Le Tour de France

Last weekend I took the train to Paris with some friends to watch the last leg of the Tour de France. It was such a cool experience to be standing on the sidewalk, watching the racers whizz by on their way to the finish!

Notice Lance Armstrong right in the middle of this photo - black socks and shoes, blue uniform!

Copenhagen

In a drastic contrast to Oslo, I LOVED Copenhagen! The city was bright and friendly, had amazing architecture and such a fun vibe. It helped that the weather was gorgeous and I got to take a free canal boat ride all around the city. The buildings are painted all different colors and are well-kept. I have to rank Copenahgen as one of my top 2 favorite cities in Europe so far (tied with Krakow)!!

Norway - Voss, Geiranger, Oslo

I have to admit that I find it harder and harder to blog since I post so many of my pictures to Facebook. I'm guessing that some of you out there aren't on FB or aren't my friend, so I do feel that I need to keep this up! However, if you notice the quality of my posts falling off from last year's, the reason is probably because I've already been messing with pictures I post here for close to 2 weeks and am getting a bit tired of it. :)

We traveled all over southern Norway it seemed! There aren't a lot of big highways, so I spent a lot of the time feeeling ill as the bus wound around curvy roads and up and down steep hills. We saw so much water, so many mountains and so many trees. The countryside was undeniably beautiful. The scenery was so dramatic and shocking at times to see the steep cliffs and water falls jutting right up from the sea-level fjords! There was quite a lot of rain and chilly weather, but that didn't really dampen our spirits too much.

We spent some time in some smaller places like Elverum, Voss and Geiranger before heading to Oslo. We went white water rafting in Voss, rode a train through the mountains and took a cruise down a fjord in Geiranger. We had to have a few ferry crossings as weel. Prices on everything are very high in Norway, even on gas which is interesting since most of Norway's riches come from oil!

I wasn't terribly impressed with Oslo (I think this might be the first time I've said this about my travels). It seemed very industrial and cold, but somehow was voted the 6th most livable city in the world, or something similar. There is lots of public art, most of a modern nature. Um...I don't have much else to say really! I'm sure there are nice things about Oslo and I was initially disappointed that we only had one day there. But in the end, I was happy to be making progress towards Copenhagen again.

Oh - almost forgot my favorite part of the trip! Bobsledding in Lillehammer!! We went down the actual 1994 Olympic bobsled track in a bobsled with wheels attached. We experience 4Gs of force and were going 100 km/hr. It felt like a super awesome roller coaster to me and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute (OK, second really since the ride was only 67 secs long!). I'd love to visit again in the winter and try it on ICE! :)

Stockholm

After a bit of a delay, here is my official Stockholm post. Unfortunately, I rarely had internet after Stockholm so wasn't able to keep up to date as I wanted. Plus I was having too much fun enjoying the very light nights and getting to know my new friends!

Stockholm is a beautiful city with lots more history than I imagined. Like I said before, it is a great combination of old and new and has a very active feel to it. I spent two days there, wandering around, eating moose burgers, shopping and checking out the changing of the guard. Here are a few pictures from those days.

Oops

So clearly I wasn't able to get internet access after the first couple of days. Plus, we were very busy touring! Anyway, I will post a full update (possibly in a few parts) sometime soon. But right now, I have some major work deadlines that need to be looked after...

Into Norway

I spent yesterday wandering around Stockholm again, but this time with new friends! We visited the Vasa museum where an old war ship is preserved (it sank in 1628). Then we wandered around the old town and did some window shopping. We watched the changing of the guard and even had moose burgers for lunch!!

Today we head into Norway, first stopping at one of the largest lakes in Sweden (there are 10,000) for a picnic. Should be a long day of travel, but I'm looking forward to getting to know my new friends more.

Strolling in Stockholm

Well, this is day 1 of my Scandinavian tour. I will be in Stockholm through tomorrow night, then we are headed all around southern Norway, back to Sweden for a quick stop and then to Denmark. I arrived in Stockholm this morning, but don't meet my tour group until this evening. So I took some time to wander the city on my own. Stockholm is made up of a bunch of islands and canals (check out a map-it's pretty cool looking!) and also seems to have quite a bit of forest around.

I got myself to the center of town and then headed out to one of the main islands which is made up of parks and museums. I had some lunch there, did some fantastic people watching and strolled around looking at the impressive private boats.

The people here are tan, fit, friendly and welcoming. The city is clean and proudly mixes old and new. Everyone seems to be active and there are lots of people outside enjoying the summer weather.

I'm not sure if I'll get to blog every day but I will do my best to keep this updated as I go along. Unfortunately no pictures because I don't have my own computer. :( I'm going to take a quick nap now since I've been up since 5 am and still have 2 hours to meet my new friends!

Happy Independence Day!!