Planes, Trains and Automobiles

We are more than half way through our travelling and have finished the European segment of our itinerary. It's been such a great experience. In some ways we would love to head straight to Australia to settle down. It's hard to live out of a bag and not have your own bed to come home to for such a long period of time. However, we're really looking forward to the next phase of our trip, which includes Thailand and New Zealand.

We thought it would be fun to provide a summary of our experiences since we left Chicago at the beginning of March, 2007.

• # of countries visited: 27
• # of cities visited: 167
• # of hours on planes, trains, automobiles and ferries between cities: 710
• Favourite countries to visit: Switzerland (love the Alps, on-time transportation, clean, but a bit expensive), Germany (nice countryside, on-time transportation, clean), Italy (has something for everyone, gelato), Ireland (laid-back culture)
• Favourite place: Zermatt, Switzerland - surrounded by the Matterhorn and the rest of the Alps, great hiking, cute small town, it feels like Heaven on earth.
• Favourite large city: Paris (beautiful city with a lot to see)
• Favourite days or experiences: Hiking through Cinque Terre, Italy with a swim and sunset dinner to finish off the day; skiing in the Swiss Alps; meeting up with family and friends; seeing the important steps in our niece Vendela's first year (sitting, crawling, walking); Christmas Eve dinner in Switzerland
• Worst place: Naples, Italy - it was the dirtiest city without much to see
• Frustrations: Transportation in Italy was not punctual, people getting upset with us in a language that we don't understand, finding places for both of us to eat as sometimes this seems to take us a while
• What we miss: Our own bed, couch and TV to relax in; home-cooked meals; certain foods from home
• What we don't miss: Working

Here are some videos that we haven't shared before but thought you might enjoy:

• Melissa Learns to Ski - Melissa trying to ski but didn't know what to do with the poles
• Kylie Learns to Ski - Rafe taught Kylie how to turn while skiing - Kylie got pretty excited
• French Line Dancing - Mum and Melissa trying to line dance with the French on New Year's Eve
• Salamanca Man - A funny pedestrian crosswalk signal that we saw in Spain
• Blue Lagoon in Capri - Check out the colour of the water
• Bern Bear - Cute bear puts his hands together for food (although I'm not fond of the bear having to live in this bear pit)
• Swans in Luzern - Lots of swans on this lake
• Cow bells in Gimmelwald - It was nice to hear these cow bells as we hiked through Switzerland
• Paraglider at the Shilthorn - We saw this paraglider take off from the top of the mountain while we were hiking
• Eiffel Tower - Cool light show

Thanks to our families and friends for letting us stay with them or meeting us along the way. It makes it easier to be away from home for such a long period of time.

London Again

Two posts in one week isn't bad compared to the lack of posts the previous six weeks. I (Melissa) was able to make a quick trip to London this week to visit my cousin, Richard, and his girlfriend, Angela, who are currently living there. The bonus was that I was also able to see Jordan (Richard's brother and my cousin) and Aunty Angie (Richard and Jordan's mum) as they were also visiting as well as my UTM tennis friends, Anna and Smange (see posts in July when we visited them in London).

This visit was definitely one of the highlights of my travels through Europe. Nothing beats being with family and friends. Since I had already seen many tourist sites in London, it was nice to be able to relax, hang out, catch up and talk. And I was able to taste Richard's cooking, which was surprisingly good considering that he took out all of the fat and sugar from our meals.

Klas spent time with his family in Sweden while I was in London. I think we've done very well travelling together, especially considering that we've been together 24/7 since the end of February, 2007. However, this little break was good for us...absence definitely makes the heart grow fonder.

As I had promised, this blog post is much shorter than the last. See the photos below...


Richard, Jordan and Richard's fat free version of Shepherd's Pie


Aunty Angie and Jordan relaxing in Covent Garden


Richard and Angela in their apartment - cute pyjamas Angela!


Former UTM tennis teammates Smange and Anna

A message from Smange, Anna and me to our UTM tennis Coach and Assistant Coach

Happy New Year

We’re still alive. We had a busy two weeks in Sweden and then traveled with family during the Christmas break so we haven’t had the chance to update this blog until now. I’ll try to summarize the last six weeks without making this a really long blog post.

Happy First Birthday Vendela (Sweden, November 27-December 12)
We split our time between Linköping and Stockholm. As always, it was nice to spend time with friends and family. We were able to celebrate the first birthday of our niece, Vendela. Being there for her birthday was very special to us as we often miss family birthdays with our family members being spread across three continents.


Vendela’s first birthday party


Dinner with friends Markus and Elin – congratulations to them as they are expecting a baby!


First Advent family celebration

Last Stop in Scandinavia (December 12-14)
We toured Denmark’s capital city of Copenhagen. One of the places that we saw was Christiana, where we felt like we were in a time warp and should be on our way to Woodstock because it was a very hippy area. We may be biased but after visiting Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen, we think that Sweden has the prettiest capital city in Scandinavia.



The Griswalds Meet in Rome (December 14-19)
One of the best things about travelling is meeting up with friends and family. We met my (Melissa’s) Mum, sister Kylie, brother-in-law Jon, Aunty Lisa and cousin (although he is like my brother) Rafe. We visited the Colosseum, Pantheon and Vatican City among many other sites. Then we picked up our 9-passenger van, which we would use for the next 2 weeks to drive through Italy, Switzerland and France.


In the Colosseum


At The Forum

Hill and Lake Towns in Italy (December 19-24)
After spending several days of heavy sightseeing in a large and busy city, it was a nice change to visit the smaller hill towns of Tuscany and lake towns of Lake Como. The scenery was beautiful. We stayed in nice apartments, which allowed us to try to cook Italian meals with lots of fresh pasta and great wine.


Mum and Aunty Lisa in Tuscany


Varenna, Lake Como

“I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas…” (December 24-27)
The main reason for this family holiday was that for a long time my Aunty Lisa has wanted to be able to have a white Christmas in Switzerland. We finally made her dream come true by spending Christmas in Interlaken, which was surrounded by the Alps with lots of snow. We had a lovely traditional Swiss dinner on Christmas Eve, attended a church service on Christmas morning (given in the German language so I didn’t understand much more than Jesus Christus and Amen) and spent the rest of the day at the Schilthorn enjoying amazing views of the Alps.

We also had the opportunity to ski. Kylie, Jon and I took a lesson next to a group of 3- year-old kids – life is pretty tough when you get to learn how to ski in the Swiss Alps! Klas and Rafe hit the slopes. It was an awesome day. I definitely got the bug for wanting to ski again.


Traditional Swiss dinner on Christmas Eve


Skiing in the Swiss Alps





French Wine, Champagne and Line Dancing (December 27-January 2)
We spent a few days in the wine region of Burgundy where we celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary and stayed at a wonderful bed and breakfast in a chateau. I think this area has the most beautiful countryside in France. We enjoyed good meals and wine. Everyone knows that Klas is a picky eater but he has become much better on this trip as evidenced by the fact that he ate rabbit.

We had to say goodbye to Kylie and Jon before we headed to the Champagne region. We celebrated New Year’s Eve with the locals, drinking lots of Champagne and eating an 8-course meal. Of course it’s not a party without dancing – not only was there lots of dancing, but the French line dance too. I guess I was ignorant in thinking that line dancing only existed in America with its country music.


Vineyards in Burgundy

Burgundy region


Dancing the night away in the Champagne region

Paris Was Just as Beautiful the Second Time (January 2-5)
I thought Paris was the most beautiful city when we visited in July. We’ve seen a lot more places since then but seeing Paris for the second time confirmed my thought that it is the most beautiful city in Europe. We saw a few things this time that we missed during our last visit, including a show at the Moulin Rouge.

The highlight this time was going up the Eiffel Tower with my Mum. This was a big achievement for her because she is scared of heights. Unfortunately I had to say goodbye to Mum at the end of our visit in Paris.


Eiffel Tower

Belgian Chocolate, Waffles, Fries and Beer (January 5-8)
We visited Brussels and Bruges. Bruges was one of the cutest small towns that we have been to in Europe. I quickly broke my New Year’s resolution of eating healthy…lots of chocolate, waffles, fries and beer…not very healthy!

Belgian waffle with strawberries, bananas and chocolate - yum!!!

Enjoying Belgian beer

Bruges

Amsterdam – Our Final European Destination (January 8-10)
We parted ways – Rafe and Aunty Lisa went to London to visit our cousins who are there (I will visit them next week) while we went to Amsterdam. This marked our last new city to visit in Europe. It was very pretty with just as many canals as Venice. Many of you know that marijuana and prostitution is legal there. We learned about their culture, so now we have a better understanding of the government’s reasons behind making these things legal. Learning about different countries’ cultures has been one of the highlights of our trip.

Amsterdam

Haarlem

Now we are back in Sweden for the last time before we leave Europe at the end of the month. This blog post was still lengthy even though I tried to stick to the highlights. There was a lot to cover. I will try to make the next blog post shorter than a book.

Thanks to Aunty Lisa for all of the planning that she did for this wonderful Christmas holiday.

Happy New Year everyone!