WIlly Wonka and the Land of the Three Musketeers

On our way down from Scandanavia, we made two stops on the way to Paris- Copenhagen and Cologne, Germany. One word describes Copenhagen-disappointing. People who say the French are rude haven't been to Denmark and we don't suggest it. Oh, and btw, if you're going to see the Little Mermaid... she's in Beijing for the next three months.



Onto Cologne, where we visited the coolest museum of the trip thus far- the Lindt Chocolate museum and factory. Legitimately, this was "Willy Wonka made real," as our guidebook said. We tasted a lindt ball fresh off the press and it was 100X better than the packaged ones at Barnes and Noble. We tried one each, looked at eachother in amazement, then quickly ran back to get 10 more. THis is Dan in front of one of the actually working "chocolate spinners" that molds hollow chocolate shapes evenly. It was deliciously awesome.

Onto Paris, the best city in the world, in Erica's opinion. Dan was almost convinced of this as well, due to the deliciuos èclairs and macroons. Honestly, the food in France is unbelievable- hence, you'll notice why there is so many pictures of food on this post. Continuing on the food topic, on our last night in Paris we went to Refuge des Fondues at 17, Rue des Trois Frères, in case any of you are in Paris looking for a excellent place to eat sometime. This is Erica's favourite restaurant in the world, and is now Dan's as well. Btw- they give you baby bottles full of wine included in your meal price, it's awesome. Other than eating delicious food, our days were spent at the Mussée d'Orsay, le Tour Eiffel, les Catacombs, Sacre Coeur Church, Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle, the Opera House and Shakespeare and Co. -the coolest bookstore in the world (rivaling Powell's). Paris is still Erica's favourite city, and has now made Dan's top three. Love you all update from Italy!

Princesses, futbol matches and the place where the sun never sets.

Scandanavia was incredible!!!! Hence, our decision to stay there for an extra week instead of heading down to Spain like we planned. Stockholm, Sweden is one of the coolest capital cities we have seen so far. The entire city is placed on a group of islands, which, though beautiful, makes navigating the city quite difficult. Oh by the way, everyone is going nuts there about their princess getting engaged to a "commoner." It's pretty funny because in literally every store window they have placed a massive portrait sized poster of their engagement photo to show their support. We also went to the Nobel Prize museum and toured the royal palace and stole a box of cocoa puffs from our hostel... they were delicious.

After Stocholm, in our quest to go above the arctic circle, we took a 12 hour train ride (though it was probably longer because the Swedish rail system does not know how to tell time) to Boden, Sweden, which is a little town that is very enthusiastic about their local futbol team. There, we went to our first European futbol match and they won 2-0! They even gave us free team scarves when they found out we were visiting!

Onto Narvik, Norway, which is above the arctic circle! It is surprisingly warm up there. Check out the picture of the random street- that is outside our hostel at 2:30 in the morning- it never gets fully dark there in the summer. THe first night we were there, we had planned to go hiking but the combination of fog and rain kept us inside. However the next morning, in our slight over-eagerness we set out for the mountains armed with trail-mix at 7 am. Yet to our dismay, upon reaching the peak, we were still fogged in. So, as there was no chance that we were going to head all the way back down without seeing anything, we hung outside at the top for about 1.5 hours in the fog- but when that fog finally broke, it was so amazing. We've never felt so small. We could see mountains, ocean, waterfalls, snow, beach, and seemingly everything in between. If you've read our earlier posts, this place beats the alps of Iseltwald, Switzerland, which we thought impossible. Paris posts coming soon! Love, Dan and Erica

Norway, the land of awful night trains and trolls...

So, Norway is pretty sweet, but getting around is a bit of a hassle. Oslo is cool, but this is "Europe on a Budget" so it was a bit out of our price range. However, we would like to dedicate this post to the awesomeness of Bergen, Norway the "gateway to the fjords." We spent a good deal of our time in this area hiking around the lakes and mountains that surround the city. We toured a 700 year old Norwegian castle and discovered the greatest hotdog stand in all of Europe (and possibly the world). One night we really lived it up, and stepped into an ancient church to listen to an organ recital, it was beautiful, but unfortunately Dan missed some of it as he was nodding off in the corner... to which he admits. Oh by the way, it doesn't get dark here. At like, 11pm it looks like its 5pm outside, which makes your sleep schedule confusing, that is when you get any sleep due to the night trains here :). Other than all of this, we enjoyed taking in the Nordic culture (Nan- what is with all of the trolls btw?) and seeing "Norway's second largest city", and buying Erica new shoes to hike in because her feet started to bleed in chucks... We're now off to Sweden, Norway's arch-enemy, if the Norweigan armory museum is any indication... ;) Watch out: we're heading above the arctic circle, will post in France upon return.

Deutschland!!!!!

Hello everyone! Sorry its been awhile again... So, Munich is amazing, for one of Europe's fairly modern cities. We spent a good part of our first day falling in love with cars that we couldn't possibly afford in the BMW museum. THen jumped over to Munich's Olympic Park, which housed the facilities from their summer Olympics in 1972, all of which is now open to the public (they're vying for the Winter games as we speak~ but we dont know where they'll fit them... ) We took daytrips out to Nuremburg and saw one of Germany's oldest medieval castles and drank german beer in our first German beer garden while watching the US lose to Ghana in the world cup. Our second daytrip was to Dachau, Germany which was the site for one of Germany's concentration camps during WWII. We are in agreement that touring the remnants of the camp was both disturbing and life-altering. Our last day in Munich consisted of walking through Munich's version of central park, eating massive pretzels and watching Germany beat England and wathcing the Germans go CRAZY for their country! Following Munich, we began our journey up towards Scandanavia (in which we currently reside). This journey consisted of an awesome overnight boat taking us from Copenhagen to Oslo, Norway- thanks for the mutual birthday present Liz, it saved us two days by train. Posts from Scandanavia soon.

We're speechless, we can't even come up with a title because it was too amazing...

Words cannot describe Iseltwald, Switzerland. Hiking, climbing, waterfalls, towering alps, aquamarine lakes, quaint villages, amazing struedel... we both agree that we will never possibly ever see such a beautiful place again. The pictures don't do it justice and neither can we. Basically we spent the last 2 days outdoors hiking and taking it all in. I wish you all could see this place. ANd if you're thinking about going on vacation anytime soon... well, go here. Oh, btw~ if you are looking for the REAL Leavenworth... we found it, but better. Lots of love. Updates after Germany. btw Cathy~ Dan was very safe when he had to rockclimb to get up to this tree. Promise.

We're Moving to Switzerland!!!

Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay, cheap internet access is hard to come by~ leaving you with sporatic posts... Here's what you've missed~ We spent our time in Valencia, Spain on the beach... Note to everyone: ALWAYS go back for the sunscreen... but it was awesome, we also ate one of 300 types of Spanish paella. Then we left Spain for a period of time and have moved onto Switzerland (a better place in our opinion). Seriously, we are legitimately considering moving to Bern (the capital, though you wouldn't know it due to it's laid back atmosphere and green parks and forests everywhere). There, we toured ALbert Einstein's house and ate the most amazing chocolate mousse cake in existence (it's true Swiss chocolate beats them all). Love you all more updates to come! (Promise)

Stick with the Half Carafe

Hey Everyone! So we'll be leaving Barcelona for Valencia tomorrow morning early : ( But we love it so much that we will be back. Our quest in search of a drinking fountain throughout the entire city so that we might avoid paying for agua has failed. We succumbed to our thirst... Oh well. We spent the majority of today touring the ancient Roman ruins underneath the city for the 4th century. This morning we discovered that Picasso created artisitc works other than his famous "cubism." Oh, and that he seemed to be obsessed with the same painting of 20 pigeons, which he painted about 11 times over a period of 3 days. Otherwise we've spent most of our time just enjoying the slow pace of this city. It's beautiful, ancient, and relaxed but exciting at the same time. ps~ Wine is really cheaper than the water... but its great wine :) We'll post again soon after Valencia, most likely from Suisse!

Dan and Erica