We left on the 29th of June at about 3pm, after Nicole showed up late. We got to the Orlando airport and checked in with NorthWest. We walked all the way down (took the shuttle tram to the other side) to the farthest gate only to have the people at the desk calling our names and telling us “Randy” (the guy who checked us in and reminded me of my cousin) wanted us back. So we scooted our little selves all the way back to the front of the building for who knows why and waited at the first class line until Randy got off the phone. It turned out he found a more direct flight to Amsterdam on MartinAir (a Dutch airlines) two hours later than our flight to Memphis. We then had to pick up our luggage and walk all the way to the opposite end of the building. He told us that there was a delay with our plane in Memphis and if we had caught the flight there, we would have had to spend the night in the airport. Needless to say, MartinAir isn’t too classy of an airline, and I think that is all I am going to say.
The flight to Amsterdam was 8 hours and we got there two hours earlier than we were supposed to (had we caught the plane to Memphis, it would have been as scheduled). It’s a rather good thing that we had those extra two hours, considering we got off at gate E and had to walk all the way to the end of gate B that took about an hour, using those moving walkways. You have never seen such a huge airport. Of course, you would have thought someone would have double checked the gate to make sure it hadn’t changed over the eight hours of flying. So we had to walk all the way back to gate D, which took slightly less time, but we had to get our passports checked again along with our hand luggage.
They had to drive us out to our plane, which is when I encountered my first 70-degree weather. Of course, they locked us in the bus because the plane wasn’t ready for us and you can imagine a bunch of European people with no deodorant and sweating like pigs, the fresh air was nice. But that wasn’t the end of our problems. We get on this plane, a two seat, isle, three seats, and some how I managed to the get the middle. For some reason the guy next to me thought I was invisible and just decided I needed to have his leg in my lap and read a newspaper that was not in English. Eventually our prop plane (which is what Nicole called it) is about to start and here comes a KLM technician aboard. I guess the door wouldn’t shut; I couldn’t see all the detail because they closed the curtain, as if that was supposed to be reassuring. The worst part was when the two moron flight attendants start pulling on it halfway during our one hour and five minute flight to Copenhagen (Kopenhavn).
Anyways, we arrived around 5pm to our hotel (which makes it about noon back home) with virtually no sleep. We had our little welcome drink, meeting the twenty-eight people that we’ll be spending the next two weeks with. At dinner we made friends with these two Australian ladies, which we ended up hating in the end. They were the first people we told “our story” to, but of course they ended up mixing it all up and gossiping amongst the others. Everyone thought that Nicole was my mom’s and I was my dad’s or Nicole belonged to my parents and I was the tagalong or I was the daughter and Nicole was the niece and so on and so forth. I don’t think it was ever straightened out. Elden (the husband of Marilyn, the stories I could tell…) came up to us a few days before the trip was over to straighten it out. He said he didn’t understand how I was the daughter because I never talked and he just assumed that I didn’t talk because I didn’t have a relative to cling on to. If only he knew…
Apparently, it never gets dark in Scandinavia during the summer. I was told we would have black curtains. Well, we had curtains, transparent ones and a sheet like one. The light that seeped in was just unacceptable for us Florida girls so we made it dark. I think that was just the start of trouble there, but who knew. We took our comforters and draped them over the windows. Actually I put the lamp on top of the chair and draped it over that and the TV. Needless to say there are no air conditioners in most European countries and since we basically shut off all communication of our opened windows, we suffocated.
Eventually the next day arrives and at 8:30am we have our tour of Copenhagen. We saw the Church of Our Savior, and the Stock Exchange on our way to the Christiansburg Palace. We had to wear slippers over our shoes so we wouldn’t disturb the floors. We went to see the Little Mermaid from Hans Christen Anderson’s story. Chris (our guide) told us not to climb on the rocks because the water is slightly cold. Do you think my parents, specifically my dad, think anything of this? I had to climb down on those rocks, with my dad saying, “Just a little closer Samara. I can’t quite get you in the picture.” Finally my sneakers and all reach the wonderful cold water. Very pleasant. They just thought that was the most amusing thing that could happen. We then went to the Royal Palaces (the Queen, her mum, her son’s and the guest house) and in between the two sets, there was a marble church but it’s not made out of marble. There are of course guards walking around and the tourists we are, we just had to get our pictures taken, rain and all. You’re supposed to stand an arm’s length away, but they’re much friendly than the British guards. They smile and actually look into the camera. We walked through the royal gardens and on our way to lunch.
After lunch, we took an optional tour to the Rosenborg Castle, had a tour, and were then lead down to the basement to see the crown jewels which aren’t as spectacular as England’s. Nicole was all excited that she got to see the crown she’d wear if she married the Prince of Denmark, mind you that the youngest prince is already married and has two children. This palace actually had the friendliest guards. I don’t remember what Nicole and I were doing, I just know my dad was standing in the guy’s line and I pushed him. He just kept on walking and laughing at us. Totally unacceptable. When we left, we saw the Queen’s motorcade (and she refused to stop, how rude). She was supposed to meet the King of Sweden at 3pm for the opening of the 10km bridge connecting the two countries.
Our next visit was to the Resistance museum that was a memorial for those involved in World War II in Denmark. That night we went to the Tivoli Gardens. It’s basically an amusement park that you pay about 45 krones to get in and then a zillion more to go on rides. We decided that this was the place were Walt Disney got his idea since there are so many similar connections. We watched this mime show (no words, so that everyone could understand it) and by then it was time to leave.
Exhausted, we tried to go to bed, but need we forget that there was this opening of some bridge and a huge celebration going on right outside our hotel. There ended up being fireworks, nothing you’ve ever seen. It was like the grand finale for fifteen minutes. Luckily, our room was facing them so Nicole and I never had to leave the comfort of our room in our pajamas. We considered it our 4th of July celebration that was three days early.
On July 2nd we started our day out at 8:45am. Our first stop was at Hillerford and saw the Fredriksborg Castle. It was a royal residence built in the 1600s and a famous brewer 300 years ago decided to make it into a museum (after it was burnt down). There were some ducks outside that we stopped to feed afterwards. They had these little babies that were so cute. We made a quick stop to take a picture of Fredensborg Palace, but we didn’t go in.
We took this ferry (our coach just drove right on it) across the Sound to Hälsingbord in Sweden. We saw the Kronborg Castle in Elsinore from the top of the ship. Smart Samara left her sweater in the coach so we didn’t stay on top for too long. It was actually our shortest boat, I mean ship, ride.
There wasn’t much to do after we arrived at our hotel in Huskvarna, although we did actually have air conditioning. We went for a walk after dinner (which I didn’t eat) to this dock. It’s amazing how clean the water is. I could see right down and see every outline of every rock. It was fresh water and Nicole took a sip. Something I could never imagine doing at home, fresh water or not. Of course, Nicole also started jumping on the wooden dock thinking that was just the funniest thing ever and there are all these warning signs not in English around it. I think we got back in the hotel around 11pm and we still had our sunglasses on.
The next day we spent most of the time traveling to Stockholm. We made little stops, like one at a castle in Vadstena, stopped for lunch in Örebno and finally we visited King Gustav Vasa’s Gripsholm castle. It was basically a portrait museum; actually, it was a portrait museum. There are about 400 portraits in Sweden and most of them are housed there. When you walk in, you se a giant picture of the royal family today from 1985. Now the oldest princess is 23 and the prince is 20, which is a much more suitable age for Nicole, not to mention he’s slightly more attractive.
We spent the evening roaming around town, which was a good thing because it saved us time the next day. We walked about six inches on our city map, which was over the bridge.
On July 4th, our group was dressed in red, white and blue. I guess it was sort of sweet showing our wonderful spirit for Independence Day. This one couple gave Nicole and me American flags to carry around and both of them had on these tacky American flag polo shirts. There was no denying we were Americans, esp. since they put more flags all around the bus. We had a city tour that morning, making our first stop at the City Hall. There is this one room that is entirely made of mosaic tiles, which are 24kt gold. There are exactly 50 women and 51 men separated in the left party/environmental party/right party.
Then we took another additional tour to see the Wasa Ship Museum. The ship itself is more than 300 years old and five stories high. Before we went in, we passed by the Royal Palace (missed my chance to have my picture taken with a guard, thank goodness) and went to see Sweden’s smallest statue. The rest of the day was ours so we continued walking around the city to parts we hadn’t been the day before.
On our way back to the hotel, at the end of the bridge we had to walk over before, we saw this crowd of people. We had seen them the day before but didn’t bother to stop. Today we did. Some guy came up to us and started talking a mile a minute in Swedish until he realized we didn’t speak it and started laughing. It’s just amazing how they can switch from one language to another without even thinking about it. Of course, if America started a foreign language at the age of five, I think it wouldn’t be so fascinating. Anyway, he went to find out what was going on for us and it turned out the Backstreet Boys were recording their new album here (since it was a recording studio). He told us they were there last week signing autographs so we decided we’d stick around a little while.
Needless to say, I don’t know what they look like (meaning if they passed me in the street I probably wouldn’t notice them as well as say, I don’t know, Herman’s Hermits ;}), but fear not, Nicole did. There was this big van in front of the door, but it was open and standing there was Nick Carter, playing some game. He never once waved, came out, nothing. I just know the people who were guarding it kept yelling at the girls who were trying to sneak in, in another language. At one point, Nick’s mom and we’re assuming a relative of Howie’s left to get them dinner, and we left shortly after we came back. I felt so bad for the girls. Here they were, wasting their time to get one quick photo of a bunch of guys who could careless, just as long as they buy their cds. We made friends with this one set (who thought my dad was a paparazzi, it was so funny) of girls and I told them to tell my dad who they saw. They had been out there since eleven that morning and this was the first time they had seen any of the members (and only four of the five were there). When we were leaving we saw all these girls coming up with sleeping bags and pillows, which is when we really decided it wasn’t worth our time. I’m not sure why I thought a boy band would actually have hearts and say hello to their fans, it’s not like they were doing anything important :O
The next morning we stopped in Sigtuna and saw Sweden’s oldest telephone booth (called Rikstelefon) and passed by an archeological dig and the town hall. Then we went to the oldest university town, Uppsala and went to the Gothic cathedral. Eventually we made it to the older part of town where the burial mounds where and the oldest church for Protestants was located. Before we went to the hotel, we stopped at a horse-making place in Dalarna. It was now in the hands of the second generation and they would make these wood horses (along with roosters, pigs, clocks, and shoes) and paint them. I got a pair of wooden clogs, size 43 (for some reason I grew a size – actually, I think the Scandinavian sizes were actually smaller than most Europeans styles).
This was the greatest hotel. We had tours going all night. You walk in and you see this couch which folds out into a bed, then you see two twin beds pushed together (the big joke between Nicole and me was the fact that we weren’t comfortable sleeping so close together). If you keep walking you see this extra room (we just thought we were lucky to be right next to the elevator) for children. It has trees and mushrooms painted on the walls, three tree stumps, one really large serving as a table and two small ones for chairs. It was set up for a tea party, had a picnic basket full of toys, and a tent/bed set up. I put all the puzzles together, they’re missing a few pieces and I did sleep there that night. Actually, I had Nicole collapse the tent on me first, but it was actually the darkest night I got, considering I had the tent closed and the blinds shut. Sleeping six inches off the ground isn’t necessarily the most comfortable thing, but I had three pillows and seemed to manage.
We left Dalarna on July 6th and went to Norway. We made little stops, like one at some pole that looked like a May pole and eventually arrived in Lillehammer. We went “into” and open air museum and had a tour of about three individual houses. These houses had grass growing on the roofs, which keeps them warm in the winter and cool during the summer. Then we went into the closed part of the museum, which takes you through the generations of Norway, until you reach today, which is covered in modern artwork. I should really get a job over there. I mean, how hard is it to paint a 36in x 36in piece of canvas blue?
Then we went to the Olympic Museum and saw one of the two arenas. We then walked up a million stairs to get to the ski lift, which isn’t as exciting as it sounds, although the high altitudes are slightly colder than those on the ground. We saw one guy do several dry ski jumps. They had porcelain rollers that you slide down on to get speed and eventually land in a grass field.
This was actually the hotel Nicole broke her toe in. She thought she broke it before we even left, but that was the last we heard about it (in the car to the airport). Smart Nicole decided to stand on this chair (mind you we’re not on a ship which has its furniture bolted to the ground) in order to cover the window. Well it slipped from underneath here and all I remember is seeing these feet flying in the air and having this thud on my bed. She landed right between the two beds, pushing them off the frame. Of course I was in hysterical laughter, and so was she until she sat up and saw the bone of her toe sticking straight up. The skin wasn’t broken but it was just as gross.
We made a bunch of little stops again, one in Ravm and one in Lom that had a church that we didn’t go into. We had our first encounter with snow during lunch. It's quite cold, esp. with no mittens and a sweater on. When we couldn’t feel our hands any more we stopped, except Nicole gave me another pile to throw at my dad. I have terrible aim, but I did manage to get it right in the middle of his forehead. He was anything but happy. Then we drove up through the hills until we got to this mountain, Dalsinbba, and we drove up the 1500m. We reached the top, which was extremely cloudy, and as we were about to leave we saw actual snow falling.
Then we drove back down the mountain to another one where we stopped to take a picture of the Geiranger fjord (water that leads to the ocean at some point) that we were going to be riding on. It was so funny because I was doing my wonderful beadwork and all these cute Japanese ladies would stop behind me, as if I couldn’t see them, and watch. My wonderful dad told me they were trying to copy the pattern and sell it cheap back home. Real nice. I thought they wanted to talk to me, but considering I don’t speak their language and they don’t speak mine, that never happened. We stayed at in Olden, the Fjord hotel.
We left at 9am and stopped at a store that sold wool sweaters, not that we need any here in Florida. We followed the shoreline of Nordfjord to Utvik and then crossed the mountains to Vatedalen Valley. We made a stop to pet goats that really wanted to go on the bus. On our war to where ever, there would be herds of them in the middle of the road holding up traffic (since they have very strict laws on protecting animals, where as a human, Samara, could get run over by a bike and it would be her fault).
On our way to the Norwegian Glacier museum, we passed the actual glacier, Jostedalsbreen, the largest in Europe. Pieces of it fall off daily we just happened to be there at the right time to watch it fall off. They had a bunch of ice displays, a thing on Otiz (the Stone Age man), digging holes in ice, making ice (which we proceeded to put down our friends shirts), and then a little display of what it is like in a glacier. Then we watched a twenty-minute film.
Again we made a few more view stops, one at a grocery store and then arrived at the boat we were taking across the fjord (two hours) to Gudvangen. I was told that the mountains (which are covered with waterfalls) that surround the water could approximate the actual depth of the water. Then we climbed a huge mountain to Stalheim where we stayed. This would have been the hotel with no TV. It was also the one where Nicole tried to walk on the roof and made me read her stories until she fell asleep. Oh, and it was also the one where she made me take a shower in the dark (since the lights are located on the outside) and tried to be funny imitating Star Wars.
By now we’re done with the first week that is when I seriously could have used a belt. I could barely keep my pants up because I wasn’t eating. I had about twenty new parents on my case and by the end of our stay I had to actually use safety pins to keep them on.
We got up at 6:15am and left at 7:45. Our first stop was in Flåm. We took a train to Myrdal, making a quick stop at this huge waterfall, and waited for twenty minutes to catch the next train. There was this incredibly cute white dog. It really didn’t bother me that this dog could have bit my nose off, but I taught it to give me its paw (and it only gives it right, not nearly as talented as my dog Fudge who gives them both to you) in English. Then the owner, a little girl, came and she had no idea what we were asking her. I found that people in Norway didn’t know English as well as the Danes and no where near as well as the Swedes. All we got from her was the dog’s name was Natasha. When the train arrived, it brought us to Voss.
We spent two hours driving through mountains and tunnels (one was 11.4 km) until we reached Bergen at two where we had another tour. We went to Troldhaugen, which is the home of Edvard Grieg (a pianist, the “Voice of Norway”). We saw the museum, a movie, his house (three rooms), the opera house (closed) and his gravesite. He and his wife, Nina, who lived twenty-eight years more than he, not to mention childless, are both in there. The rest of the time was ours which is when we went shopping, but not for very much.
Waking up the next morning was a pain. The phone was across the room and I knocked it off the hook, yet it still kept ringing. Then the tv came on and it kept getting louder and louder. The night before I had thrown them on the floor to keep Nicole from turning it on and off which was no help that morning. Then my mom had me walking to this “Antik” store to see this beaded bag that she expects me to make her.
Our first stop of the day was at Steindelfsfabsew (a waterfall) and then we went to Kvanndal to Utne by ferry across the Hardanger fjord, eating lunch in Odda. Then we went to the Latefoss waterfall, a waterfall split in to. On our way there, we had passed the Folgeforn glacier and then over a mountain covered in snow, my very last for the trip. Our hotel was in the middle of nowhere, but we did have fun that evening chasing sheep. Apparently they’re not nearly as friendly as the goats, and they wear bells. I don’t even want to know what their owners (who saw us) were thinking.
As you know, people usually make wake up calls in order to get up in the morning. Well most of ours were arranged at certain times, some would just be static, others would be recordings or actual people. One of them was a rooster (which I was unaware of, even though I was the one who had to answer the phones every morning, I just usually picked them up and put them back down again), or so my mom told me. Nicole got this bright idea to crow like a rooster as a wake up call for some of our friends (just the two couples from Minnesota). They never said a word, even though they’re the only ones who actually got two wake up calls, one real, one Nicole.
We stopped at Vemork in the morning and had a tour of the hydroelectric power place (which produces heavy water) where we watched a movie called “If Hitler had the bomb.” It showed how the Heroes (7) of Telemark saved the plant from Germany after three tries. We had lunch in Fossen and fifteen minutes away we went to the Heddal Stave church, the largest remaining medieval wooden churches in Norway. Then we drove for two hours to Oslo. It rained most of the day and the guy at the front desk was very protective over the phone book. We ended up eating at T.G.I. Friday’s (American Bistro) for dinner. Quite an experience, not nearly as many choices as far as food is concerned, but they did have about 5 pages of drinks. We then went shopping for shoes, but unfortunately, everything was a size 41 or under and most of them ranged in prices of $100 to $300 so we didn’t think it was worth our time.
Our next day in Oslo started out with a city tour. We went to the Frogner Park and saw some of Gustav Vigeland’s bronze and granite sculptures (193 total). Most of them (I think all but four) were all nude. He wanted to show humans as they were, both the positive and negative sides of life. Then we went to the City Hall and the Resistance museum in the Akershus Fortress.
We had about a two-hour break, where we found a bead store. After our wonderful spending habits, we went on an optional tour to see two 1,000-year-old Viking ships (one was buried for a Queen in 843) and Flam, a 100-year-old primitive ship used for Artic expeditions (that we went into and I repeatedly hit my head on the ceiling). They had a ton of stuffed animals in and around the museum. I never realized how soft, or rather that seals had so much hair. Then we walked to the Thor Heyerdahis vessels, the Ra II made from papyrus and the Kon-Tiki, made from wood. When we left we had to walk “into the sea”, which basically had more stuffed animals, this time a bunch of sharks, fish, eels, and a whale shark hanging.
The next day we stopped at a store on the border of Norway and Sweden to spend any loose Norwegian coins. Then we stopped at a tax refund place and I think we had more problems there than any other place on the trip (ignoring the inconsistent rotations we had, mainly cause by the two Australian ladies, but I won’t get into that). On our way to Gothenburg, we stopped to take a picture of a lake. Then we got into the city and stopped in the town square, which has a Poseidon water fountain. The big attraction there was the shopping mall, which is the largest indoor shopping mall in Scandinavia.
July 14th was another bum day. We were supposed to leave at 9:30am from the dock. We had to wait forever because the ship that was leaving to Germany was two hours late. The three-hour ride to Denmark was extremely smokey. Being in America, you really don’t realize how good you have it concerning smoking. You have a choice where you site and most places are smoke free. Everyone smokes, no matter what age. When we arrived on land we went to an open-air museum for less than an hour, because they closed at six, and we had that really bad delay. Our guide was so upset. We covered about one street, going into an inn, a clock maker’s shop and a hat shop. It was like walking through life size dollhouses.
Our last day in a foreign country was actually busy. Remember those wake up calls? Well Nicole was supposed to do it everyday from there on out but never remembered. Today I made a point of making sure she did. She called Jack and Sharon’s room twice, getting each one to answer. This time she just said “This is your wake up call”. Never rely on Nicole to hold up a joke. At breakfast, since they were sitting with my parents, Nicole asked my mom how many wake up calls she got, of course just one. Jack heard her and got all fluster and kept saying “We got three!” I don’t have a problem keeping a straight face but my partner in crime just started laughing. It took Sharon some time to realize why, but they honestly had no idea. The whole reason Nicole didn’t want to actually deliver a real message was because we assumed they would figure out the voice.
Our first stop was at a church in Jelling, which was closed. They had this really pretty cemetery, all the graves had perfect hedge fences. I think most of them were actually cremated since the squares were entirely too short to house bodies. Then we went to Hans Christian Anderson’s museum in Odense. They had a live play of all his stories going outside. I didn’t quite understand why the narrator would start out in Danish, English and French and then the story would only be told in Danish. We got to our hotel at 3pm.
It took forever to decide, but we ended up taking a walk, which led us to a bus station. We weren’t going to take it because it was supposed to take twenty minutes to find, switch and what not, but twenty minutes doesn’t actually seem that long when you’re walking. Taking city buses can lead people in the wrong part of town. Actually, just parts a tour would never take you. I actually though that the Scandinavian countries were the cleanest on earth, until we drove into places where you couldn’t even see the natural color of a wall, just graffiti.
When we saw everyone getting off, we just followed and some guy told us that we were at the Grand Central station. It took us a while (walking around an entire block) to realize where we were – Tivoli Gardens. We walked down the pedestrian street so Nicole could get her college t-shirt. She refuses to get it when we see it the first time, she was just really lucky this time. Then, on our way back to the hotel, we encountered our problems. It’s really annoying when no one listens to you. Generally I am used to it, but when I know I’m right and it means getting home before it gets dark (and as I stated before, it never gets dark there), I might be worth listening to. I wanted to cross the eight lanes of traffic to catch the bus that was going in the direction of the hotel, my parents wanted to go the other way. “But Samara, you never know your way around home, why should we trust you here?” I suppose that’s true, but it was the second time I was right (the third time would have been on our way back in the airport), but I’m not going to rub it in. We did eventually get on the right bus, waited to catch the other bus who knew exactly where we wanted to go and announced (only because it was us and this old man) when to get off.
Our shuttle to the airport the following day wasn’t scheduled until 11:45am. We just wasted a bunch of time, and some how Nicole and I managed to get lost, even though we knew where we were the entire time (in Lyle and Marilyn’s room). They like to talk and talk and talk for about an hour, meanwhile we didn’t bother to tell anyone where we were. My parents, the people that they are, started freaking out and had everyone that was left from our group (except the people we were with) looking for us. The had the two bus drivers drive around town looking for us and when we walked out of that room, eep, you didn’t want to be there.
Eventually we caught our flight to Amsterdam at 1:15. I actually had a window seat this time. It’s amazing how different one country looks from the next. I could immediately tell that we weren’t in Denmark anymore as soon as I saw the water. Flying over Danish waters, it was blue, I could see thru the cloudy window (without my glasses) at the bottom, the drift nets, you name it. As soon as we got close to the Netherlands, the water was green and brown, very cloudy. Our next flight was at 4:05pm to Memphis and I think we got there around six. We had to wait an hour to pick up our bags, go through our poor excuse for customs, drop off our bags, go upstairs and back downstairs to pick it up again and finally check in. Our flight to Orlando didn’t leave until 8:55pm, making us arrive at the airport around 11:45pm. Nicole noticed these boys, I’m not sure why she chose them, but she did, and they ended up following us all the way home. I don’t think we could have confused them anymore. My mom tried explaining that we were in the process of changing the money appearance and they got all flustered, thinking the old money that they had was no longer usable. Eventually, we arrived home, safe and sound, at 2:30 in the morning.
