Day 18: Travel/Balestrand

We started early with breakfast in the room again. We packed up and were waiting for our tram at 7:20 this morning. At the main train station, We got on a scenic train that took us farther north, towards the fjord country. It was about a four hour train ride and it was gorgeous. The scenery was amazing beautiful mountains and rivers. Some of it reminded of the Rockies but it's so much more green and there's more water. we had upgraded reserved seats, they were very comfy and I could stick my legs straight out without touch the next seat. There was also free coffee and tea which I took advantage of due to not sleeping well and needing caffeine.

We arrived in Myrad and got off to switch trains. The one we got on was far less spacious but had far more amazing views. Giant mountains, soaring cliffs and waterfalls at every turn. We stopped once at these amazing falls and nearly everyone got off to take pictures. The cool mist coming off the falls  felt so good. All of the sudden music started playing and there was a woman on the cliff near the waterfall singing. It was obviously a tourist show but very cool. Then the whistle blew and everyone pushed back on the train.

At Flam, we got off the train and switch to a boat to take us up the fjord. After an hour and a half of stunning views, we arrived in Balestrand. We hiked uphill to our hostel. We got balconies with our rooms. We overlook the fjord and the mountains across the way. The walk up the hill is more than worth it for the scenery. Words can't describe the beauty. We had a picnic dinner on the balcony watching the ferries cruise by. We called home one more time. After supper we went for a nice long walk through town. Upon our return we are just catching up on journals/blog. I am sitting watching the sky change colors as I type.

Day 17: Oslo

To start the morning Mom Aunt Deb and I mailed some stuff home to lighten our loads. After grabbing some caffeine, we met the boys at the fortress to see the Resistance museum. It was about the Norwegian resistance in WWII. It was really cool. There were displays on what the Nazis generally did and how the resistance in all it's forms responded. When the Nazi's attacked the King barely got out. Almost immediately the resistance started. There were tons of underground newspapers and all sorts of ways to hide microfilm to get information to the Allies. There was so much cool stuff it was awesome.

After the Resistance museum, we went to the famous sculpture garden. It is on 75 acres and has a ton of statues in the main area. This park would not be found in the states, every single one of the statues is a nude. It was very cool and interesting. We at lunch at a cafe in the park. It was very nice. We had open faced sandwiches and people watched.

After lunch, we headed to tour the Ski jump. We took the metro out to it and walked a great deal up. It was massive 361 m long and very tall as well. Ir had a neat skiing museum in it. After a quick buzz through the museum we took the funicular/elevator up to the top. Even Dad did it, which is great for him. It had great panoramic views of Oslo. Mom, Aunt Deb and Uncle Chuck decided to take the faster way down: a zipline. They went down all 362m at 60 km/h. Completely crazy but they had a lot of fun.Dad and I took pictures and carried the bags down. Afterwards Uncle Chuck and I did the Ski jump simulator.

We caught the metro back to the hostel and gabbed some supper. After supper, we all hung out for awhile. Everyone else decided to go wander some more. I stayed back because of a slight headache and being tired. They had a lovely time. We all went to bed pretty early due to an early train the next morning.

Day 16: Oslo

It was a museum filled day. We started with breakfast in the room. We jumped on the tram to the City Hall and from there hopped a ferry to an island I like to call Museum Island. We got off the ferry and walked through a neighborhood that had gates to every house and was very fancy. Our first museum of the day was the Viking Museum. Three viking ships found in burial mounds were on display there. They were really awesome. One of them had very ornately carved prows. All three of them the were mostly whole. There was also an exhibit of the artifacts that had been found on board. Most of what we know about Viking clothing comes from the fragments from these three ships. 

Our next museum was another hike through the fancy neighborhood. We went to the Fram museum. It was two A-frame complex that was all about the exploration of the poles, primarily the North Pole. Lots of people and dogs died trying to explore the areas. One of the ships, the Fram, we were able to climb aboard and all over inside. It was really neat and there was a ton of information.

Our third museum was right across the street. It was the Kon-Tiki museum. If you don't know, the Kon-Tiki was the balsa wood raft that was sailed/drifted across the Pacific Ocean in 1947. The researcher did it to try to prove that South Americans from Peru could've settled in the South Pacific. Everyone thought he and his crew would not survive. It took them 101 days but they made it across. He also did two cross Atlantic trips on Egyptian based papyrus boats. The first time failed and the second succeeded. It was a great museum.

After the Kon-Tiki, we caught the bus across the island to the Holocaust museum. It was chilling and depressing as all Holocaust museums are. This had a lot about the Nazi invasion in Norway. It also had a room with all the names of the Norwegian Jews who were killed. It was hard to do but not as hard as going to Auschwitz was 4 years ago.

After that museum, we decided to head back to the hostel. We took the buss that went over a bridge off the island back. We grabbed a picnic supper and hung out in the room.

Mom wanted to go check out the opera house and so we all went out again. It was stunning, all white marble and glass. It was designed so that you could walk up the sides and on top of it. We did so and watched the sunset. We played with our long shadows and took pictures. Mom and I stayed longer than the others and saw the moonrise. After taking several pictures of that, we decided to get some ice cream. I ended up getting some of the best mango sorbet ever. Mom and I took the tram to the square by City Hall and wandered for awhile. When we got back to the room it was after 11:30 and everyone else was asleep.

Day 15: Oslo

We were all up by 6:30 and in a cab just after 7. We ate breakfast at the airport. I tried a coin operated massage chair to get rid of some of my change. We were changing currencies yet again. It was really nice, I was so relaxed and sleepy I slept most of the flight. We were off the plane and getting on a train by 11 in Oslo. We got off the train into the city and caught a tram that put u right in front of the hostel. They weren't ready for us so we dropped our bags and gabbed a picnic lunch. (Anybody sensing a recurring theme, drop bags eat lunch hmmm...). There's a grocery store just around the corner from our hostel. We took our food and found a park to eat lunch in. 

After lunch we jumped back on the tam and headed for the National Gallery. The National Gallery is a museum dedicated to paintings mostly of Norwegian origin. They had a special Munch exhibit, if the name doesn't ring a bell it should. He painted "The Scream" and surprising that was among my least favorite in the exhibit. Much of the normal exhibition was put away for the Munch exhibit, so there was very little else to see. However, the other things that were there were incredible.

After retrieving our bags, we went to the city hall. It was nearly as awesome as the Stockholm one. This one is the home of the Nobel Peace prize banquet. It had stunning murals along the walls of the main area and a large ballroom that had big windows that overlooked the harbor. After wandering the city hall for a time we headed through the gardens to the Nobel Peace Prize Museum.

The Peace Prize Museum, was amazing and inspiring. It had a bunch of stuff about the EU on display, due to the EU winning last year. The next prize will be announced in December. There was also information about every single Nobel Peace Prize winner. It was so cool. In the gift shop the had postcards with the winners on them. I got a few: Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, the Dali Llama, and Nelson Mandela. Some of my heroes. 

After the museum, we sat and had drinks (the usual combination of beer and my soda). As food is very expensive here, we went back and had a picnic in the room. Because we have a little kitchenette with a fridge, we decided to get breakfast too. After eating we just lazed around a while. People gradually went to bed. I think was the last up as par usual.

I'm not going to get today up tonight due to Mom and I going out and wandering till 11:30 at night. Due to majority of morning people I need to go to bed or risk being grumpy tomorrow when they wake me up.

Day 14: Tallinn

Our morning began like all the others with breakfast. After breakfast we met with the private guide Dad had hired before we left. He was going to take us on an two part tour of Tallinn: car (the outer city) and walking ( the inner city). Before we left in the car he gave us a basic understanding of Estonian history. Here is essence of it: The Swedes took control of it but the Estonians were too much trouble so they sold the land to some German knights, from whom the Russians got it. The Russians ruled over Estonia for 200 years until 1918ish when Estonia finally got it's independence. It didn't last long, the soviets took over in 1939. The Nazis took it from the Soviets in 1941. After the fall of Nazi Germany, Estonia became a Soviet country and was such until 1991. There you go crash course in Estonian history.

So on the driving tour we saw a ton so I'm just going to start with a list with a little explanation. If you want more info google or ask me a question in the comments. Here goes: the "white house" where the KGB operated, the Viru hotel made of "micro-concrete" (60% concrete 40% microphones), Stalin's birthday cake building, Catherine I's summer palace and gardens, the President's house (which didn't even have a fence), the Forrest Cemetery for heroes, the singing ground, the TV tower where the tense moment between Soviets and Estonians happened, the rich's villas, the poor's apartments, a memorial to a ferry accident, a memorial for a ship that went down, a memorial to heroes, a memorial to WWII heroes, old wooden houses on a limestone clint, the 1980 Olympic sailing center that looked like a cruise ship. Many of the things on this part had to do with the Soviet era. Our guide had to serve in the Soviet army at one point and was later part of the resistance when Estonia tried to get there freedom.

Next came inside the city. Another list coming at you: St. Mary's Church, the Finnish embassy, the town square, the three sisters buildings, entrances into the walls, a parking garage that had excavated walls from the 1200s in it,  several towers in the walls including Fat Margret, the baker's alley, two different overlooks from which he pointed out the industrial district and the train station, he talked about how many peninsulas are on the coast, and told us about how complicated things were after the Soviet Union collapsed. When all was said and done we'd had an amazing 4.5 hour tour. 

We had lunch at an Estonian place our guide recommended. We tried a dessert that had Kama in it. Kama is a local grain mx thing, it has a granularity about like sugar with the flavor of wheat. It was folded into whipped cream and served with a foxberry sauce.

We spilt up, boys and girls, after lunch. We went to St. Olaf church and climbed the tower. It had some spectacular views. After the church, we went to wander some and found a place where we could climb up on the wall. We walked along the wall and enjoyed keeping dry because the on again-off again rain we'd had all day was coming down. Then we headed back to the hostel to meet the boys.

We had a picnic dinner in the kitchen and settled in for the evening. We read and caught up on journals and hit the bed early due to needing to be at the airport at 7:15 in the morning.

Day 13: Helsinki/ Tallinn

Hey anyone whose reading this. Sorry for not posting for a few days, I've been enjoying my vacation too much to write! I'll try to get up to date today. Here's the first installment: (I did write first bit on the day but didn't get a chance to post)

This morning Mom and Aunt Deb went to the sauna in the hostel before breakfast. I, being a typical teenager, decided to get another 45 minutes of sleep. Then we went down to breakfast. Uncle Chuck had also been in the sauna. After a quick breakfast, we got on the tram again. We switched trams at the train station and rode out to the dock for our boat to Tallinn. We painlessly checked in and grabbed a coffee at the coffee shop, whilst waiting to board the boat.

We had to walk a ton to get to the boat. It was much bigger than any of us expected, closer to our cruise ship than a ferry. It was a fairly uneventful ride. we grabbed a table. I played cards, the others read or wrote in their journals or played on the iPad. Once we docked we had to walk a ton again, Uncle Chuck joked the we walked 10% of the way to Tallinn. Once outside we caught a cab into the old town where we are staying.

Our hostel wasn't ready for us so we went to the store and got food for a picnic. We found a park and sat under a tree, while we were eating. Then we were ready to start sight seeing.

First we just wandered. It was beautiful, think quintessential medieval old town. Cobbled streets, old stone buildings and red tile roofs. We found the town square with the old city hall. There were the usual tourist traps; restaurants with servers dressed in medieval clothing and such. There were stretches of the old wall. 

We stopped in the Church of the Holy Ghost. It was pretty with wooden carvings and an organ. There was also a piano which someone played magnificently. Then we headed to the  Russian Orthodox Church. It was even more amazing than the one in Helsinki. After that we went back and checked into the hostel. We stretched out on ours and most of us took a nap, me a long one.

Our stuff stored in our room, we headed out to dinner. We ended up at German brewery.The meal was enjoyed by all, particularly Dad, who raved about the beans and sausage. As we were sitting sipping the last of our drinks, we decided it was about time to call home again. I'm glad we're here and not there. Apparently it's been very hot. I wish to send some cool breezes your way. 

After calling home, we wandered again for awhile before heading back to the hostel for bed. I had trouble going to sleep due to afore mentioned nap.

Day 12: Helsinki

We had breakfast at the hostel this morning. We walked out the door to our tram stop and rode it to the Senate square, where we switched to a tram that makes a circuit of the city. It was fun to see the city. We hopped off at one point to check out the memorial to Sibelius, the famous Finnish composer. It was really awesome. It looked like a bunch of pipes from a pipe organ. 

We got back on the tram and finished the tour. We had lunch at the market again. Everyone else had salmon soup, which was apparently some of the best soup they'd had.  I had potatoes, they were quite good. We went shopping and got these cute coasters and a wooden mug.

We got on the tram again and went to the National museum, this time it was open. It had a huge exhibit of prehistory stuff and great exhibits of a whole bunch of stuff. It was very cool. 

We then spent some  of the afternoon hanging out at the famous cafe here. It was some good people watching. We also had some fresh pastries. Then we headed back to the hostel to do some laundry. We're currently hanging out in the restaurant talking with someone we met and having a good old time.