Scandanavian Tour 2008!

Hi blog readers! We've had a exciting past few weeks with our "American Turistas" to use the words of my father! We had such a great time with pops and Trisha and did a good job of seeing a lot of Norway and Sweden and sharing a little bit of our London life!

Just to give you the gist of their trip, they arrived during the week and we left for a 9 day trip to Scandinavia and spent time in Bergen, Voss, Flam and Oslo in Norway and then finished up with a 2 day tour of Stockholm, Sweden. It took a lot of coordination and planning (thanks pops!!) and it was just a wonderful and relaxing trip! It was the first time that Trisha, Chad and I had been to either country. My dad had been to Norway quite a few years ago when he was at the Naval Academy and spent a summer on a Norwegian torpedo boat in an exchange program - so it was fun for him to see things again!

So I'll explain some of the best photos and try not to bore you with all the details!

Here we are on day 1 in Bergen, which is on the west coast of Norway and the second largest city in Norway. We took a trip up to a lookout over the city called Floyen on a Funicular and enjoyed the sights despite the rainy weather. The city is located on a harbor and there are boats everywhere you turn from cruise ships to fishing boats to sailing ships. Oh, and therefore, lots of fish and seafood to be eaten!

Here is a building at Floyen where we took a rest and had a snack and I just loved the Norwegian flags!

Here is a photo back in the city of an area called Bryggen, which is a historic area of the city that lines the fjord coming into the city.

Crazy enough - we found a KPMG office (I think!) on our walk back to our hotel that was outside the main city area! How funny is the building? It was right on the water and looked like it could use a little work! I had to get my picture in front of it of course!

So here is our first photo of a fjord cruise. There are a bunch of fjords near Bergen. Fjords are basically inlets that have steep sides (mountains) which have been formed by glaciers. They are just beautiful! There were little towns along the two fjords we visited and things to do and see along the way. It's a great way to see the country and experience nature!

Another pic from the boat on Hardanger Fjord.

There are waterfalls all over Norway - it was amazing and I've dubbed it the "land of waterfalls"! I have tons of photos of them but this is the first big one we saw called Voringfossen. We took a hike up to one later on in the trip, but this one was nice because we got dropped off on a bus and got a great view!

Just a cool photo of a decorative anchor and the sunset that I took our last evening in Bergen.

Another one of the sunset in Bergen. The great thing about this is that we took it at about 10:30pm. We weren't far enough north to be in the land of the midnight sun, but it got pretty close!

So after leaving Bergen, we headed a little bit north to visit some of the towns on the Sognefjord. We spent a night in a little town called Voss and learned that it was the hometown of Knute Rockne, famous for his role as head coach of Notre Dame. Here are the football fans posing with the bronze sculpture across from our hotel!

View of a boat similar to the one we were on cruising around the fjords!

View from the boat we were on cruising around the fjords!

Cute little town 0n the fjord on or way to the next town we stayed in, Flam.

Flowers and the surrounding hills around Flam.

The cruises we took on the fjords were through a company called Norway in a Nutshell - so here we are posing in front of a nutshell sign!

Enjoying lunch outside at Furokoa - we just loved the name!

On the train up the Flambama.

Here we are in Oslo in front of a fountain at Vigeland park, which was beautiful!

Sculptures in Vigeland park.

So my dad's maternal grandparents both immigrated to the US from Norway and we still have distant relatives there. We met up with his second cousin, Kari Lille and her husband Sven for dinner one night is Oslo! My dad had met them when he was in Norway a long time ago. They were so nice and it was fun for me to meet them!

Here are Trisha and Kari Lille!

The crew and the bags outside the hotel in Oslo waiting for the taxi.

In the old town in Stockholm.

Sunset in Stockholm. The city was neat because it's a series of islands!

Pretty flowers in Stockholm!

Chad hanging out in the lobby of Hotel Rival in Stockholm. The hotel is owned by a former member of ABBA, Benny Andersson. It was pretty cool and they had CD players in each room with CD's, including ABBA of course! I couldn't get Dancing Queen out of my head for days!!

At the Old Bank of England on Dad and Trisha's last day in London.

So that's that! We had a wonderful time with our visitors and the chance to see new places! Hope that all is well with you and yours!

xoxox, Kari and Chad

Gotta love the weekend!

Hi all!

Not much going on these days but thought that I would blog for blogs sake.  We had a nice weekend relaxing and getting a few things done.  We have our first summer visitors arriving this week - dad and Trisha arrive on Wednesday!  We are excited to see them and show them our life in London before we head out to Norway and Sweden on Friday!  It should be a great trip!

Chad headed out today to Switzerland for work until Wednesday and got to fit in a few sights in Zurich this afternoon.  I kept busy cleaning the flat and spent some time walking around the park because it was really nice outside.  I have to admit that it was a nice and boring weekend, which is always nice.  We've got a few busy months ahead so we are enjoying every quiet moment!

Ta ta for now!  Kari

I have the worst time trying to name my posts!!

We haven't been up to much the last week and a half or so - just working and enjoying the English summer! It's actually been beautiful out! Bad thing is that as soon as it's nice and sunny and warm out, the tube gets pretty hot and nasty - oh well!

Anyway, we did get to see our friends Julie and Allison because they both have been in town again for work this week and last week! We got to meet up with each of them separately over the last week for dinner and had a great time catching up. Al and I didn't get any photos yet (she's still here) but here is a one of Julie and I in the rain outside Baker Street's Underground station before she headed back to her hotel on the tube!

We had a leisurely Saturday which included walking around and passing by the American Embassy! It was cool to see the American flag blowing in the wind. Especially because it's the 4th of July and we don't get to celebrate it here! We also did a quick tour of the National Gallery to see some paintings and make use of one of London's many museums. Believe it or not, the museum is free, although they do ask for donations! Still - pretty surprising that anything is free in this city!

American Embassy

View of Trafalgar Square, Big Ben and Parliament from the steps of the National Gallery.

Evidence that the sun can shine and the sky gets blue in the UK!

We had tickets to a concert in Hyde Park Sunday night and I finally got to see the Police live in concert!! I have this thing for the Police - well really Sting in particular and I was so excited to go to this concert! It was this 2 day concert called Hard Rock Calling and they had a bunch of bands - this year included John Mayer, Jason Mraz, Eric Clapton, Sheryl Crow on Saturday and The Bangles, The Police and KT Tunstall on Sunday. We probably would have enjoyed Saturday's lineup a little more but I have always wanted to see The Police in concert, so we did the Sunday show! Wee were really far from the stage though - so we watched the concert for the most part on the big screens. Here are a few pics:

There he is!

View of the stage.

Another one I caught that was pretty cool!

That is about it for now! More to come later when we've got some more photos to share. Have a happy 4th and think about us while you're grilling out and we're at work!

xoxox, Kari and Chad

What a Weekend!

We were pretty busy and we didn't even leave greater London!

It started on Friday night with a  show in the west end.  We went to go see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and it was great!  I remember doing this show when I was in elementary school, so it was fun to hear the music and see it again!  It was interesting because the lead in the production was selected from a BBC show called Any Dream Will Do.  It was an "America Idol" type of show that was on TV before we moved here where people voted and the winner, Lee Mead, was awarded the role of Joseph in the musical.  So, Chad and I didn't really know about all of that and did not realize how hard it was to get tickets!  He bought them for me for Valentines Day and this Friday was the first weekend evening when he could get in!  Anyway, it was a good time and here I am with the Joesph sign in the background!

Then on Saturday morning, we had to get up early and get all dressed up for the Royal Ascot.  For those of you who don't know about the Royal Ascot (I  never heard about it until I moved here!) it is THE English horse racing event, which dates back to 1711.  The Royal Family attends the event each year, which is held over 5 days.  Anyway, it is a reason for the English to get all dressed up, bet on horses and drink Pimm's and Lemonade!  Many men wear tops and tails and all the ladies have hats or "fasinators", which are essentially feathers and trim that are fastened to your hair with clips or a comb.  So here are the pics!

On the train to the Ascot - which took about 45 minutes from London.  Chad did not rent a tux, but looked pretty dapper in his suit and tie!

Here we are when we arrived at the train station.  Of course it was raining when we arrived, but it cleared up by the time the races started.

We arrived nice and early to avoid the crowds making their way to the racecourse and secure a seat.  Here I am with our friends Lindsay and Harriet in our hats!  You can see that it's pretty empty in the background!

Another one of Chad and I!

This is a photo of the Royal Procession, which was right before the races started.  If you look very close, the 2 people sitting in the back of the carrige are the Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen!  The Queen is wearing a bright blue hat and you can't see her very well, but it still was fun to witness!

So this is what it looked like when the races finally began!  

And here is a shot with some of the racing horses.  We made a few bets but didn't have much luck!  All in all it was a very fun day a good English experience!

So ironically enough yesterday felt like the longest day of the year, and it was! It was also my Dad's birthday!!  Happy b-day Pops!!  Hope you had a good one!!  And I took the following photos for you - it's a house that we walked by near Oxford Street.  Any building that has a blue circle plaque on it means that something important probably happened there or someone famous lived or stayed there.  This one was cool because it said that Simon Bolivar, the main historical figure of Venezuela stayed here.  Pretty neat!

jj

And I'll finish off with some pretty British peonies I bought this week!

xoxox, Kari

Belgium

We just got back from a nice little weekend trip to Belgium!  We took the Eurostar from the new St.Pancras International station in London to Brussels, which took about 2 hours.  We stayed in Brussels for two nights and did a day trip to Brugge, a historic city about an hour away. Here are the photos!

This is a photo taken inside the new St Pancras International station in London.  The station was completed in November last year and is very nice.  It was great for us because it's only 3 tube stops away from our tube station and so easy to get to!  Much unlike the 45 minute to 1 hour train rides to the airports.  Anyway, it's much easier to get on the Eurostar and in about two hours we made it to Brussels!

There are chocolate shops everywhere in Brussels and Brugge because the Belgians do know how to make chocolate.  Here is a photo of the Dumon Chocolate Shop in Brugge where we picked up a few sweets!  They were pretty amazing!   

This is the Bell Tower in Brugge, which overlooks the Market Square.  The tower is 290 feet high and about 366 steps.  We decided to work off a little of the chocolate and make our way up to the top!

Here is a photo of some steps, which doesn't really do the trip up any justice!  Let's just say it got a little tight passing people going in the opposite direction.   There were a few stops along the way though and eventually we made it to the top!

View of Brugge from the top of the tower.

Market Square.

Can you see London in the distance?  Just kidding of course, but they did have an arrow pointing in its' direction!

Anyway, we did make it down from the tower and spent the rest of the day walking around the city and seeing the sites.  There are a bunch of canals and took a little boat cruise around the city.

This is Brug Square with more pretty architecture.

Chad in tour-on mode in the streets of Brugge!

So there isn't much to say about Brussels itself and I haven't included any photos from there! It's pretty big city with nothing too exciting but we stayed in a nice hotel and it was easy to get back on the Eurostar and head home.  I guess the thing we loved about the trip the most, was the incredible treats that the Belgians are famous for.  Not only is the chocolate good, they are known for their waffles (no duh!) and fries.  And I had to take pictures of course!

Our lunch with the famous fries, and yes, that is a pile of mayo on the top of Chad's plate!  This is how they eat them there, so when in Rome...

And here are our waffle treats with plenty of cream and strawberries and chocolate!  Yum!

So, that was the trip and needless to say, we're going to need to diet all week after eating all that junk!  It was worth it though!  So, we're back at it again at work this week and are looking forward to next weekend!  We're going to see the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on Friday and then heading to the Royal Ascot horse race on Saturday!  It should be a fun time!  Hope that you are doing well and happy father's day to all the dads!  I gotta go call mine right now!

xoxox, Kari and Chad