Happy Birthday Day!

Another awesome birthday in Copenhagen... I pretty sure this is my third birthday here! And it delivered!

I woke up in the morning to a traditional Danish birthday as Anna had decorated the room with Danish flags (awesome!)  She got me this awesome mini squeeze bottle of Sriracha! It's totally going to be attached to my purse at all time starting as soon as I get back to Canada!

It was a cloudy and rainy day which made it perfect for some museum visits.  They recently opened a new aquarium here - Den Blå Planet so I took the bus out to see it... it's right next to the airport so it really is a buuuuuus ride out there.  It was totally worth it.  They had three sections - Danish lakes and rivers, tropical lakes and rivers, and the ocean.  

I though the ocean would be the neatest part but I really liked the Danish lakes and rivers.  Also because it's so new all the interactive points worked so you can learn how a fish listens, feels and sees.  Very neat.  They also have sea otters which you could get up close to and see.

They had build a rainforest above the lakes and rivers section which make it very neat to see all the plant and birds as well as go below and see all the fish that rely on what happens above.  Plus they had piranhas... cool! 

The ocean part was not as cool as I expected... I think I'm officially aquarium spoiled... especially after the Lisbon aquarium and the new Toronto aquarium.  The Copenhagen one just ended up looking a bit sparse in comparison.

After heading back to town I headed to the NY Carlsberg Glyptoteket which is an art gallery based on the personal Carlsberg collection (yes, the owner of the beer company).  Lots of great danish pieces but they had a whole room of Rodin (AWESOME!) as well as a few Degas and one Van Gogh.  And it was free because it was my birthday!  Kidding!  It was free because it was Tuesday!

From there I went to the Danish National Museum for a few of Denmark starting from it's existence... I got the the Bronze age (3200 - 600 BC) and kinda skimmed the rest.  There was a LOT of history in this gigantic three floor museum! 

Anna and I then made our way to Tiin Tiin for dinner - a one michelin star Thai restaurant!  It was so delicious!!  Here are a few highlight pics!

A great way to start my 37th year!

Home Sweet Copenhagen

Back again!  So what do you do on your third trip to Copenhagen, on Monday when most museums are closed, and it's going to POUR rain tomorrow?  Walking tour!!

Well... after a quick spin down the pedestrian street to do shopping (I bought some more dish clothes... they really are the best!)  I headed down by the water and stopped by Nyhavn then up along the Winter Castle (just in time for the changing of the guard) and then down to the Citadel and the Little Mermaid. 

I then doubled back and visited the Resenborg castle.  I hadn't been before, and it was really amazing castle.  It was a great royal museum and I got to see the crown jewels of Denmark.

I then strolled back to the hotel stopping for a organic hotdog from a street vendor and a lemon and mint san pellegrino (delicious!)

We opted for a take out Vietnamese dinner and walked back to the hotel room to enjoy it.  Super Yummy!  It should be interesting to see how it compares to tomorrow night's dinner! 

Lovely Arendal

I have some blog catch up to do... I opted to have a bath in the hotel instead of writing a post... it's not often you get a bath tub in Europe so it's so hard to say no!

I also left out some great moments from the day before... so her's a large recap on our time in Arendal! 

The train was super easy to make our way from Oslo to Arendal and we even got to go on an older train for the last 30 minutes.  The while trip had that lovely rock motion that I bravely fought off with Gravol!  

When we arrived Anna's friend was there to meet us and she took us back to your place right on the water.  It was a beautifully sunny and absolutely gorgeous day!  It wasn't long before her husband (and her daughter) showed up with a fresh catch of mackerel.  He had recently become a commercial fisherman and is starting a business catching different types of fish and lobster. 

We had an amazing meal of fresh fish and zucchini salad.  After lunch we made apple cider form local apples that they had recently picked.  They then ferment the apple to make hard cider.  We got to try some from the last batch at dinner.  I had a lot of fun cranking and throwing in apples.  

We had a great homemade pizza dinner and then later after dark some local fruit cobbler by their waterfront and fire pit.

The next morning we got up and headed our to one of the close islands by boat to hang by the beach and have a picnic.  It was cool out but didn't stop one of us (not me) from going swimming.  She said it was brisk but refreshing.  Lunch was a great collection of Norwegian foods like Jarlsberg cheese, cheese in squeeze tubes (we had blue and jalapeño), crackers, chips, as well as homemade guacamole and salsa.  Super yummy. 

We then walked around the island a bit before we headed back to the boat and back to her friend's place to finish packing up and head to the bus stop to catch the "Fly Bus" to the closest airport.  The whole time it was sunny and a gorgeous day.  

 

We then flew our way to Copenhagen and my last stop before I head home to Canada. 

Beautiful day in Arendal

IWe got up early to take the train to Arendal (just like Frozen!) and met up with Anna's friends from Halifax that now live in Norway. 

Arendal is spectacularly beautiful and we had a great afternoon of hanging out, having great food and great talks.  

We even took some time to press some local apples to make cider!  DELICIOUS! 

Finally feeling better too! 

A Sunny Day in Oslo

The plan for the day was to hit all the art museums!  And there are so many here!  Like four modern / contemporary ones!  Sadly my stomach did not want to cooperate... I've spent most of the day feeling ill.

But I wanted to see what I could do, I slept in a bit and then headed to the National Gallery which was basically next door to my hotel.  It was an amazing gallery and the tour book I bought allowed me to see the highlights in no time.  Including one of Munch's Scream paintings!

And then the sun came out and I decided I wanted to send some time outside instead of inside.  So I headed to Vigeland Park which is a sculpture garden.  I loved Gustav Vigeland's work so I took in his museum at the corner of the park. 

At that point I was done... and really feeling awful.  I headed back to my hotel to take a bit of a nap.  

Anna came by after her conference was over and we went to the grocery store for OJ and crackers... dinner for sick champions. 

I'm hoping to get some extra sleep tonight because we have a super early start as we head out on the train to Arendal.  Hopefully we can make the 7 minute train transfer! 

Its raining and Oslo is still awesome!

So I'm pretty sure Oslo took it as a challenge to show me just how rainy their city could be.  Knowing going into the day it was going to be a rainy one I planned to binge on museums.  

Oh and rain it did... it POURED... that heavy rain that when you use an umbrella it doesn't really stop the rain... it more like changes it from torrential downpour to a constant mist.  Even when I came out of a museum and it was only a light rain it opened up again for a real downpour.

I do, however, have to hand it to Oslo, in spite of the rain, this city is epic awesome!  The transit system alone was amazing! 

So what did I do with my day?

I started out by realizing that "take away" is notably cheaper than sitting and eating.  This started my "take away" day... with breakfast and the realization that when it's pouring rain it's next to impossible to hold an umbrella and coffee while trying to eat yogurt with a spoon.  So I started out my day a bit water logged.

I took the bus to the Kon-Tiki museum and the Tram Museum.  Both were quite awesome but you got to go into the Tram ship in the Tram museum which was super neat.  Although it did found the Tram museum smell a bit like old motors... ick!

I then jumped on the next bus and headed to the Holocaust Center which was mostly in Norwegian but they did lend me a tablet that had English translation.  I loved the location and the super green garden behind the centre (obviously so green because of all this rain!!) 

Then back with the bus to visit the Viking Museum and see some of the amazing Viking ships they had found buried in the fields.  They used to bury special people in these amazing ships with horses, carts, other people... almost Egyptian style with all the items they may need in their afterlife.

Back to the bus and I headed to the Norwegian Resistance Museum that provided details on all the efforts the Norwegians took to resist the occupation of the Germans during World War II.  It was interesting museum right next to the Akershus Castle (which is only open on weekends).

I then grabbed a a very late lunch hot dog and ate it in the pouring rain before I headed into the Nobel Peace centre.  This one was probably my favourite.  It was amazing to see all the award winners and why they won but also the focus on Martin Luther King Jr. and Malala Yousafzai was very interesting.  I also got some great shots of the City Hall and the surrounding sculptures.  Which looked so much more amazing in the rain.

I also stopped to take a look around the Royal Castle... but at this point I was tired... and tired of being soaked.

I headed back to the hotel to try off and figure out what to have for dinner.  I was craving Chinese food and believe it or not there is a fancy Chinese restaurant an 8 minute walk from my hotel and they had take away!  Score!  I had this really tasty and spicy szechuan dish with a glass a wine from the hotel (this hotel is a really great deal!)

Tomorrow... I'm going to binge on art! 

Traveling to Olso

We had hoped to squeeze in the Nobel Prize Museum but as it turns out it didn't open until 11am and we had to be at the airport for 11:20am.

So instead we slept in a bit and then made out way back to the main square of old town to grab one last cinnamon and cardamom bun.  The bun has a really pretty lattic design and is so delicious.  We then made out way to the airport and splurged on the ultra fast (non-stop) train to the airport.  It was relaxing and lightening fast.

We arrived at Oslo around 3:00 and seeing as we liked the lightening fast train in Stockholm so much we took the Oslo one into town.

I got an Oslo pass at the airport which included all subways, ferries, and pretty much every museum in Oslo.  I did have enough time to squeeze in one museum before Anna and I were going to meet up from dinner but instead I decided to plan out the next two days in my super tiny room.  It's so tiny but at the same time kinda cozy!

Anna and I met up at my hotel at 5:30 and we headed down to the water where the Oslo Opera house was.  We stopped for some super delicious pizza that had pumpkin cream instead of tomato sauce.  It was surprisingly delicious and I can't wait to try it out when I'm home.  Perhaps with some turkey sausage... Yum!

From there was walked the rest of the way to the Opera to watch Don Giovanni.  The opera house looks beautiful although with all the wood and the orange seats it felt a bit 70's retro even though it was recently built (in 2008).  The opera had some really great parts and was staged with more modern clothing which certainly made it much more interesting to watch.  It kinda had a Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet feel to it.  

First full day in Oslo tomorrow! 

Am I allergic to Reindeer?

Today was food tour day!  I love a great food tours and what better way to learn the city than a 4 hour walking tour with frequent stops for food?!

How about one where you don't find out you are allergic to reindeer?  I could have also been the moose, hard to tell.  I'm fine (really Mom, I am fine) because of some quick thinking from Anna and our tour guide running for some Benadryl.  It also meant we were no longer going for the reindeer dinner we had planned later that night.

The tour was great, we tried:

• Swedish cheese, Cured meats and breakfast beer, 
• Swedish meatballs with potatoes and lingonberry sauce, 
• Fish plate with smoked salmon, picked herring, and shrimp salad, 
• Jams & chocolates, 
• Swedish peppermint candy, and 
• Last stop was Fika which is really coffee and pastry, in this case a cinnamon bun.  

My favourite was probably the Swedish meatballs, so tasty and the lingonberry sauce was INSANELY good.... I don't know what they sell at IKEA because it didn't taste like that!  SPOILER ALERT - Anna and I are thinking about putting lingonberry inside this year's Christmas chocolates.  

Besides, obviously, not being a fan of the cured meats, the pastry wasn't as good as the one I had for breakfast so that stop was a bit of disappointment... but the coffee gave us the shot of energy to continue on a mission to see as many museums as possible in the time period remaining before they closed.

We took the ferry to the island and saw the Vasa museum and the amazing ship.  We opted for the free english tour and was subjected to the slowest talking tour guide ever that took the time to explain what cousins where, you know, just in case all the English speakers in the audience didn't understand the very detailed explanation of what an uncle's son is.  Luckily it didn't take away from the ship and the rest of the museum we mostly sped through after we bailed on the tour.

From there we went to the Spirit museum which was a weirdly trippy museum full of odd English translations.  They even had a hangover room where you could experience the sounds and feeling of a hangover without having one (which totally begs the question, Why?!)  The neat part was that we bought a sampler kit which enabled to sample candy and liquors as we went through different parts of the museum.  It was worth the extra $15 because the museum would just be weird otherwise.  Although this is the first time I've ever drank in the museum so maybe the whole experience was just weird?

From there we planned to visit the ABBA museum but for $30 each it was a bit excessive for a couple of low grade ABBA fans.  So what do you do instead?  Take pictures of yourselves as the girls in ABBA.  It's like you visited and have an extra $30 in your pocket. 

We then hopped on the ferry again and visited the Modern Art Museum.  They had some great installations and some awesome Picassos too! 

We then grabbed the ferry back to the nearest port to our hotel, grabbed a fast crepe dinner and we're back at the hotel. 

 

Sunny Stockholm

So I arrived alive in Stockholm... hardcore jetlagged because it was difficult to rest when you change planes in Reykjavik... it kinda cuts short the usual across the Atlantic flight into two weirdly lengthy legs.   But I do need to hand it to the Iceland airport, super efficient... I think it took less than 20 minutes for me to go though security, clear customs and then get to my connection gate!

I then made my way to downtown Stockholm via the very reasonably priced city trains and metro to meet Anna at the nearest metro station to the hotel.  By that time it was lunch time and the last time I ate was in Toronto.  We dropped off the luggage at the hostel and made out way to a local bakery for some fresh sandwiches.  Really fresh and tasty!  They even had these neat chocolate coconut balls that were really delicious.  

From there we started a walking tour in my travel book.  We were at the end point of the tour so we decided to do it backwards for extra fun... All in all I think we did pretty good.  We saw quite a few churches (from the outside, we both reminisced about our day trip to Toledo where we really learned the true meaning behind Holy Toledo!) 

We stopped halfway through at the "Bloodbath" square where we warmed up with some coffee (very delicious mochaccinos!)  We read about the square where 80 of the Swedish nobility were killed by the ruling Danish monarch leaving one sole heir who later conquered back Stockholm and regained his crown.

We also took some time to see the outside of the Royal Castle and walked along the water, seeing the locks.  We also made a stop at a tiny islet, Riddarholmen, where they had many of their courthouses and a beautiful (from the outside) church.  We could see City Hall (which we may visit tomorrow) from the water.

For dinner we decided on the little place next door that had charcuterie.... It was delicious... and honestly, we were a bit thankful that our waiter had forgotten the rest of our order after the very large charcuterie and grilled provolone. 

I'm so beat and ready to get on Scandi time! 

Rainy Adventure Begins!

So it looks like rain for the trip... In almost every place, everyday!  And apparently Ottawa is helping me get ready for my rainy vacation by raining it up for the last two days!

But who knows, just like the sun that has just showed up in Ottawa, the sun may make an appearance but even if it doesn't the museums and amazing smorgasbords should make it an amazing vaca! 

So what's the plan? 

• I leave tonight to travel though Reykjavik, Iceland to arrive in Stockholm at noon.  
• Spend a day exploring Stockholm including a food tour!
• Travel by train to Oslo
• Museum fest in Oslo including seeing The Scream!
• Train travel to Arendal, Norway for catching up with friends
• Flight to Copenhagen to re-visit some favorites! Smørrebørd and flødeboller!  Plus the extremely delicious sour gummy candy! 
• Birthday dinner with my BFF at Kiin Kiin Thai restaurant!
• Travel back home! 

Should be and awesome, rainy, and whirlwind vacation!