Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Whew...I've probably slept in more beds this past month than any other past month of my life! ;) It has been a lot of fun not having any responsibility for a while, though. It will take me a while to catch up to now. This is part I in a series.
First off: Scandinavia. We (me, Ryan, his dad and stepmom) flew out of JFK to Copenhagen on the evening of June 1. Since I hate being stuck in one seat for a long time, I was worried that the trans-Atlantic flight was going to make me go insane, but our airline, KLM, had a huge selection of movies, TV, and music that you could access with your own TV screen. We had a layover in Amsterdam (my first stamp in my passport!), then got to Denmark in the "morning". I couldn't sleep more than 10 minutes on the plane, so for the little bit of Copenhagen we saw that day, I was grumpy and wanted to sleep. But in order to get our sleep schedules on track, we tried to stay up as late as we could. Which, for me, was 4:30 pm.
One day was spent exploring downtown Copenhagen: botanical gardens, citadel, royal palace, and boat tour of the canals. My favorite was by far the canal tour...I love being out on the water.
The next day we drove to Stockholm, which took about 7 hours. We walked around the city a lot that night, mostly looking for a restaurant. Of course, we ended up picking one within a block of our hotel. Most of the restaurants we went to were tasty, though really expensive. What would be a $15 meal in the US would be about $35 there!
On our full day in Stockholm we explored the big islands and went to a bunch of museums. Sweden's royal palace was the best one of the three countries we visited; I'd have to say that was my favorite thing in Stockholm.
The next day was another long drive, to Oslo. The next day we took a day trip to Lillehammer to see the Olympic park. They had a decent museum there, and the view from the hill at the top of the ski jump was nice. It took 3 times longer than we expected to drive there, though- in
Scandinavia, an interstate is just a 2-lane road with a speed limit of about 50 mph.
We spent two days in the Oslo area, mainly going to museums. Then we drove out to the city of Bergen, which is out on a fjord on the coast. What we thought would be a 3 hour drive turned into an 8.5 hour one because of the narrow, winding road through the mountains. The scenery was really amazing, though, so I actually really enjoyed the drive. There were something like 53 tunnels between Oslo and Bergen, including one that was about 15 miles long.
On our day in Bergen it rained off and on, but we went on a sightseeing boat tour of a fjord anyway, and then to the aquarium afterward. Then we had to wake up early the next morning for the long drive back to Oslo. After one last night in Oslo, we flew back to JFK. Customs was long and annoying.
That brings me back to the US. More on my week off and first day(s) of work later.
First off: Scandinavia. We (me, Ryan, his dad and stepmom) flew out of JFK to Copenhagen on the evening of June 1. Since I hate being stuck in one seat for a long time, I was worried that the trans-Atlantic flight was going to make me go insane, but our airline, KLM, had a huge selection of movies, TV, and music that you could access with your own TV screen. We had a layover in Amsterdam (my first stamp in my passport!), then got to Denmark in the "morning". I couldn't sleep more than 10 minutes on the plane, so for the little bit of Copenhagen we saw that day, I was grumpy and wanted to sleep. But in order to get our sleep schedules on track, we tried to stay up as late as we could. Which, for me, was 4:30 pm.
One day was spent exploring downtown Copenhagen: botanical gardens, citadel, royal palace, and boat tour of the canals. My favorite was by far the canal tour...I love being out on the water.
The next day we drove to Stockholm, which took about 7 hours. We walked around the city a lot that night, mostly looking for a restaurant. Of course, we ended up picking one within a block of our hotel. Most of the restaurants we went to were tasty, though really expensive. What would be a $15 meal in the US would be about $35 there!
On our full day in Stockholm we explored the big islands and went to a bunch of museums. Sweden's royal palace was the best one of the three countries we visited; I'd have to say that was my favorite thing in Stockholm.
The next day was another long drive, to Oslo. The next day we took a day trip to Lillehammer to see the Olympic park. They had a decent museum there, and the view from the hill at the top of the ski jump was nice. It took 3 times longer than we expected to drive there, though- in
Scandinavia, an interstate is just a 2-lane road with a speed limit of about 50 mph.
We spent two days in the Oslo area, mainly going to museums. Then we drove out to the city of Bergen, which is out on a fjord on the coast. What we thought would be a 3 hour drive turned into an 8.5 hour one because of the narrow, winding road through the mountains. The scenery was really amazing, though, so I actually really enjoyed the drive. There were something like 53 tunnels between Oslo and Bergen, including one that was about 15 miles long.
On our day in Bergen it rained off and on, but we went on a sightseeing boat tour of a fjord anyway, and then to the aquarium afterward. Then we had to wake up early the next morning for the long drive back to Oslo. After one last night in Oslo, we flew back to JFK. Customs was long and annoying.
That brings me back to the US. More on my week off and first day(s) of work later.
