El Salvador

Lars and I had the best time in El Salvador!  After we booked this trip, I realized that I haven't been to visit El Salvador in 18 years!  Way too long in my opinion.  I had prepared Lars for El Salvador the best I knew how, teaching him a few Spanish words and letting him know that my family was super nice and very gracious.  And here's how it went!

Day 1: Thanksgiving!  I didn't realize how many people travel for Thanksgiving so I was really glad we had Pre-Check as we cruised through security.  We had two flights and got to El Salvador in the evening.  We had dinner, hung out with my parents and grandparents, and then called it an early night as it had been a long day of traveling.

Day 2: When Lars and I travel, one of the important things to us is the food.  If we don't enjoy thefood where we visit, we aren't going to be super interested in going back (like Morocco!).  So our day started with a typical El Salvadorean breakfast that we loved!  Honestly, we loved all the food we had during our visit!  I've been to El Salvador twice before this trip so I wasn't worried about the food, I already knew I'd love it but I was concerned about Lars.  I shouldn't have been though, he thought everything we had was really good.

After breakfast, we hung out with my parents and grandparents while we were waiting for my parents' luggage to come in as it had gotten lost.  It didn't come that day (it took another two days to get there) but we were hoping it would.

Me and my parents.

 After waiting, we went out to lunch with my Aunt Doris.  We had the most amazing view as it was a restaurant that was on a volcano.  And once again, the food was delicious!

View from lunch.  Isn't it so pretty?

Lunch with Lars, my parents, and my Aunt Doris.

After lunch, we went to the volcano.  This was my first real volcano experience and it was breathtaking!  There were people selling fruit on the trail to the viewpoint so my dad bought some passion fruit.  I had never had passion fruit directly from the fruit before but I enjoyed it and so did Lars.  In fact, this was Lars' favorite part of the trip as seeing the volcano was nothing like he had imagined it would be, even the photos don't do it justice.

We visited a volcano.

Lars eating passion fruit at the volcano.  It was delicious but very messy.

After the volcano, we went back to town and visited my family's bakery.  It was really impressive to see all the machinery and work that goes into what they make there! 

We then went back to my grandparents' house, had dinner, and went to bed.  It was a fun day and while my Spanish is limited, I was starting to get back some of what I knew.  I could definitely understand more than I could speak though.

Day 3: Whenever Lars and I had some spare time, we spent it in my grandparents' backyard.  It was so peaceful and so pretty, we couldn't help but admire it!

My grandparents' backyard.

My dad with his parents.

Today we went to Ataco with a lot of my family.  One of our first stops was this area where we got some drinks and some food.  I don't remember what it was called but no surprise, we loved it.  

This was delicious although I don't remember what it was called.

Once we finished our snack, we walked along the streets of Ataco.  We stopped at a food market right by the church and park and then walked along looking for murals.  (While we also did some shopping, of course!)  Ataco is known for their murals and for good reason!  They're so colorful, detailed, and impressive!

My family in Ataco.

My dad told me all churches are near parks, this was a classic example.

Food market.

One of the beautiful murals they have in Ataco.

Another gorgeous mural.

What a view!

After walking along the streets we took a tour through the streets of Ataco.  It was fun to get that perspective and really cool!

On a bus tour around Ataco!

Ataco.

View on our tour.

We then went shopping along the streets on our way back to our van.  I found a few items I wanted and my dad, true to form, found some more fruit he bought.  (Seriously, he bought fruit pretty much everywhere we went, haha.)

Day 4:  Today we went to the coast to visit the fish market and have lunch by the ocean.  I was so entranced by the fish market though, that I forgot to take any pictures!  We got some seafood for dinner though and let me tell you, fresh seafood is a favorite of mine!  At lunch, we had ceviche as an appetizer and it was the best ceviche I've ever had.  They also had some mini mariachi bands going around asking people if they wanted them to sing for them, for a price of course.  We had them sing to us for a bit and we loved it!

Ceviche we had at the coast.

Lunch by the coast with Lars, my parents, my Aunt Emely and my Uncle Pepe.

We then went back to my grandparents' house and got ready to have my Grandpa's 92nd birthday party.  All the family came over and we had dinner and a mariachi band even came over!  The party was my favorite part of our trip because all my family was there, we were celebrating my Papa Berto's birthday with a mariachi band, and it was so much fun!  I loved that Lars got to experience a mariachi band in person! He told me afterwards that he didn't realize how much fun a mariachi band is as videos do not do them justice.

Lars and I with my grandparents at my Grandpa's 92nd birthday celebration.

My grandparents and three of their children.

Mariachi band for my Grandpa's birthday.

We definitely ended the day on a high note with celebrating my Grandpa's birthday so grandly!

Day 5: Today was my Grandpa's actual birthday!  So we went to breakfast at Pizza Hut (we didn't actually have pizza though, it was a typical breakfast) and they sang to him there.

Birthday breakfast and singing at Pizza Hut.

The reason we celebrated with a party the day before was because we had reserved a room at a resort called Decameron for the night.  We left early afternoon and got to the resort, checked in, and immediately started to enjoy the view!

Decameron.

It was beautiful!

Can I go back?

Evening stroll along the beach.

It was such an amazing experience!  We couldn't get enough of the gorgeous view!  We had so much fun playing in the ocean that evening!  Unfortunately, I think I accidentally drank too much ocean water while playing, and after dinner I felt a little sick so Lars and I called it an early night.  

Day 6: I have officially decided that the best way to start any day, is by starting it by the beach.  Lars and I took a morning walk along the beach as we woke up early.  There's nothing quite like a morning stroll along a beautiful beach!

My favorite way to start a day is by a beach.

So of course we went for a walk.

We then met up with my family for breakfast.  And I'm not kidding, our view was fantastic!!

This was our view from breakfast.

We didn't have to check out until early afternoon so after breakfast we played in the ocean some more.  We had such a great time!  

On our way back to my grandparents' house, I was able to get some pictures of some of the normal things they have in El Salvador that we don't see here.  For example, they have mango trees everywhere, so I got a picture of a mango tree.  They also have a lot of sugar cane and fruit stands.  (Yes, my dad bought more fruit from these stands when we were stuck in traffic.)

There's a mango tree in this picture!  The one with red leaves is the mango tree.

Sugar cane in the background next to a fruit stand.

Once we got back, we of course had to tell my grandparents how much fun we had so we chatted with them.  We also found Ramona!  This turtle is my dad's childhood pet, so she's around 50 years old and still kicking.

My dad with Ramona, his childhood pet.

We headed back to the US the next morning (super early!).  It was such an amazing experience to go to El Salvador with my parents to visit my dad's family.  I've been wanting to take Lars there for years so I'm so happy that we were able to visit.  Every single thing about this trip was fantastic!  Lars and I loved our time with my family.  Everyone was so nice to Lars, whom they nicknamed, 'El Chepe,' and so welcoming to him!  He told me later that he didn't realize that when I told him my family was super generous, that they were actually going to be even more kind, generous, compassionate, and helpful than I had told him!  I love that he had that experience and I love that I was able to visit my family, it had been too long and I honestly cannot wait to go back.

Europe 2018: 10 Countries in 22 days

I think the best way to sum up this trip was that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and we truly enjoyed it!  We booked this cruise on our last cruise, the Mediterranean cruise, but we technically booked it for 2017 since the 2018 schedule wasn't out yet.  Once the 2018 schedule was out, in March 2017, we transferred the cruise to this one, the 14 day Baltic cruise leaving Amsterdam on May 1st.  So since we knew we were going to be doing this cruise about a year and a half in advance, we had plenty of time to plan and to recruit others to come with us.  It didn't require a lot of convincing, but our friends Torin and Pri came with us on our trip.  It seriously was fantastic!

Day 1:  We took an early flight to Oakland to visit my sister and her cute family.  We had about a 10 hour layover so we enjoyed the time we had with them by having homemade donuts for breakfast, catching up, Fuddruckers for lunch, and then exploring a nearby park and rose garden.  It has been about 10 months since I've seen her kids so the younger two took a little bit to get used to me again but it was so much fun to visit.  In the evening we got on our flight to Oslo.

Day 2:  We arrived in Oslo and waited f
or our next flight to Amsterdam.  We got in around 9 pm and Torin and Pri were waiting for us at the airport as they got in about an hour before we did.  We took the train to the city and then walked to our airbnb's.  It was funny because right after we started walking we could immediately tell that weed was legal.  We seriously could smell it everywhere!  It was funny at first but for that reason alone, I decided that I would not want to live in Amsterdam long term.  After checking in to our airbnb, we went to a nearby tapas restaurant for a late night dinner with our friends.  We made plans to meet up the next day and then went to bed.

Day 3: It took us all a bit to get up since we were all still jetlagged but after we did and we had breakfast, we went to our first hop on hop off of the trip.  To be honest, the hop on hop off was the worst one I've been on.  The line to get on the hop on hop off was about an hour and a half wait.  This meant that the buses were super crowded every time we got on.  It seemed like they booked more tickets for the hop on hop off than they could accommodate and that was frustrating.  We decided to walk through part of the city to one of the other stops, in the hope it might be less crowded.  On our way we found some amazing canals and had to take pictures.

You can tell it was raining but still so pretty!

This is how I imagined Amsterdam and it did not disappoint.

We got on the hop on hop off and made one full loop before we got off on a stop close to the Anne Frank House.  We walked to the Anne Frank House and were just in time for our scheduled appointment.  Unfortunately, there were school kids right behind us on our tour so that was very distracting as they were not as respectful as I felt they should be.  The Anne Frank House has an audio tour guide so you walk through the house and play different sections when you get to certain parts.  The area where Anne Frank and the others stayed was so small.  I knew that it would be going to be small but it was really impactful to be there in the room and realize how tiny it was and how much they went through trying to be safe.

After the Anne Frank House, we walked back to our airbnb to drop off some items and then headed to our canal cruise.  We had was a pizza, ice cream, with wine and beer.  We really enjoyed it as well! Our guide was funny, the food was good, and the view was amazing!

On our canal cruise.

Once we finished our canal cruise, we decided to do some souvenir shopping and take a leisurely stroll to the Ice bar.  We got to the Ice bar a bit early but they let us in early, which was nice.  They supplied us with gloves and coats but we were still so cold!  The glasses for our drinks were also made from ice so I'm sure that had something to do with it too.  It was fun and I'm glad we went but we couldn't stay for very long because of how cold it was.

Ice bar

We finished at the ice bar and I wanted to visit the red light district at night.  We weren't quite sure where it was exactly but we found it pretty easily as it was the most crowded part of Amsterdam at that time of night. We then walked back to our airbnb and called it a night.

Visiting the red light district.

Day 4: Today was a day that I will never forget for a couple reasons.  The first reason is that we went to Keukenhof, which is where they have the tulip gardens.  And it was one of my favorite parts of our trip because of how amazing it was!  I honestly think we were all saying, 'wow!' most of the time while we were there.  Our cruise left in the afternoon so we did this in the morning and I remember thinking that two hours would be plenty of time.  I think we did a lot during that time and I'm glad we did it but oh man, I wish we would have had more time there!  I mean honestly... look at the pictures!

Tulips

They were so gorgeous!

This was honestly one of my favorite places.

<3

I learned there is no such thing as too many tulips.

Me and Pri.

Me and Lars.  I sure do love him!~

Me with tulips.

Cute Lars.

Last picture of tulips, I promise!

After we got back from Keukenhof, we picked up our bags that we had stashed in the train station, and went to the cruise terminal.  While in line, we were talking about our passports and this was when we realized that Lars had lost his passport.  This is the other reason that I will never forget this day.  We searched through our bags and were told that we can't board without a passport.  Lars wanted me to go on the cruise without him but I didn't want to leave him.  I didn't get mad (there was no point), and instead, I went into problem solving mode and figured out we needed to go to the US Consulate to get a new passport.  We let our friends know that we'd meet them in the first port and we booked it to the Consulate.

At the Consulate, there was a really helpful employee there who told us they couldn't help us today but gave us a list of what we needed to do and that we could come back tomorrow at 10:30 and that we could have a new passport for Lars by 2:30 the same day.  We booked a hotel around the corner from the Consulate, dropped off our bags, and started working on the list.  We got Lars a new passport photo, then went and filed a police report.  Both of these items took a few hours so after we were done with this, we went back to our hotel and tried to figure out how we were going to get to the first port in Skagen, Denmark.  The internet connection wasn't great for doing that kind of research so thankfully I had a few people who I reached out to who helped me with the research on the best way to get to Skagen so all I had to do was book the travel.  I booked the flights and hotel I needed to book and then Lars and I went to dinner.  Dinner ended up being fairly late due to trying to resolve all the issues so we went to bed right after dinner.

Day 5: We woke up and headed straight to the Consulate for our appointment at 10:30.  We were let in and they had us wait while they reviewed his application.  There was another couple there who had their passports stolen so they were waiting for emergency passports as well.  After about an hour, they told us the passport was approved and to come back at 2:30 and the passport would be ready.  We left and went to a local grocery store to pick up lunch and then ate outside on a hill overlooking a small little park that was right by the Consulate.  While we were waiting, we found 70 euros just flying around, which was actually really cool to find that much money.

View while waiting for Lars' emergency passport.

We picked up Lars' emergency passport at 2:30.  The difference between his old passport and his emergency passport is that the emergency passport is only valid for 3 months, it doesn't have as many pages, and it states it's an emergency passport.  The first person we spoke to at the Consulate, when we turned in the application, told us that it was only promised to work for returning back to the US.  Since this was one of the first days of our vacation, that scared me a little as I wanted Lars to go on the rest of the vacation!  The lady who told us our application was approved however, was a lot more reassuring.  She told us that unfortunately, this happens a lot and countries see emergency passports all the time and she didn't think we'd have any issues.  

We left the Consulate and took the train to the airport for our first flight.  We flew into Copenhagen and then flew to Aalborg.  Aalborg is a really cute city and while we were only there for a short time, everyone we met was so nice and friendly!  Our hotel reception was supposed to close at 10 but they stayed and waited for us until we got there at 11:30 as our flight was delayed.  

Day 6: We woke up early and had the breakfast at the hotel and it was so good!  After our breakfast, we walked to the train station and took the train from Aalborg to Skagen.  It was about a two hour train ride during which we got to see a lot of the country of Denmark and we were really enjoying the view!  We got to Skagen and then headed toward the port.  We walked through the city and saw that Skagen had a lot of shopping areas, cute houses, and restaurants.  Once we found the port, security asked for our Seapass, which is how they identify you on the cruise.  We explained our situation and they checked with the ship to get clarification as they weren't told we were coming.  Security brought us to the ship and then we were welcomed onboard.  It was technically day 3 of the cruise but our first day.  We got onboard and immediately unpacked.  At this point, we were tired and hungry so we went to have lunch and then went to the hot tub in the adult pool area to relax for a few hours.  Our friends were in Skagen so we messaged them that we made it and that we'd see them when they got on board.  After the hot tub, we changed and then found our friends.  We had been so busy that I didn't realize how much I missed them until we saw them again!  It was good to see them and catch up!  We went to dinner at Izumi, the ship's sushi restaurant.  It was okay.  They didn't have avocado and didn't tell us either.  So Pri and I ordered rolls with avocado and were disappointed when we found out it wasn't available as we may have made different choices if we had known.  It definitely wasn't our favorite restaurant and we decided not to go back.  After dinner, we went to the show of the night, 'Now and Forever.'  They do this show on every cruise I've been on and I still love it every time.  I love musicals though and they perform Broadway musicals so that's probably why I love it so much.  After the show, we were tired as we had a long day so we went to bed.

Day 7: Our second day on the cruise but officially it was day 4 of the cruise and we were in Aarhus, Denmark today.  I honestly did not have high hopes for Aarhus as I had read that it depends on the weather but I was pleasantly surprised!  We got off the ship and bought a hop on hop off so we could get around the city and then walked to the nearby Aarhus cathedral.

Aarhus cathedral.

On our way there, we ran into the friendly tourist information volunteers.  They were all over the city to help out the cruise ship passengers with any questions they may have and we loved having them around!  After the cathedral, we went and had breakfast.  Then we went to the nearby Viking museum.  It was small but really interesting.  We learned that the Swedish and Danish, when they were Vikings, were rivals at first with Sweden taking some of Denmark over for a bit.  But then they joined forces and conquered together.  We then walked to the ARoS museum.  It is famous for the rainbow panoramic that you can walk through.  We decided to visit the museum.  I thought it was okay but it wasn't my favorite.  They had a lot of modern art there and modern art is not really my thing.  But I did enjoy the rainbow panoramic!  That was really cool.

View from the top of the ARoS museum.

There was a hop on hop off stop nearby the ARoS museum so we got on the hop on hop off there and had it take us to a castle.  It honestly didn't look like a castle though, it looked more like a fancy house.  So we took a few pictures and then headed back to the hop on hop off.  We made the wise decision to stop somewhere and get ice cream before heading back to the ship.  Oh my goodness.  I think we all agreed that it was the best ice cream we had ever had in our lives.  Seriously, amazing.  Once we got back to our ship, there was this marching band playing for us as we got on the ship.  It was the only place that did that and we thought it was awesome!  This is part of the reason we loved Denmark so much.  Everyone was so nice and helpful!  Aarhus was Lars' favorite port because of the people and the ice cream.

Cute marching band!

We got back to the ship and had our first evening in the dining room for dinner so we met our waiter and waitress and liked them immediately.  After dinner, the show of the night was a magic show.  It was very entertaining and one of our favorite shows we attended.  We then stopped by the '70's dance party that was happening in the centrum and danced the night away!  We had fun!

Day 8: Day 5 of the cruise and it was a day at sea.  One issue we have with longer cruises is that it attracts the older crowd which means that the cruise caters to that crowd in their activities.  So we sometimes struggled to find something we wanted to do.  But if we didn't see anything, we usually just grabbed some drinks and chatted.  Today we went to an art auction as they had free champagne.  After that, we went to see a movie in the cinema, Dunkirk.  None of us had seen it before and while I thought it was slow at the beginning, it hooked me and I enjoyed it by the end of the movie.  After the movie we went to dinner at Chops Grille.  Chops is my favorite specialty restaurant so I was super loving the dinner tonight.  Everything was exceptionally delicious!  We had to rush a tad bit through dessert as we wanted to do a movie music trivia but we made it work.  We did fairly well in the trivia and ended up tying for first with two other teams.  We were pretty happy about that.  They were having a Cinco de Mayo celebration in the centrum so we stopped by to watch.

Day 9: Day 6 of the cruise and we were in port at Tallin, Estonia.  Our day started out a bit stressful though as guest services called us stating that Estonian passport control wanted to see Lars' passport.  They claimed it was a random audit but given his new emergency passport, we were suspicious.  We found out that they asked to see Lars' passport specifically because when we registered originally, his old passport number was on the manifest and they didn't update it with his new number and when they were checking, they had questions about why his passport numbers didn't match.  All they asked the ship to do was to update the manifest and we were fine to leave.  It was fairly stressful though and one of the few times we got nervous about Lars' passport.

When we got off the ship, we went on a tour called 'Tallin Highlights.'  The first place we went was Tallin Song Festival Grounds.  Every 5 years, they hold an Estonia Song Festival here.  It is one of the largest amateur choral events in the world.

The Estonian song festival is held here.

We then drove around through some of the newer parts of Tallin and learned about their history.  This was where we learned that Estonia was another country that the Swedes took over for a bit.  At this point, Torin, Pri and I were chuckling and laughing at Lars, our resident Swede, and asking him if this was going to be a pattern for every country we went to.  We were then dropped off near a cathedral in Tallin where we started our walking tour.  We walked along the cobblestone streets and were rewarded with a lovely view of the city.

View of Tallin.

Happy to be together exploring the world!

While we were walking back to the bus, one of the guys on our tour fell and hit his head.  Pri is a nurse so she went to go help him and reassure him while our guide called the ambulance.  Thankfully, he was okay and I did see him back on the cruise later on.  

We opted to not go back to the ship right away and instead walked through old town to go to a medieval restaurant for lunch.  It had authentic food from the 15th century and was such a cool experience!  They were in character the whole time, calling us my lord, my lady, and calling the bubble wrap, dragon skin.  We were all chuckling over their terms.

At a medieval restaurant.

Once we got back to the ship, it was almost time for dinner.  The cruise had included a scary letter about Russia, our stop the next day, talking about how we have to bring our passports with us and if we lose them or get them stolen, we have to go to Moscow to go to the Consulate to replace it.  It was frightening so we went to the shops to get a passport holder to wear under our shirts.  While we were shopping, I started feeling sick and so I went back to the room and stayed there all night.  Thankfully, I felt better after a few hours but at that point, I went to bed.

Day 10: We were on Day 7 of our cruise and in St. Petersburg, Russia.  I was really excited about this port because it had some places that I'd been really wanting to visit.  We did have to go through passport control every time we went into Russia and on our way back but they only stamped it once on our way in and once on the way out.  

Our first tour was to visit part of the city and we visited and went inside the Church of the Savior on Blood.  On the tour we also found out that Sweden had taken over St. Petersburg port for some time as they were trying to control all of the Baltic.  We laughed as it was another country that the Swedes took over.  I thought the first part of the tour was good but I really loved visiting the church!  There was so much detail and exquisite work on the inside and outside.  It was so amazing and beautiful!

Church of the Savior on Blood.

Very beautiful.

The inside of this church was the most exceptionally detailed and beautiful inside of a church I've ever seen.

Seriously!

The ceilings were my favorite.

I can't get enough.

After we visited the church, we went back to the ship and had lunch.  We had another tour scheduled right after so we went back out to our next tour.  This was a walking tour.  Essentially, they dropped us off in town and let us explore on our own and then picked us up.  I liked this tour but it was the same area we were visiting in the morning so I think it would have been better if it was all a completely new area for us to explore.  

We went back to the ship in time for a quick dinner as we had our last tour of the day in the evening.  Thankfully, our waiter/waitress were able to rush our dinner for us and we made our last tour.  It was an evening Neva cruise with Folkloric Entertainment.  Three people sang, danced, and played instruments for us while we did a canal cruise.  They also provided snacks, water, and vodka.

Folkloric evening performers.

Sunset on our evening cruise.

We finished our canal cruise and went straight to bed as our tour the next day started at 6:15 so we had to be up early.  

Day 11: Day 8 of our cruise and our second day in St. Petersburg, Russia.  Today, we went to Peterhof palace and Hermitage museum.  Our first stop was Peterhof and we were the first people in line.  Our tour guide said she had been a guide for 8 years and this was only the 3rd time she'd been first in line.  It was nice because we got to go through and take great pictures of the palace as we were the first ones in that day.

Us at Peterhof palace.

Inside the Peterhof palace.

I don't know how obvious it'll become but I LOVE chandeliers.

It was amazing!

After visiting the inside of the palace, we went outside and walked around the grounds.  It was honestly so huge that although we walked quite a bit, I think there's a whole lot more that we missed.

The outside grounds.

Peterhof with the fountains on.

Our tour then provided lunch for us at a local Russian restaurant.  I admit, I was a bit nervous as I wasn't sure what they'd serve us but we had chicken, salad, and potatoes with ice cream for dessert so we enjoyed it.

Our last stop on our tour was to visit the Hermitage museum.  It is the third largest museum in the world and we were there for a couple hours.  We got to see some amazing artwork and architecture in our short time there.

Hermitage museum.

Portrait room in the Hermitage.

Da Vinci.

Back on the ship, we went to another specialty restaurant, Giovanni's, for dinner.  It was very good and we all enjoyed it as well.  After dinner, we went to a music trivia of ABBA music.  Pri is a big ABBA fan so we went to that hoping we'd do well.  We did okay but didn't win.

Day 12: Day 9 of our cruise and we were in Helsinki, Finland.  We did a tour that drove us around the city and stopped at a few places that Helsinki was known for.  No surprise, I'm sure but Finland was another country that Sweden had, at one time, conquered.  Honestly, this was mine and Lars' least favorite port.  Nothing bad happened, but we felt like there wasn't a whole lot to do in Helsinki and it didn't stand out like the other places did.

Helsinki, Finland.

Rock church.

Sibelius monument.

Back on the ship, we had to rush through dinner in the main dining room again as they were showing Star Wars: The Last Jedi, by the poolside and we wanted to go watch it.  Something that is important to note is that the Baltic, Northern Europe, is still cold in the evenings in May.  We were all bundled up but we only lasted 45 minutes before we were so cold that we decided to go to the adult pool section since it was covered and get in the hot tub.  We played in the pool while others were in the hot tub and then got in the hot tub when they left.  The show in the evening was a woman, Tracey Shield, performing Celine Dion songs.  I wanted to go so we all went to her show and I was impressed with how much she sounded like Celine.  It was enjoyable.  After that, we stopped by the rock dance party in the centrum before heading to bed.  

Day 13: Day 10 of our cruise and we stopped in Stockholm, Sweden.  This was mine and Lars' second time in Stockholm and my third time in Sweden.  We love Sweden and we also enjoyed our tour.  We drove through the city, stopped for a few pictures, and then went on a canal cruise.  The canal cruise was really great.  We got to see some of the islands they have, the parks, and overall, how green Sweden is!  Unfortunately, Lars was starting to get a cold so after our cruise, we couldn't stay in the city to explore, we headed straight back so that Lars could rest and focus on getting better.

Sweden!

The ship left port and we decided to go to the sail away party they have on the pool deck as leaving Stockholm was, we were told, supposed to be one of the most beautiful ports to leave.  We got some drinks and stayed on the deck for a good 45 minutes watching the countless islands, boats, and people.  It really was quite beautiful.  

Having mudslides while the ship leaves Sweden.

Sunset on the cruise.

We went to dinner in the main dining room and then did the music trivia of movie love songs.  We didn't win but I believe we only missed a couple.  

We then went to a Love & Marriage Game Show in the late evening.  They picked three couples, one newlywed couple, one that had been married about 30 years, and another couple that had been married I believe 46 years.  They asked one person out of each couple a question and then brought back the other half of the couple to see if they would guess their significant other's answer.  It was really funny and we were laughing a lot!

Day 14: Day 11 of our cruise and we had a day at sea.  We had just been to five days of ports in a row so we were glad to have this day to relax.  Lars was still sick and was actually feeling worse today so he stayed in the room and rested a lot while Torin and Pri and I hung out.  Even though it wasn't Mother's Day, the ship was in port on Mother's Day so they celebrated today with cake and 'momosa's.'  We also did a scavenger hunt where you had to find something with the beginning of every letter of the alphabet.  We got everything except X so we didn't win.  We also played mini golf.  Lars had a glass of water in his hand so he was playing with one hand yet he still got a hole in one!  It was formal night for dinner so we decided to head back and get ready after mini golf as we were meeting up at Giovanni's for dinner.  Once again, dinner was delicious and it was so much fun to get dressed up!  Poor Lars was struggling to make it through dinner so afterwards, we did a few pictures and then went to bed.  

Day 15: Day 12 of our cruise and we were in Berlin, Germany.  Technically, our ship was in port in Rostock, which was about a 3 hour drive from Berlin.  So our excursion for the day involved a lot of driving.  

Our first stop of the day was the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, just outside of Berlin.  Visiting this concentration camp was a very emotional experience and one that I'm very glad we did.  Pictures don't do justice to the terror that happened there.  

Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Heartbreaking.

It was hard to see all of these but an important experience.

Right when the war ended, the Nazis knew they had lost and made the prisoners go on a, 'death march' with little rest and food.  Many died.

It means, 'work sets you free.'

The guards would point to the crematorium and taunt the prisoners by saying that the only way they would be free.

Their 'beds.'

Two people were assigned to each 'bed.'

Washing room.  Sometimes the guards would come in and drown people in it for their amusement.

They don't know exactly how many were killed here, but this is a book of the ones they know about.

This was where the firing squad was.

And this was where the gas chamber was.

They also had a room on the far end where they would tell prisoners they were going to do a physical for them so they needed to strip and stand against the wall.  They then had people on the other side of the walls to shoot them in the neck.  Then they dragged their bodies to the crematorium.

After the concentration camp, we drove to Berlin and drove through part of the town before heading to lunch.  We had sausage, sauerkraut, chicken, potatoes, grilled vegetables, and wine/beer.  

We then headed to the Berlin Wall memorial.  All over the city, they have lines of where the Berlin wall was but this spot still has the Berlin Wall up as a memorial.  I was surprised with how short it was as I thought it was built to be taller.

Berlin wall memorial.

We then headed to the Holocaust memorial and walked through it to get to the Brandenburg gate.

Holocaust memorial.

Brandenburg gate.

We walked from the Brandenburg gate along a park to the parliament building before getting back in the bus and heading to the ship.  Honestly, this was my favorite port because I loved being able to experience important parts of history.    

With our long drive, we missed dinner in the main dining room so we went to the Windjammer for dinner before heading to the show of the evening, ABBAMAX.  A couple of people sang ABBA songs and danced along.  Pri and I had a great time singing and dancing along and our husbands, well they came to the show for us.

Day 16: Day 13 of our cruise and our last port was in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Denmark was my favorite country for sure and Copenhagen sure helped with that!  We had a walking tour set up for Copenhagen.  We walked to the Little Mermaid statue and to the palace with a church nearby.

Little mermaid statue.

Beautiful church in the background.

Thankfully, our tour had time to explore near the palace so we had time to souvenir shop.  We then walked to Nyhavn.  When you see pictures of Copenhagen, this is likely the area you're seeing pictures of as it is the most famous part.

Us at Nyhavn.

I know, we're super cute.

Loved this place!

After walking through Nyhavn, we did another canal cruise.  In case it isn't obvious, we really loved the canal cruises and this was no exception!  It was very beautiful.

Another canal cruise. 

The canal cruise dropped us off by the ship but we decided to walk back to the Little Mermaid statue as a tour guide told us they had good ice cream there.  We got ice cream and sat on the bench enjoying the view and company while we ate our ice cream.  We slowly made our way back to the ship.

We had dinner in the main dining room and then rushed to see 'Coco' in the cinema.  Lars and I had never seen it before and we loved it!  We then went to see the Tango Buenos Aires show in the theater.  They were really, really good!  This was Lars' favorite show as it was very impressive and this was my second favorite show.

Our last event of the night was, 'The Quest! Adult Game Show'.  It was so much fun and definitely an adult game so with that in mind, I will let what happened in the game, stay on the ship.  

Day 17: Day 14 of our cruise and our last sea day.  We did brunch and then went to a the bar, Vintages, to have a glass of wine while we waited for our first trivia of the day.  We did Harry Potter trivia first.  I think I knew the answer to one question and so did Lars so we depended on Torin and Pri.  They did really well and I believe were among the top three teams.  After that we did Game of Thrones trivia.  This was another trivia where Lars and I were not helpful at all.  However, the next trivia was for, 'Friends'.  Anyone who knows me should expect me to win that trivia.  Not surprisingly, we blew everyone else out of the water and won with ease!  I was very proud that all my years of watching 'Friends' had paid off.  ;)  We then went to the cinema to watch, 'The Darkest Hour'. It was another good movie.  After that, we had dinner at Chops Grille and it was another night of amazing food.  The show that we went to that evening was my favorite of the cruise.  It was an acrobatics show and it was so impressive!  This married couple is an acrobatic team and I was in amazement the whole time, it was really good. 

Day 18: We got off our cruise early this morning to catch our train to Brussels, Belgium.  We struggled a bit to find our hop on hop off as it was not at the place we thought it would be but once we found it, we got on and rode it to Atomium.  It is a famous building in Brussels that now has a museum inside it.  We went inside the museum and had to rush a bit through it so we could have enough time for our next tour.  We rode the hop on hop off to a square that was near our next tour, which was a chocolate tour.

Atomium.

Square in Brussels.

If anyone has the opportunity to go to Brussels and take a chocolate tour, I would highly recommend it.  The chocolate tour was one of the highlights of our trip for me.  We went to 6 different chocolate shops and sampled 9 or 10 pieces of chocolate.  We ended up going back to 4 of the shops and buying chocolate from them.  We were able to get all the chocolate back to the US with no problems either so I'm excited to savor the chocolate we brought back in the next little bit.

After the chocolate tour, we made it a point to get frites and waffles in Brussels in addition to souvenir shopping.

Frites in Brussels

Waffles with ice cream, strawberries, and chocolate.

We made it back to the train station where we had dropped off our bags and went to the airport as our flight to Scotland was in the late evening.  

We got to Scotland and checked into our airbnb.  It was late at night so we went straight to bed.

Day 19: Our first day in Scotland! We had breakfast at this cute restaurant our airbnb host recommended and it did not disappoint!  We all loved our meals.  We then walked to our hop on hop off and got an amazing view of the castle on our way as our airbnb was a couple streets away from the castle.

Edinburgh castle.

We saw a lot of beautiful countryside and churches on our hop on hop off as well.

Countryside.

Beautiful view.

After we got off our hop on hop off, we souvenir shopped before our whisky tasting experience.  Our whisky experience was really cool as the guy gave the history of whisky, how it's made, and some details about the whisky's of the area.  At this point, I was feeling sick (I think I got Lars' cold) so I enjoyed it but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I was feeling better.

Whisky tasting.

We had lunch and then we did another hop on hop off as the one we signed up for had three routes. We had some time before our next tour so we wandered around the Royal Mile while waiting.

Our next tour was a tour of a close called, 'King Mary's Walking Tour'.  A close is a small alleyway that led from the Royal Mile, the main street, to other parts of town.  Mary King's close, the one we visited, was from the 17th century.  It was a really cool tour and I learned a lot about how people used to live in Scotland back in the 17th century.  Let's just say that I appreciate modern day advances in plumbing, medicine, and personal hygiene.

After the tour, we walked back to the area where we were staying and we came across an amazing view from a close.  I had to take a picture.

View from a close.

We went to dinner and then I went back to our airbnb and to bed as I still wasn't feeling well and I needed all the sleep I could get.  Torin, Pri, and Lars stayed out for a bit longer at a pub.

Day 20: This morning, Torin and Pri wanted to go to The Elephant House for breakfast as it was where J.K. Rowling wrote some of Harry Potter.  Honestly, all the food in Scotland was super good and this place was too.  We then went to a hobby store that had Star Wars, Harry Potter, DC, Marvel, and all sorts of other items.  It was fun to explore!  Pri had an appointment for a tattoo coming up so we walked her to her appointment and waited with her for a little bit before Torin, Lars, and I did the last hop on hop off bus.  This one was cool as they had a live tour guide on the bus.  We ended up having two different tour guides and they had thick Scottish accents but I loved listening to them.

A rare sunny day in Edinburgh.

After the hop on hop off, we went souvenir shopping before meeting up with Pri for lunch.  We had pizza and then stopped at a shop for ice cream before heading to the Edinburgh castle.

Visiting Edinburgh castle.

Us at Edinburgh castle.

The castle was so much bigger than I thought it would be and there was a lot to see.  We were there for a few hours just exploring all there was to see at the castle.  I thought it was well worth the visit!

We decided it would be helpful after the castle to start packing so we didn't leave it all to the last minute so we went to our airbnb and packed before heading out to dinner.

We went to dinner at a local spot nearby and then made our way back to our place and went to bed.

Enjoying our night.

They used to hang people in this area back in the day.

Day 21: We went to breakfast right by our airbnb and then went to the airport to go to Oslo.  It was at the Oslo airport that we had to say goodbye to Torin and Pri as they were heading straight back home.  We were sad to see them go but we enjoyed our time with them.  

We got to our airbnb in Oslo and explored the city a little bit.  We ran into some sort of festival in the streets and walked around before stopping for dinner.

Festival we ran into in Oslo, Norway.

Part of the food festival.

Our airbnb host recommended a nearby restaurant that he said was not expensive.  Our meal ended up costing $78.  We decided that our host and us have different views on what is and isn't expensive.

Us in Norway.

Traditional Norwegian food.

We went to a local supermarket and Lars found the bread, cheese, meat, and butter that they use in Sweden to make sandwiches so we bought that for our breakfast the next morning.  We got ready for bed and watched Netflix before going to sleep.

Day 22: We spent the morning hanging out and eating in our airbnb as we were exhausted from being away for as long as we had been.  Our flight left in the late afternoon so we slowly made our way back to the airport for our 11 hour flight (it was longer on the way back due to crosswinds).  Our flight was late as well so we didn't have a lot of time for customs and I thought we might be stuck in Oakland but they thankfully asked for people who had connections to go through first so we made our flight back to SLC.  We got back late in the evening but we were glad to be home!

Overall, it was an amazing, and fun trip that we were so lucky we got to share with our friends.  We highly recommend taking this kind of trip!