To say that we had a fabulous time would be an understatement. I want to chronicle our adventures but without boring anyone. So if your not up for a little light reading just scroll down to the pictures and search your own imagination for a explanation. Honestly, it might be better than what I can do. It's hard to remember the names of all the places we saw but I'll do my best. Obviously, these are only a handful of our pictures but I'd be here all night if I did any more.
This is not a timeline, it's just how the pictures were loaded. This first picture is of me ( get used to it, this vacation was all about me as Dirk was the photographer). This was the view from my Aunt's apt. 6 floors up. / The bridge in the background is one of two that Dirk and I ran over it. This bridge happens to be the one you run over during the Stockholm marathon...hmmmmm, that could be fun??? /The stairs to the left are the ones in my Aunt's bldg. I proudly boast that I didn't use the elevator once. Dirk and I climbed these everyday, taking every other step of course. One day instead of running (because of bad weather), we ran these 5 times, then treated ourselves at the bakery around the corner. /3rd pic is a view from our apt. Dirk and I had our own apt while we were in Stockholm. Nice! /Sorry a duplicate. /This next one is my mom cousins house we stayed at in the south of Sweden a typical looking home. Homes are either red, white, blue, yellow or a combination of those colors. Sweden is like living in a postcard. Absolutely beautiful./ Little A was everywhere!/ My Aunt E., my mom and my 90 yr old Morfar! /Me!, enjoying our crayfish feast. A typical Aug. tradition, delicious. /Family, my cousins on the end, Aunt, mom, Uncle, his wife. /Castles, castles, everywhere, we went to three. / Small cars are everywhere but in Denmark we saw this one, it was my favorite. If they are not driving tiny cute cars, people usually bike everywhere, it is very typical to bike or walk to work. / Random countryside picture./Three of my 4 Swedish cousins. The fourth is above in the green shirt./ Before Sweden, we spent the day in NYC with hubby's brother and his family. Had a great time visiting. Their children did awesome walking everywhere. It was great to see them. That night we also saw Wicked! It was incredible. So glad we treated ourselves to that. It was worth it. /The third from the end is my mom's cousin and her husband. The white house above is theirs. That's the house we stayed in while we were down south. /Hubby chowing down on crayfish.
Okay, so that's a brief explanation of the pictures, hopefully I didn't confuse you too much. We flew into Copenhagen, Denmark and spent 2 days there. Then took the train to Angelholm, Sweden. We spent 6 days there before we took another train(a 6 hour ride) to Stockholm. We traveled by car, boat, train, bus and plane but I think we logged more miles with our feet! (just kidding) We walked everywhere in Stockholm. Everyone does. One quick lesson you learn real fast is to always bring a light coat and your umbrella. It rained everyday we were in Sweden. The only days it didn't rain on our vacation was while we were in Denmark. It would rain and then clear up, or vise versa. You definitely don't let the weather stop you from doing anything. Hubby thought there were a lot of tall people there ( just not in my family) he said he actually felt short! One of my favorite highlights, besides the food, was the old buildings. Their history is so much older than ours. The buildings in Stockholm are just beautiful, They are just so ornate with so much character. The apts can be quite small and if you have ever been to an Ikea (pronounced E Kea not I) and have walked through their showrooms, that will give you a perfect example of city living. We ate well and everyone took very good care of us. We were definitely spoiled there. It was hard leave. Flying SAS was fantastic, 2 hot meals, a snack and even a warm washcloth. Everyone had their own tv screen to watch movies. AA, our domestic flight, was so generic compared to it. All we got was a drink, all snacks had to be purchased. The days of free peanuts or pretzels are long gone. I noticed that if you booked your flight after June you even had to pay for your first piece of luggage! Our flight back to Sacramento was an adventure in itself. First we had a layover in Newark so we got a hotel. So my advice, don't try to go cheap to save a buck. We stayed at the Howard Johnson's by the airport. Yuck! It was supposed to be "smoke free". I think that meant feel free to smoke all you want. While checking for bedbugs, ( just had to make sure) I found a bra under the mattress! The mattress was like sleeping on wooden planks. As we were just about to go to bed, early, because we were 8 hours ahead, there was a knock at the door. A maintenance guy wants to install a microwave. At 5:30 at night? Whatever. He wasn't in there long but he left more than the microwave when he left. He had the worst body odor I have ever encountered. I wanted to vomit. Seriously. Luckily, I had perfume that I sprayed all over the room. We tired to sleep but not very successfully, so we just got up a little after 3am and got out of there. We waited in the airport instead. Once we got in the air we ended up being diverted to another airport, after circling for an hour, because the airport closed because of bad weather. We needed to refuel and there was a mechanical problem they need to look at. We sat on the airplane for 6 hours in Wichita Falls, Tx waiting for a mechanic to come check it out. After a few hours we were able to leave and go to the terminal but it was such a small airport it only had vending machines so we just decided to just stay on the plane and eat our crackers and Toblerone we brought. Thankfully after arriving in Dallas we were able to get a connecting flight only a couple hours later. So after spending 24 hours (not completely consecutive) on an airplane we finally arrived home! That was a happy moment! If you're still with me, hopefully, I haven't bored you too much. Yesterday, we took the kids to beach and had a great day. I hope it won't take too long to post those pictures but my computer has been having some problems and everything is taking a really long time. We will see what I have the patience for.
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