mean, look at all the angles I used to capture this magnificent specimen:
Second favorite are the elephants:
But the dinos were pretty mind boggling, as well.
It’s hard to tell because of the angle, but this dinosaur femur is bigger around than the widest part of me and about three inches short of matching my height:
GUYS. I COULD BE A DINOSAUR FEMUR IF THE OPPORTUNITY EVER ARISES. This is a huge discovery for me.
There were also fun mirrors. Please join me in contemplating whether you like any of these proportions better than my ‘go-to’ and I will see what I can do if I ever get full body surgery.
Some last quick little London things for the road, including this adorable milk:
Some tubing at Uth Kensington:
And a little bit of King’s Cross/ St. Pancras action:
Okay. This time it really is goodbye to London. I believe I am currently approaching the English Channel, where at some point I will be 75 meters below the floor of the Channel, in an under-ground-that-is-under-water tunnel. Engineers are crazy.
Well, I ended my last European adventure with tea in a museum, so why not start this one the same way? I write to you from a cozy table in the National Gallery in London. Check out my view of Trafalgar Square!
I am technically meant to be at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in 46 minutes to see The Winter’s Tale, but I am weak and I am hungry and opportunies to have afternoon tea in the National Gallery in London do not come around every other Saturday!
To start from the beginning, I awoke Friday morning to a text notifying me that my flight was delayed nearly two hours, but luckily the new departure time was actually when I had thought my flight was leaving all along. Had the flight not been delayed, in fact, I’d have had a fairly stressful rush at the airport. As it was, security was a breeze and the flight was uneventful. Unfortunately, I was placed in the very last full row of the plane, in the center section, with absolutely no view of any window. Without the plane wall to lean on, I didn’t manage to get any sleep. Hence, je suis fatigue. (That’s called a plot hint.)
I realized on the tube this morning that this is my sixth visit to London. I like that I feel comfortable enough here now that the idea of changing plans at the last second to rest up doesn’t bother me one bit! It was actually the interactive map on the plane ride which inspired my quick visit to the National Gallery.
If you’ve been reasonably aquainted with me (or my blog) in the last few years, you’ll know I’m a sucker for national galleries. It took me a hot second to find the artists I like because there are so many rooms here, but once I did, I was in heeeeaaaven. I’m also quite impressed with how well I’m able to identify artists now! Gauguin, Cezanne, Renoir, Degas, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Eckersberg, Turner. Gah! Turner! One of my favorites of his is here!
Rain, Steam, and Speed, it’s called. I studied this painting when I was in Copenhagen, as with most of the works I love most dearly. I can’t decide if it was my art history teacher that sealed the deal or the fact that for the first time, I was able to see the real, actual, in-the-canvas or in-the-bronze pieces I was learning about right in front of my eyes. Every time I see one of these works or artists we studied that semester, I’m taken back to Denmark and that class and the whole experience that was study abroad. I sometimes say I feel like studying abroad didn’t change me at all, but in reality it gave me a very fierce sense of independence and adventure when it comes to exploring new places in new ways.
But anyway…. Allow me to bombard you with more beautiful art:
^This one’s a Monet, so the style should seem familiar to even the most disinterested consumer of art.
^One of Van Gogh’s famous sunflower paintings
^Degas liked to paint dancers and ballerinas! Two loves in one!
^This one is a very interesting Manet painting of the execution of Maximilian. I’m not usually a fan of Manet. His work is very modern and crisp, often scandalous, and not very pretty. I’m one of those art lovers whose admiration stems from being able to enjoy what I’m looking at and experiencing rather than having to read too hard into crazy meanings and purposes behind the art. Those are sometimes interesting as well, but if I wouldn’t put the art in my home, I’m usually not a fan. What’s interesting about this painting, though, is that it was cut up after Manet died and reassembled later by Degas. Interesting, no??
^^Venice and Venice!! So pretty!
^Matisse’s unique take on the gardens at Fontainebleau
^Another Monet! I hope to visit the inspiration behind this painting later this week! Eeep!
Okay. Enough of that. Mom, if you just scrolled on past those without blinking an eye, shame on you! Go look! Go blink!
Okay. So I got most of that out of my system and was on my way out to the Globe when I came across “The National Dining Rooms.” Ha! I hemmed and hawed for a while about whether it was worth missing the show, but you know where that got me. I’ve now finished my scone with clotted cream and am indulging in a stuffed bell pepper with my tea. It’s soooo delightful.
The cutest thing happened after I sat down. My waiter took my order just fine, but before he left, he asked, “Are you from America?” in a London accent. I said that I was and he instantly lit up. “I love your accent! Whenever I hear an American accent, I ask if they’re from America, and if they say yes I say I love their accent!”
It was too cute. I thanked him and assured him that I loved his accent as well. He kind of reminded me of a Weasely brother. Tehehe.
I think that next on the docket, I’m going to head over to a very large bookstore at Picadilly Circus to grab a new book by Jonas Jonasson, a hilarious Swedish writer. The UK covers are gorgeous and the US covers and crap, so I’m going to capitalize on this opportunity to keep my series looking nice and matchy matchy. Then, if the winds take me East, I’ll hit up the second half of the play that started five minutes ago. If the winds blow West, I’ll parade around the Natural History Museum. Life’s an adventure and I intend to live it flippantly and in a very confused fashion!
Tonight, I take the Chunnel to Paris, where I’ll meet up with a surprise guest (one I never thought I’d get to see on this blog!) This mystery person is the reason I’m here bleary-eyed (and a little bloodshot in the right eye) right now and not fast asleep in Seattle. Thank you mystery person! I’ll see you soon!!!
Hello, again. By this time, now, my mom will be re-interested and re-invested in the blog since January 6th was technically her last day with us. So yay! Hi, Mom! Golly, you have no idea how difficult it was to talk to *other people*. Glad that’s over.
So, Mom, if you remember, we began this lovely Sunday morning by shipping you off to the airport.
It started with a very stressful game of packing and shuffling around the room so as not to wake Jonathan too badly. The main reason it was stressful was because I was the navigator, except that my phone had about 10% power and no internet connection because of the famous Blown Fuse of January 6, 2018. We made it out to the buses (it was pitch black still, seeing as how it was about five in the morning), and I paid special attention to the side of the street we were meant to be on. Heaven forbid my mom should miss her flight because I forgot we were in the U.K.
We got to see some pretty cool things from our spot at the front of the top level of the our double decker.
That’s a dark and blurry picture of St. Paul’s Cathedral!
So anyway. It was two buses together, and then we found ourselves at Victoria Station.
Or at least, that’s what the bus stop was called. The station itself was actually pretty hard to find because there was a ton of construction going on in the area. At first, I led us to the Underground station at Victoria, but that’s not where we wanted to be. I was trying to put my mom on the Gatwick Express, and her train left in less than ten minutes. I tried not to let it show because Mama was already pretty stressed out, but I was getting quite worried.
Finally, thankfully, we found the station. I continued my brisk pace, and soon we were at the platform. Oh, but the ticket on her phone wouldn’t scan. Cue more panic on her end. Luckily the dude manning the gate just looked at her ticket and let her in.
As I was hugging her goodbye, she suddenly shoved me off of her with a look of crazed panic the likes of which I had never seen, and then she booked it through the gate and toward the train with a frantic, “IT’S LEAVIIIING!!!!!!!!!!!”
I’ve literally never seen her run so fast.
It freaked me out, I must admit.
I was mostly just confused, because her train didn’t leave for another five minutes. She managed to disappear onto the train without my even noticing, but I spied on a few other people and figured out what the issue had been.
The train worked on the system which requires each passenger or set of passengers to push a button to open the door and enter. The door then automatically closes behind them. My mom hadn’t noticed this, and all she saw was that the doors were closing. Closing doors = train leaving = PANIC!
I wonder what she was thinking as she sat on the non-moving train for those five minutes, likely hyperventilating. Oh, Mom. Hahahahaa.
The events had left me a bit shaken, and I still didn’t have much battery power left in my phone. I quickly connected to the train station WiFi so I could notify our Airbnb host of the outlet/ WiFi problem, took some screenshots of directions back to the apartment, and off I was on my own. I would have taken my mom all the way to the airport, but airport transfers are preposterously expensive in London, so that fun little joy ride would have cost me upwards of $50. Not about that.
Even more concerning was that my mom’s WiFi didn’t connect properly in the airport, so I never got any confirmation from her that she made it to her gate or onto the plane. In fact, the first I heard of her whereabouts was when she landed in Seattle about thirteen hours later. Ugh. At least she made it.
I made it back to the apartment unscathed and crawled back in bed where I stayed firmly put until about noon. Whoops.
When Jonathan and I finally surfaced from sleep, the outlets and WiFi were back in commission. Commence phone charging and a breakfast of champions (aka: some more of those pastries from the day before).
Then it was time for some adventuring!
I have a thing about pretty doors. Every single one presents a photo opportunity.
Same view of St. Paul’s, but this time in the daylight!
I also forced Jonathan to pretend to use a pay phone in a London phone booth. He typed out some very long and complicated phone number. Wonder who he was calling…
Our first stop of the day was the British Museum! Neither of us had ever been, and it was free, so I mean…. What’s the harm? I’m a museum fan, and this one seemed like a big one. We bargained for about an hour here.
Plans quickly changed once we got inside.
And that was only after seeing the architecture! Imagine our surprise when the first piece of history we encountered was THE Rosetta Stone.
Like, the real one.
There were even pamphlets explaining that Egypt wanted the Stone returned. Big surprise, but the Stone, like much in the museum, was stolen long ago through wars and pillaging. It has resided in the British Museum since 1802, though, so it’s probably not going anywhere any time soon.
There were other cool old things, though, too.
It’s hard to appreciate from a photograph just how big that dude’s arm is, but trust me – it was huge.
After agreeing to slash our later-in-the-day plans so that we could spend more time in the museum, we wandered the exhibits for another hour or so.
At some point, we stumbled upon a restaurant that was housed on one of the upper floors and suspended in the center of the museum. It was about three or four at this point.
Those privy to British culture may have realized that we had stumbled unwittingly upon tea-time!
It hadn’t been in the plan originally, but afternoon tea in the middle of the British museum was a little too hard to pass up. We grabbed a table and were quickly met with adorable green china and Prosecco to match!
Soon after came the tea and goodies!
Can’t get more British than scones with jam and clotted cream. I was pretty happy with how the afternoon had unfolded, clearly.
Feeling on a roll with the London-y activities, we then decided to hit up Harrods, London’s famous and preposterously gigantic department store.
Unsurprisingly, it had gotten dark by the time we got out of the British Museum. Harrods is that beam of twinkle lights in the distance. Also, enjoy this warped and blurry panorama of the store front.
And here’s me taking advantage of the fancy bathroom mirrors:
And here’s a dress I would have totally gotten if it had been on clearance for $35 or less:
We got to Harrods about fifteen minutes before closing, so we basically ran around its six floors like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to see as much as possible. There was one section called “Advanced Designer.” After analyzing the selection presented in this wing, we decided “advanced” designers are the ones who think they are from a future where humans stop wearing clothes and start wearing hideous modern art pieces and hobo-chic neon fur jackets. The elevators were cool, though.
After Harrods, we lived in limbo for a bit. We had dinner plans at eight, but it was only 6 o’clock. So naturally, I spent a good portion of this time trying to convince Jonathan that he had to buy me this adorable tiny phone from a souvenir shop:
Just look how happy I am with that phone!!!! How could he say no?! (Okay, technically he said ‘Yes,’ but I know what he was really thinking was: “You look cute, but you’re ridiculous and you’re embarrassing me. Put the tiny phone down.”)
Then we wandered around in the dark for a while near Hyde Park and around the Kensington Gardens (they had just closed).
It’s hard to tell, but the above two photos depict mansions along this road which was home to the backside of Kensington Palace along with all the wealthiest embassy buildings. Supposedly these places go for around $100,000,000. (I got that info from Jonathan, though, so who really knows?)
Finally, we made it to dinner! Yay!
I finally figured out the name of that Indian restaurant we had been looking for the day before, so we met Jonathan’s friend Molly in Camden Town and tucked in!
She was pretty cute. Most of the dinner consisted of discussions about the very wonderful game Runescape. (This is not a paid advertisement.)
Okay. I think that just about covers it. We made it back to the Airbnb, slept a wink, and were off to the airport the next morning!
The airport was a breeze, except for the part where we didn’t buy enough food for the flight and where I accidentally bought some coffee that had something in it I was allergic to, so I had to ask a flight attendant to dump it for me. Yay!
We didn’t get a window seat, but it didn’t matter too much seeing as how we were also sitting in the only row on the plane that did not have a window. At the start of the flight, a little video played touting the new, 60% bigger windows on this Boeing Dreamliner, and we just solemnly stared at the reinforced plastic wall to our left and imagined we could see pretty things.
We passed the time by watching The House with Amy Poehler and Will Farrell (pretty ridiculous, yet funny movie) and some other movie I can’t remember right now. We then switched to TV because there weren’t any other movies we could agree upon. And then we played some Schnapsen! (It’s a card game. Don’t worry.)
Check out these pretty lights, though:
And this gorgeous shot of Canada out the window of the poor unsuspecting chap in front of us:
Gorgeous! And speaking of gorgeous, check out this very beautiful photograph of myself marveling at the turbine engines on our plane as we deboarded and I forgot that I hadn’t washed my hair in four days or something (give or take two).
Last minute proof that we were at an airport at some point:
And that’s really about it! Security was a mess and we ended up standing in a white and crowded hallway that was under construction for about an hour. At least we had hundreds of angry and confused strangers to keep us company! And they gave us tiny water bottles! Woohoo!
Yowzers. I’m sitting at my desk at work right now, back in Seattle, trying to figure out how to wrap up my fourth Europe trip with a BANG!
But I’m coming up empty. I was actually pretty tired at the end of this trip, not gonna lie. I think it was all the coldness and the darkness. I really need to pay more attention to the climate when I plan my seasonal travels! It’s okay, though, because for next year’s New Year Adventure, I’ve already decided to go to St. Petersburg, and a quick Google search tells me that the high might be a whopping 13 degrees on Monday! (Fahrenheit.)
Overall takeaways from this trip: Norways is awesome. Fjords are amazing. Tea is non-negotiable. Family is Forever, Danish or Otherwise. They do fireworks better in Denmark. Oh, and I think I may have given the bug back to my mom. The travel bug, that is. Be strong, Mom! Be strong!
Love you all. Hold tight until the next adventure.
Remember in the first post of this trip when I said my Mom wanted to come home on Sunday so she could go to work on Monday? This is mainly because she cray, but also because she is overly dedicated to her fourth and fifth grade minions (aka: students).
Well anyway. As luck would have it, flights to Seattle from any of the major European cities were about $200 more expensive on Sundays compared to Monday. Crazy, I know. But I had to oblige.
The cheapest returning tickets were from London, and though I didn’t have any major reason or desire to go to London on this trip (I mean, once you’ve been to the Harry Potter studio tour, what else is there??), I knew it would be strange to send my mom off on her own to the U.K. and just hope she would make it back to Seattle alive.
So that’s how the crew ended up in London for a day. Jonathan and I were staying one extra night, but this would be the last 25 hours of my mom’s trip!
We weren’t able to get our seats all next to each other, so my mom was on an aisle in row 19, and Jonathan and I were way back in the high twenties by the window. Oh. And I had to pee. So. Bad.
Just before security, I downed a gigantic bottled smoothie called a Froosh. Though I realize I haven’t mentioned them yet, I had become very nearly obsessed since seeing them in the Keflavik airport on that layover at the start of the trip. But everybody else was tired on our early morning taxi and bus ride to the Bergen airport (this ridiculous ten minute taxi ride cost me over $50!!!!!!!), so I was pretty much alone in chugging this giant smoothie.
And theeeeen, when in the airport security line, I realized I’d forgotten to dump my water bottle, so I had to chug that as well.
We were running a bit late (or so we thought), so there was no time to stop at the bathroom. My mom went while we stood in line for passport control, but after passport control, the bathroom at our gate was our of order! There was no going back. And of course our boarding was delayed. And then after we sat down in our seats and buckled up, our turn to hit the runway was pushed back for some reason.
I honestly can’t remember ever being so distressed from the lack of an easily accessible toilet. This was somehow worse than that time I was trapped on a water taxi in Venice, missed my stop, and considered jumping ship so I could relieve myself. (Should I have included a TMI warning at the start of this post??)
Anyway, I was no fun to Jonathan until we were in the air with the seatbelt sign turned off (a full hour after we passed passport security and I started wishing I’d peed long ago). I basically hurled over Jonathan and the poor guy on the aisle. I got to the bathrooms before the flight attendants were even finished unlocking them.
The rest of the plane ride was much less eventful, with the exception of this glorious sunrise on the wrong side of the plane:
Touchdown in London. End drama.
We then wasted a lot of time in Gatwick airport trying to figure out a plan for the day, and we didn’t even end up sticking to that plan. Whoops.
Our first stop was King’s Cross Station, where we accidentally bought a bunch of pastries and some English Breakfast tea for my mom.
Jonathan was shocked to find that this patisserie offered a version of his favorite strawberry Lagkagehuset treat.
Our main purpose here was to take pictures with the Platform 9 3/4 set-up, but my mom took one look at the line and decided it wasn’t worth it. Please enjoy this selfie with the platform in the background.
Okay. So that was our first deviation from the plan. After this, we were supposed to go get some Indian food in Camden Town, but I couldn’t remember the name of the restaurant I wanted to find, so we ended up doing Chinese, instead.
At least it was tasty!
We did a little more exploring…
This guy created a drum kit using an upturned bike as the base!
Then on to the West End. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out which show to see, and the shows high on our list also happened to be high in price with minimal options for three seats next to each other. We even considered going to see Motown the Musical where we all had individual seats spread across the theater.
Luckily, we made the sensible decision to just buy our tickets at the box office instead of trying to mess around with internet sales and unreliable WiFi. Turned out that the tickets sold online had a little resale premium attached, so we saved some money there, and the awesome lady at the ticket booth gave us three seats near each other and then coached us on how to get people to move around so we could sit together.
Huzzah! My third show in London and my third time watching from the very last row. Theaters on the West End are smaller, so every seat in the house has a good view.
The show was a ton of fun! So many songs and lots of dancing (on both the part of the cast and the three of us). I also love learning from historical musicals. That’s why I loved Beautiful, the Carole King musical so much.
By the time we got it of the theater, as I’m sure you can see in the ‘after’ pictures, it was pitch black outside. It was only 5:30pm, but it definitely felt like it was past my bedtime.
We headed back to check out our Airbnb and to finally drop off or very full travel backpacks. We’d originally planned to drop them off at a left luggage facility, but it would have cost about thirty dollars for the three of us for the day, and that seemed like quite the rip-off.
Our Airbnb in London was a shoebox compared to our adorable gigs in Scandinavia, but what can you expect? This was our most expensive stay yet, and all we had to ourselves was a room with a single queen sized bed and a very uncomfortable sleeper futon with a tiny blanket for its covers.
We were all tired, but my mom really wanted to get fish n’ chips, so the two of us braved the dark British evening while Jonathan stayed back to lounge and sleep.
Now, do not take this sign lightly. It probably should have served as a bit of foreshadowing for us, because we certainly hit a few “humps” in the road. Ha.
We started out by getting on a bus going the wrong direction because I forgot that traffic moves the opposite way in the U.K. Whoops.
We were really enjoying the view from the front seat of the second level of the double-decker bus. That is, until we came to ‘the last stop’ and were asked to get off. It didn’t make any sense because we still hadn’t come to the stop we were meant to get off at.
And that’s when it hit me.
We slumped off the bus and ran around to the other side of the bus station to wait for the return bus. It would be another 37 minutes until we were at the chips stand, I said, and my mom thought I meant it would be a 37 minute wait until the next bus came. Ha! I would not have been so calm if that had been the case. Imagine her surprise and delight when a bus pulled up a few minutes later.
So I guess we got an extra dose of sight-seeing.
Unfortunately, we never did managed to find fish n’ chips because the one we had planned on visiting was closed by the time we got there. Fortunately, said closed fish n’ chips stand was right next to the Tower of London! Unlike the name would have some to believe, the Tower of London is less of a tower and more of an old-ish castle. Much older than dear Buckingham Palace, and surrounded by a plethora of wide turrets.
Not sure what’s happening to my face in that one. It was cold, okay?
We were also pretty stoked to find the Tower Bridge, lit up in the nighttime!
Das my mama in the red, posing unknowingly with the London skyline.
She originally wandered over to that railing to look at the lights and the water, but that’s also how we found the Tower Bridge and the restaurant that would replace the fish n’ chips-shaped hole in our stomachs.
To the left of her is the bridge, but to her right stood a little conglomeration of fairy-light-adorned biodome things with classy people inside of them.
We weren’t quite cool enough to make it into the dome things. In fact, once we walked into the main part of the restaurant, we were worried we weren’t even cool enough to eat there! The music was positively pumping (that’s what the kids are saying these days, right?), everybody was chic and classy and hipster and young, and my mom and I probably looked like a couple of bundled-up deer caught in some super hip headlights.
It’s definitely strange to know that most of the people there were probably my age and yet still looked about fifteen years older and cooler than me. *sigh*. I’ll get there one day.
My mom and I were shown to a table which I am just now realizing was in the farthest back corner of the restaurant next to another (cooler) mother-daughter pair. Ha! Didn’t even notice the severity of the situation we were in.
The food was pretty darn tasty, though. We shared some little fried chicken bites with a delightful dipping sauce, gigantic crab fritters, and some bruschetta heaped with fresh tomatoes. Yum. Mama also got a peach Bellini, but I was still in the bargain-fish-n’-chips mindset, so I stuck to water. Gah. Mistakes.
By the time we made it back to the Airbnb, Jonathan was fast asleep and sprawled in the middle of the bed… He was clearly very productive while we were gone.
About ten minutes after everyone was settled for the night, a really loud popping sound woke us all up with a start, and the smell of smoke instantly wafted through the room. My mom checked her phone, and it seemed my free Seattle City Light charging block had blown a fuse in the outlet. Oh, and it actually managed to blow all the fuses in the entire apartment, so we woke up to dead phones and no WiFi to help me figure out how to get my mom to the airport.
Be prepared for a complete overload of amazing winter fjord scenery. There will be many pictures. Buckle those seat belts.
If you remember correctly, I last left you with a cliff hanger. We were about to board S.S. Unnamed Beautiful Ship that was going to take us on the ride of a lifetime through Nærøyfjord, one of the most narrow fjords in the world and a UNESCO world heritage sight. Then we would make an extremely tight turn around this giant pointy jut of rocky mountainside before traveling down Aurlandsfjord, a wider sister (or conjoined twin) of Nærøyfjord. Here’s what they look like on a map:
So yeah. We got off the bus at Gudvangen, over in the bottom left corner of that wish-bone-shaped body of water. Then the boat traveled all the way around and over to Flåm, the little town on the bottom right corner of the wishbone. In fact, here’s a map of the entire trip!
We didn’t actually go over to Oslo, but that’s an option. The trip we did can technically be purchased as a package called “Norway in a Nutshell,” but we purchased everything individually and ended up saving about $60! Woohoo!
Okay. Commence photo-stream. Behold! The mountains! The us! The boat!
Starring these adorable bathroom signs.
And these insane mountains!
The boat was slick and roomy on the inside, and when we got on the boat, we were disappointed to see that all the best spots were taken. But as we pulled away from the dock, we immediately began turning around, and it quickly became clear that everybody had gotten the front and back of the ship mixed up.
We realized right away and were one of the tricky groups who sprinted to the other side of the ship. We got a table and a decent view along with easy access to the door outside. #winning.
I braved it on my own at one point.
I’m sorry if these beautiful pictures start looking all look the same. But it was just up too pretty much to space stop snapping more and more.
Are you even seeing in this, people?!? The water was so still and clear around us! And at one point, we were turning really slowly, and the water started doing this crazy thing where it took on the shape of a ripply glass art piece and stayed frozen in time like that while the landscape changed around us. Video included! Be amazed!
AND THEN we started cutting through sheets of ice! Though the boat was the size of a small ferry, it was actually a giant catamaran, and the two catamaran things (you know what I’m talking about, right?) were sharp at the front so that they could cut through water. CHECK OUT THIS CRAZY VIDEO.
Then at the back of the boat, the water stream just flew up and slid over the ice on the sides and center of our pathway.
Insanity.
Please enjoy these smiles. We sacrificed our warmth for your entertainment alone.
And the reflections in this ridiculously calm and clear water:
And this glam shot of the dearest:
What a stud. (That’s day three on the sweater, by the way.)
So that was the amazing boat ride. Actually still in shock. Cannot recommend this enough. Do the Norway!!!
Here’s the ship we were on:
Small but classy.
And then it was on to the Flåm Railway, deemed “one of the most beautiful train rides in the world.”
At one of the stops, we were allowed to get out on the platform, and Jonathan took full advantage of this opportunity to make snow angels.
He also had a snowball fight with a man from New Zealand? The U.K.? Hard to say, but it was adorable. (Not pictured.)
The last leg of the trip was a train from Myrdal to Bergen. It was dark by this time, so my mom read and Jonathan and I played cards, letting our eyes and minds rest from that total overload of beauty we had just witnessed. We were back in Bergen by around 6:00, got some pizza and pasta from a place next to our house, and then I promptly fell asleep on one of the extra beds in the living room.
Meanwhile, the rest of the crew worked diligently to figure out how we were going to get to the airport by 6am the next morning, seeing as how public transportation in our area didn’t start until 5:50.
Quite a successful day, if I do say so myself. Thank you Bergen and your crazy fjords for giving us some amazing sights and memories to last a lifetime! London’s next.
