Day 7: Now we’re cruising

The Oslo end of the night train from Bergen

Ok, Oslo, we did not get off on the right foot. We’ve taken some time in Bergen to cool off, and now we’re ready to give it another try.

Besides, we all have this half day to spend together, and the best thing to do is try to play nice. In the brief time between when the night train lets us off and our cruise to Copenhagen starts boarding, we promise to uncover and enjoy some of the pleasure we know must exist somewhere within your downtown area. And all you have to do is occupy our attention and not take up too much of our money.

The University of Oslo’s Natural History Museum curates a Botanical Garden. It opens at 8!

Deal?

You must have some kind of attraction that open early. Our train gets in at 6. Maybe something outdoors. How about a nice botanical garden that we can roam around and not bother anyone?

We can look at some flowers, take some pictures, and stretch our legs. It has to be close enough to the train station so we can walk there.

Can you do that? Thanks.

On the grounds of the Akershus Fortress

And while we’re outside, how about a castle or something from a long time ago that has some grounds we can explore. We are really getting into Norwegian history. Sprinkly it with some cannons and ancient-looking rock walls.

Maybe it can be on the water? We don’t really want to spend much money, so maybe keep it…free? Is that too much to ask?

I know we’re asking a lot, Norway, but that crummy hotel episode left a bad taste in our mouths. Oh, speaking of which, we would like a quick place for lunch.

Something we haven’t had on this trip yet. How about Middle Eastern food? Some nice felafel and pitas.

And when we get done with that — we know this is a lot to ask — but we’ve really been hoping to find the time for an escape room this trip. And, we’ve got some time.

Winter is probably still coming, but we did manage to defeat the ice army in the Game of Thrones-themed room at the Escape Games.

See if you can come up with something not too tricky, but tough enough to keep us occupied for an hour or so. And put it right on the street we’re walking down. And make sure there is a free timeslot when we need it.

And that should do it. We’ll collect our stuff from the lockers and head off for our cruise termnal, which should be within walking distance from the train station.

Given that we’re in Scandinavia during the summer, we know it’s going to rain a little, but can you keep the percipitation to a minium.

We’ll take care of the rest. Really.

Our cruise is booked. We have a cabin with a window that will let us watch the coastline pass by.

Not a bad way to travel

We’ll be sure wave to all the Norwegians on shore as we sail past, maybe sitting the hot tub, if we’re lucky.

And then, sometime overnight, the Norwegian coastline will turn into the Danish coastline, and we’ll be completely out of your hair, Oslo. We’ll even say some nice things about you, and maybe wish that we had few more hours to explore your streets.

Not that we’ll think of you as fondly or as often as we’ll think of Bergen or — and we know this will hurt you — Stockholm. But we can part as friends and get on with our busy agendas, each enriched, if only slighly, by our time together.

What do you say, Oslo? Let’s give it a try.

Day 6: Big on Bergen

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It is very difficult not to like Bergen. It’s neither too big, nor too small; neither too quiet, nor too noisy. Like all the Scandinavian cities we’ve visited, it is very easy to navigate on foot. It is exotic and foreign, but everyone switches to English quite cheerfully. There is deep history and rich culture. And most of us had not idea it existed until yesterday.

We stumbled upon an Asian food festival

Even Jen, who did know it existed because she planned our stop here, did not quite fathom what a gem it would turn out to be.

Excited about having a whole day to explore some more, we fueled up at our hotel’s breakfast buffet. A quick little background: We are staying in the apartment section of the Magic Hotel in the Kloverheuset building. There are a few other members of the Magic Hotel empire here in Bergen, and the hotel and its staff will factor pretty heavily in our enjoyment of the day, so we should slide a little publicity their way.

Scenes from the extensive Bryggen fish market

When we confirmed in the morning that, as apartment renters and not hotel room guests, we would have to pay for the breakfast buffet, the woman at the desk noted that the Magic Hotel on the other side of the waterfront also had a breakfast buffet. She said it was virtually the same buffet, but it was a bunch of kroner cheaper for some reason .

That’s pretty helpful information to know, we thought; and we headed over to the other Magic Hotel for breakfast. Then we shopped a bit along the Bryggen, which is the old section of the waterfront.

Soon enough, it was time for checkout (a noon checkout is another nice feature of this particular hotel chain), and the staff was all too happy to let us store our things in the locked luggage room. Moreover, they were kind enough to allow us back into the apartment building because last night we forgot to take advantage of another major benefit — a free laundry room.

Multiple times during the day we would return to the desk and the attendant would give us a key to let us back into the apartment building to check our laundry. It dried more slowly than we would have liked, perhaps because the washing machine seemed to have a rather unproductive spin cycle. Also, we found out that dryers in this part of the world collect extracted water in a special tank which needs to be emptied out like a dehumidifier. Super interesting stuff.

Because of this, we had to bum around town, spending an hour or so here, then return to the hotel to check the dryer. It took a little while for it to all work out, but, as stated before, it was free laundry access. We thank you, Magic Hotel chain of Bergen.

We were not suffering in the meantime, by the way. No one will complain about wating for laundry if they are passing the time eating ice cream waffle creations.

Eventually, though, the laundry felt dry. We got the luggage room key and stored the clean clothes with the rest of our stuff, and we were free for the big-ticket item of the day.

Going up the Floibanen

We climbed just a smidge up into the hills from the waterfront and boarded the Floibanen, a funicular railway that takes people up Mount Floyen to a little resort area of playgrounds, hiking trails, and fantastic views.

Bergen beneath us

Bergen is a touristy place in many ways, but the Floibanen does not seem to be a tourist-only activity. We met a local couple in the terminal who advised us that the best views would be from the lowest car, and then they gave us their spaces in that car because they’ve be on it so many times.

We are closer to the North Pole than to New York City.

This is really a nice place.

The top of Mount Floyen proved quite pleasurable, except that we arrive just a few minutes late for the free canoing on lake Skomakerdiket, but that had more to do with Norwegian laundry appliances than it did with the funicular or Mount Floyen.

The views of the city made up for any disappointment over canoes, and we ended up having plenty of time to walk several trails and then hike back down to the waterfront. The fairly steep three kilometers down made us appreciate the help we got getting up the mountain. `

Now quite hungry, we enjoyed a Chinese-food dinner.

Then, in a final stop in at the Magic Hotel, we grabbed our luggage and headed over to the station to catch the night train to Oslo. We already had tickets reserved, but Jen managed to purchase us a sleeping cabin, which we quickly settled into. We slept through most of what would be our last major train ride of the trip, and then faced the task of trying to make friends with Oslo after so recently leaving in a huff.

Sorting laundry in the luggage room

Ready to board the night train

Sleeping cabin secured!

Day 5: Back on track

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Even the odd tiger statue in the train station square couldn’t convince us to stay in Oslo.

After yesterday’s series of debacles, I was prepared for catastrophe at every turn today. The Norway leg of the trip was tightly planned out and timing was key (hence the need for the $$$ Uber yesterday), so a missed connection would spell disaster. I was also somewhat dubious about our train ticket reservations, which I had to make by calling the train company in Norway. All I had to show for it was an email with a reservation number — no bar code, no passenger list, no seat assignments.

Early goings on the train to Myrdal

We were trying to do something called the “Norway in a Nutshell” tour, which involves several different scenic legs to travel between the cities of Oslo and Bergen: the spectacular train ride to the town of Myrdal, a small scenic railroad trip to the village of Flam, a fjord cruise to Gudvagen, a scenic bus ride winding down the mountain to the train station at Voss, and a train the rest of the way to Bergen.

The whole thing takes up pretty much a whole day but gives a great snapshot of the amazing Norway fjord lands. The companies that run the transit time them out so you can smoothly move from one to the next.

So we left the cursed CityBox at 7:45 am and held our breath while boarding the 8:30 train for the first leg of our trip. We immediately encountered a hurdle in that we didn’t have seat assignments and no conductor was in evidence.

We have a first class Eurail pass so we took the last five open seats in first class, figuring we were good — until another passenger arrived to kick one of us out. I sat on a little window seat bench in between the first class carriages and awaited the conductor with a mixture of impatience (because maybe someone was in one of our seats and could be kicked out?) and dread (because maybe we didn’t have real tickets at all and would be kicked off the train at the next stop in the middle of nowhere).

Sharing the window bench with fellow photographers

The reality turned out to be in between — we did have tickets, but they were second class for some reason. The kind conductor said that we could keep the four seats that we had, since apparently the people who reserved them didn’t show up. I stayed camped out on my window seat, which was nicer than the second class carriage and actually turned out to be a great location for seeing the gorgeous scenery that we soon began to pass.

Glaciers near Myrdal

The train between Oslo and Myrdal, heading up into the mountains and fjords, is considered to be one of the most scenic train journeys in Europe and it was easy to see why.

Lots of tourists from the rest of the car visited my large window to take photos of the lakes, fjords, mountains, waterfalls, and glaciers. (Eventually two more people got on with first class reservations, so two other members of the family had to join me on the bench.)

Aboard the Flamsbana

Step 1 completed successfully, we waited about 10 minutes on a platform in a gorgeous mountain town then boarded the Flamsbana, a one-hour train ride from Myrdal (elevation 867 meters) to Flam, at sea level. It claims to be the most beautiful, and one of the steepest, train journeys in the world.

Enlarge to see mysterious lady in red on the ledge in front of the falls. Imagine dramatic music.

Halfway through, the train stops at a gorgeous waterfall so everyone can get out to take photos, and to our surprise there was a mini-show, with a woman dressed in traditional garb dancing from the top of a cliff part way up to musical accompaniment. The ride was one breathtaking vista after another as we wound down alongside glaciers and fjords.

Our luck seemed to be changing — until we tried to book our boat ride and discovered that (a) the next ride was sold out, and (b) the later bus wasn’t running for some reason, so if we waited for the next boat ride we’d be stranded in Gudvagen. This was a real low point. Fortunately, Nadia’s internet skills came in handy again and she managed to find a different cruise that was making the five-hour journey directly to Bergen, our final destination.

Tickets to Bergen secured!

We hurriedly booked ourselves tickets for the boat that was leaving in an hour’s time (and reflected that after the previous 24 hours we’d had, maybe getting directly to our destination, rather than having to navigate more buses and trains, was no bad thing.

On the fjord

And then things truly did turn around.

The boat ride through the fjords was gorgeous and comfortable. We alternated between sitting in our cozy indoor seats (especially when periodic rain started up), playing games and relaxing, and going up on deck to look at the towering cliffs of the fjords, the copious waterfalls, and the little storybook villages that we periodically passed.

First view of the Bergen waterfront

Our boat arrived at 8:45 pm, which is still broad daylight up here.

It would take a lot for me to feel that this whole leg of the journey, with all the stress and problems, was worth it — but Bergen rose to the challenge. It is hard to overstate how beautiful the town is, particularly when approached by sea in the evening sunlight. It was a Saturday night and the town squares and cobblestone pedestrian lanes were lively with people.

Our rental apartment proved to be literally a few steps from the harbor where the boat docked and just around the corner from the famous waterfront “timber town”, which dates back to the 1700s and 1800s and is a UNESCO world heritage site. (It’s one of the few such sites in the world that hasn’t burned down over time.) Even though it was well after 9 pm by the time we hit the streets, the long day of sun and the energy of the town made us all up for some strolling around as we looked for a place to have dinner.

Late diinner at Olivia

By the time we’d enjoyed our excellent harborside Italian meal and made our way back to our apartment, it was 11:30 pm, but didn’t feel like it. We can’t wait to see more of Bergen tomorrow.

Day 4: A mess of surprises

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Not all of today’s surprises were unwelcome. For instance, when Lanie disappeared down to the hip lobby of our hip hostel this morning while the rest of us were packing up, who could expect that she’d return with Ms. Louise! What!? Louise in Stockholm!? That was not expected. She was in town visiting friends and conspired with Lanie over the past day or so to pop in and say hi. We enjoyed a nice walk with her to the train station, where we would be storing most of our things in a locker while we toured another part of Stockholm this morning.

Another pleasant surprise: The old section of the city is very pretty and quite extensive, with narrow cobbled streets branching out to even more narrow cobbled alleyways.

We wandered here for some time, barely managing to avoid purchasing any number of souvenirs. We still have a fair bit of Scandinavia to lug things through.

Leaving Generator Stockholm hostel

The changing of the guard in front of the royal palace was an elaborate event witnessed by several hundred fellow onlookers. We were surprised the crowds gathered so quickly and wished we hadn’t lingered inside the palace for so long (you can just walk around in there for free — and there are more parts you can pay to visit, like the royal apartments, which seems a little invasive on King Carl Gustav, but he apparently obliges). The Royal Guards marching band was pretty tight, and what a surprise it was when

Outside the Pulitzer Prize Museum in the old town

they played a medley that included “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” and “It’s Raining Men.” These musical clues may give an idea of the weather for the morning. It was actually a not uncomfortable amount of showers.

That pretty much gets us through the pleasant surprises for the day. We left the old town for the train station, had a quick lunch in a taco bar, recovered our stored luggage, and made it to our train on time.

We have been very good at getting ourselves where we’re supposed to be in plenty

A narrow road in the old town

of time. The Swedish railway system was not as reliable. We watched in horror as a 50-minute delay blamed on “electrical issues” burned through our 30-minute layover in Gothenburg and made us 20 minutes late for our train to Oslo.

The horror mounted as officials from Swedish rail explained that they would not compensate for their mistake because we had booked our journey through the Eurail system and not the Swedish rail system.

The horror basically peaked when it dawned on us that lacking any further trains, bus seats, or available rental cars that could take us to Oslo, we would miss out on the night’s book accommodations in Oslo and basically the whole Norwegian leg of our trip. The next few days of travel relied on us getting on a train in Oslo the next morning at 8 a.m. This all dawned on us in a shower of unpleasant surprises.

The Pavlik family sprung into action to go through every option we could collectively think of. We begged the rail company for help, both on the train and via a phone call from the station. We tried to book the last bus of the day (sold out). We tried to rent a car (all agencies closed, even those that claimed to be open). Nadia scoped out a local bus path that would have taken seven legs overnight and gotten us to Oslo at 7 a.m., and also searched around for potential accommodations in Gothenburg (which is likely a very nice place, but its name will make our family shudder for years to come), but they were extremely pricey and hard to find. Zoe tried to get the European SIM card that we’d bought working, so we could make calls and use data.

The Royal Guards Marching Band rocks the palace

Lanie suggested booking an Uber for the four-hour drive from Gothenburg to Oslo. We originally dismissed that idea out of hand — and then we were surprised to find that this was our best, and possibly only, option to keep us on our scheduled plan.

It may seem like an Ugly American option to just throw a bunch of money at a problem — and hiring an Uber for five people to connect two cities that are four hours apart does involve a big bunch of money — but please judge us carefully. We had several days of hotel reservations riding on this decision, and losing them would have cost us a bunch of money, too.

So, Zoe helped us stick out our Uber thumb and try to hitch a ride into Norway. The first two drivers who accepted our call, quickly dropped, apparently once they realized the magnitude of the trip.

Before it all went horribly wrong

The third driver accepted our challenge, but 20 minutes into the drive he said we had a problem and handed his phone back to Jen so she could talk to his boss. It turns out this driver was running up against Sweden’s laws for how long a person could drive in one shift. Unbelievably, we had to turn around and try again at the Gothenburg train station.

At this point we had gone through out allotted amount of unpleasant surprises, which is to say that nothing unpleasant really surprised us anymore. Zoe caught us another Uber within five minutes, and this driver was up for the journey. For what it’s worth, driving from Gothenburg to Oslo is a lot like driving through the Berkshires

Poring over options in the Gothenburg station

or Catskills — given the distance, maybe you can say it’s like driving through the Bershires and the Castskills. It was not unpleasant. Though, every time the driver’s phone rang we silently willed him not to answer so he wouldn’t get called off the job.

He was a very efficient driver and got us to Oslo in very good time. But our day wasn’t quite over yet. As we staggered into our hotel at midnight and attempted to check in, we ran into another problem — we had somehow booked the hotel for the prior day, and had been marked as a no-show. So we had to book new rooms (thankfully they had a quad and a single available) at more expense. We had further problems attempting to use the pull-out couch in our room, and eventually the hotel had to bring us a cot (which they had earlier said was “not possible”). It was after 1am before we finally collasped into bed, hoping this all would turn out to be worth it.

Day 3: When in Sweden

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Navigating the Max menu

Perhaps Stockholm deserved better from us, but we really must have needed the sleep. We did not rouse ourselves until almost noon today. Hip Swedish hostels are surprisingly quiet in the mornings.

Somewhat refreshed, we met the bright sunlight of this bright city and started to check off things people do when they’re in this country.

Stockholm is a very walkable city

First, we went to Max. It’s Sweden’s answer to McDonalds — though they have McDonalds and even Burger King here, too. The selection at Max is quite broad and the food is good. Zoe wandered farthest off the beaten path by getting a getting a cheese burger that consisted completely of cheese, which had been grilled just like it was a burger. She reviewed it pretty highly.

Crossing from one of Stockholm’s islands to another

After that we walked around a lot. This is a very walkable city, with wide sidewalks and clearly marked bike lanes that we’ve mostly been able to avoid encroaching. Car traffic seems to be less than in other major cities we’ve visited. Between the busses, trolleys, metro stations, and ferries, there seems to be plenty of public transportation options. But with streets and architecture as appealing as Stockholm’s, walking seems to be the way to go.

Our feet brought us to a wide pedestrian walkway flanked by stately buildings on one side and the harbor on the other. There were plenty of cafes in full lunch mode by the time we made it over. Some of the cafes and bars stretched out onto docks in the water between fancy boat moorings and ferry landings.

The Vassa’s ample, well-decorated stern

The next thing to do in Sweden, and the main goal of the day’s walking, was to get us to a museum. There are lots of museums in Stockholm, and they come in many varieties. Our first choice focused on a 17th Century sailing ship called the Vassa. It was one of the largest ships of its time and it was very richly decorated and heavily armed. And it sank after sailing only 1,000 feet or so because it didn’t have enough ballast in the bottom to keep it upright.

It’s difficult to imagine people in the US setting up a top-notch museum based on a not-quite-so-proud moment in our engineering history, but that’s what they did here. The Vassa Museum is an amazing place centered around the ship, how it was built, and how it was resurrected from the bottom of the harbor in the 1950s.

The museum offers views of the Vassa from multiple levels.

The museum’s 20-minute movie about the Vassa’s saga ends with the idea that if the ship had been more seaworthy it would have been destroyed or dismantled by now. Becuase it sank so quickly and so close to the city it was preserved in the mud and relatively easy to access. They say that 95 percent of the ship, which is on full display in the museum’s main hall, is from its original construction.

From here, we had many choices of museums to browse. There was one based solely on other shipwrecks besides the Vassa. There was one on vikings and one on spirits (not the occult kind, but the distilled kind) and one on nordic life. As we decided which to visit next we chewed on long ropes of Swedish licorice and contemplated scrapping everything for a visit to the amusement park that towered over the section of town we were in.

Actually, most of us wanted nothing to do with the amusement park, and we all pretty much knew where we wanted to go. The licorice ropes were just to keep us occupied until our allotted time came for us to enter the ABBA museum. And so, once 16:30 came around on our clocks, we embarked on an adventure into a world which few people realize exists. It is a world where ABBA merits a whole museum that is crowded enough to make people wait for assigned times to enter.

Dancing at the Abba Museum

The course of the museum starts at the end of ABBA’s story, with Benny, Bjorn, Frida and Agnetha recording themselves with special cameras for the hologram ABBA experience currently running in London. This is the phenomenon where people pay to go to a concert to watch ABBA holograms perform with a live band.

More dancing at the ABBA museum

At least we got to see actual ABBA stuff, like their recording studio, which was moved to the museum, and the home made double base that was part of Benny’s (or perhaps Bjorn’s) first band. And the costumes! Oh, the costumes. Capes and jumpsuits for miles. We are all pretty knowledgeable about ABBA now. Ask us for some trvia; we’ll probably know it.

About now we had to start being careful. Our checkout time tomorrow is 10 a.m. No sleeping until noon for us. So we shouldn’t be staying out too late either. We passed on any further museum visits and continued walking through the gardens of the surrounding area until we were able to retrace our steps back toward the hostel.

Checking the cocktail menu at a harborside bar

Here we did something that most people do in Sweden, we avoided stopping in for a drink on one of the harborside bars we passed in the morning. We were sorely tempted to give it a try. We even stopped into one; but we were turned off by two things: 1.) They strangely didn’t have a non-alcoholic option besides mineral water; 2.) The alcoholic drinks were stunningly expensive. None of us needed to try a $29 mojito. We have to think that the average Swede would make the same choice.

It was time now to follow our standard vacation routine of wandering around until we stumble upon a dinner plan. Tonight we stumbled upton Italian food.

We managed to get back to our place at a reasonable enough hour for some of us to take on some blogging and other to get a little bar hopping in the hotel lounge.

Day 2: Keep moving

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There was little reason to beleive that we would be able to get up the next morning after such a drawn-out travel day and be ready for a kayak tour. But these were Louise’s plans, and, sure enough, we were up and out by 10 a.m. (4 a.m. EST), and on the water of the town’s narrow harbor.

This is truly a testament to our host’s sheer force of will, and all five of us benefitted from hearing stories that covered various parts of the estuary and even some of the small islands between the banks. Taking a kayak tour was also something Louise had wanted to do for a long time, but she didn’t feel like her parents were up for the trip.

The same bridge we kayaked under a little while ago

Having seen Ahus from the water, we hopped back on land to hit a few of the spots she missed showing us yesterday. These included the city library, which has a very efficient way to process its book loans. “I don’t know why I get so excited about these things!” she said as she was checking out a book. “But I do!”

Louise even taught us a Viking yard game called Cube.

Getting excited is something Louise is very good at. She shared this skill a little later in the morning by bringing us to the famous Otto Glas ice cream stand on the town square. Most everyone was excited about this. The flavors selected ranged from pear and egg liquor, pear and melon, and elderbery with lime ripple and coconut.

You get to choose two flavors per one-scoop serving, but really you’re getting two scoops — Louise says you can get this brand of ice cream in Stockholm, but they are not nearly as generous with the servings in the capital. And it’s put in a big homemade waffle cone. And it’s all dipped in a chocolate sauce that turns into a hard shell. I’m sure you can sense the excitment this caused.

Zoe with one of the little beach houses

Next, it was back to touring. We got on our borrowed bikes and visisted the two beaches we missed yesterday. Beaches are one of the three things Ahus is best known for. The population of the city swells by a third in the summer because of all the beachgoers. We rode through several neighborhoods of homes that looked sturdy enough to live in all year, but probably were mostly used during beach season.

The water was cold, and even Louise was not excited enough to go swimming. But these two were.

Then, right on the beach, there are tiny houses that families have built decades ago. Although you can’t build new ones anymore, the old ones are allowed to stay. Louise pointed out her favorite, a white one with an orange roof that was hosting a family gathering as we walked by.

In between the two beaches we needed to portage our bikes a mile or so through a forest. Again, no complaints from anyone in our camp. It started to rain a bit. Still, we were all happy campers. The momentum of Louise’s excitement carried us all through.

After another meal at Louise’s parents’ house and a quick trip to the grocery store, we were ready to head off on the next leg of our trip. Louise saw us off at the bus stop and we reversed the last part of our trip from yesterday.

Goodbye at the bus stop

Then we had a quick train trip to meet the train that would take us to Stockholm, four hours away. We had gotten so used to traveling by bicycle — and to having Louise’s authentic Swedish comfort food — that it was difficult to leave. She assured us, though, that there would be plenty of cool things to see in Stockholm. We are already lowering our expectations when it comes to ice cream servings.

Waiting for a train in Hasselholm

The light faded slowly as we watched bustling Swedish towns and sprawling wheat fields go by. It didn’t get dark until just before we arrived in Stockholm, around 10:30 p.m. We managed to find our accommodations, a slightly more difficult task than you might think.

From the window of the 18:46 train to Stockholm

We are relying on wifi to keep us informed, so street navigation is not as smooth as it would be if we constatnly tied into the Internet.

We found our place, though. It’s a hip hostel still buzzing with young people in the lobby when we arrived after 11. We have a six-bunk room to ourselves, and it has its own bathroom. We’re hoping to get up relatively early to explore the city, but all bets are off given our late bedtimes and the fact that Louise and her dynamism are several hours away.

Day 1: Planes, trains, buses, and bikes

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Things have started off very auspiciously for our

Scandinavian trip. Starting at 2:30pm yesterday, we managed to successfully connect one bus (to the airport), two flights (to Iceland then to Copenhagen), a train to Sweden, and a bus to the seaside. We succeeded in wrangling all our baggage into one checked bag (a large backpack), and five “personal items”, in order to avoid the

Triumphant arrival in Ahus

outrageous baggage fees charged by Play Airlines. (We were a little nervous about the personal items, but we all managed, with some difficulty, to shove them into the sizing check slot. Jury is still out on whether we’ll be able to pull this off again for the trip home.) A mere 20 hours of so after leaving our house, we were stepping off the bus in Ahus. The sun was shining and the air was crisp and cool.

We’re in Ahus visiting our dear friend (and Lanie’s violin teacher) Louise, who grew up here and is back visiting for the summer. She and her parents have already, in the span of less than a day, given us a tremendous amount of delicious food and warm hospitality. Louise has much to show us and is not one to let the grass grow under her feet, so after a quick welcome meal she showed us to the five bikes that

Church tour with Jurgen

she’d managed to borrow from neighbors, and we set off to explore the town. After a long travel day, it was wonderful riding through the sunshine on the picturesque, bike-friendly streets. (The biking presented a bit of difficulty for vertically-challenged Lanie, but she soon became a pro at getting the bike started even when her feet couldn’t reach the ground.)

Louise’s family has lived her for generations, and she had a story to tell about almost every building we passed. We

Absolut Home

got a behind-the scenes tour of the town’s church, which dates from 1160, from Louise’s friend Jurgen. We saw the harbor front, and the town square, and the Absolut Factory, which is right in the center of town. (Alas, there were no English language tours that met our schedule.) We saw the ancient ruins in the middle of town, which the enterprising Ahusians have turned into an open air cafe. We went to one of the three beaches in town, and walked out on a long, long pier and dipped our toes (only our toes) in the frigid water — frigid even by our NH standards, though there were a few brave swimmers. (Zoe considered going for a swim. She was deterred not by the water temperature, but by the multitude of jellyfish that floated through the lagoon. Louise thought they weren’t the stinging kind, but was not totally positive about it.) We located our quaint B&B, right near the waterfront, and got ourselves checked in. After a night on the plane with very little sleep, we really didn’t think we’d still be going strong at this point, but Louise is a bundle of energy and fortunately it proved to be contagious.

Having squeezed in pretty much everything we could for the

Meatball production

day, we headed back to the Kandles’ house for dinner. Louise and her mother spent all day yesterday preparing a Swedish meatball feast, and everything was delicious. We all ate way too much. SInce it was now after 9pm, Louise decided we’d have to hold off on the Swedish yard games, but it’s good to have something to look forward to tomorrow.

Day 4 — Near Misses and Big Hits

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We went right when we should have gone left.

We are not done yet.

On the contrary, I think we have been invigorated by out close proximity to all the action. I walked to the Eastern Market at dawn’s early light for some supplies at Trader Joe’s and a few coffee drinks. Having consumed those in our just-right accommodations, we practically leapt out onto the sidewalk, ready to crawl all over DC for another day.

Paintings by Alma Thomas on display at the Hirshhorn Museum

Stop 1 was a return to the Capitol Welcome Center, a 10-minute walk from our place, to cash in on the Congressional gallery passes that we scored on Monday. Both houses were in session this morning, so we were confronted with a few options: House, Senate, or try to squeeze in both before our 10:30 meeting time with DC art expert and all-around great guy Ken.

A brief stop in a secret garden next to the Museum of Art and Industry (sadly closed today — another near miss)

With the intention of possibly visiting both, we headed for the Senate side first. It was about 15 minutes before their 10 am start time. It was possible that we could see the Senators start their session and then hustle over to check out proceedings in the House.

This really wasn’t a good plan. After surrendering most of our posessions in a check-in station we were directed down several hallways, up and elevator and through several more hallways (all with consistently shiny floors and very solid-looking walls), through a metal detector, and finally into the Gallery of the US Senate Chambers.

It was a quiet place at that time of day, with about 10 other people in the gallery (gallery viewers were outnumbered at least 3 to 1 by people standing in the hallway directing us where to go) and, maybe, about the same number of people on the floor of the chambers.

Many of these people were literally sitting on the floor of the chamber, not displaying much anticipation that anything was going to happen soon. They were wearing blue and looked to be late teenagers. Reading the Senate information booklet while we waited, we discovered that these were interns in their junior year of high school. Not too long after we took our seats, right around 10 am, the interns popped up off the floor and took positions by various doors in the chamber. We took this as a sign that something was about to happen — possibly that the Senators were going to make a grand entrance.

A few more people did trickle in, including a woman wearing a contraption that held a stenographer’s recording device and allowed her to go around keying in what people said. The Senate information book informed us that recorders like her work in 15-minute shifts and then go back to their offices to immediately to transcribe their notes.

Here is what this recorder transcribed in the minutes that we were there: 1. A grey haired man (our best bet at actually being a Senator for the day — it might have been the Senate President Pro Tempore, or it might have been someone on Vice President Harris’ staff performing her duties for her) banging a gavel, calling the session to order, and announcing a pastor who would be giving the morning’s prayer. 2. The solemn pastor invoking those in the chamber (at this point still dominated by high school junior interns) to use the quiet strength of the Lord to guide their decisions. 3. A clerk reading two communications, the latter being about the Senate moving directly to executive session to talk about candidates for an upcoming appointment.

Jen asked the last official person we passed before entering the chambers, a lady standing at the top of the stairs if the the Senators would be coming in soon and the lady said yes. They were just listening to someone talk, she said. They would be entering the chamber soon.

We read our book. We found the desks where Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, our Senators from New Hampshire, would be sitting. We watched the clock as it got closer to our meeting point with Ken.

The interns sat back down on the ground.

We realized it would be impossible to gather our things at the check-in, hustle over to the House of Representatives side and repeat the check-in process, make our way to that gallery to see if anything more was going on over there. So, we waited a few more minutes, then gave up. We retraced our steps through hallways and the elevator, back to the check-in to retrieve our things. Here we noticed a tv screen showing proceedings in the House, and there was a Representative talking. It appeared there was something going on over there. We would later learn that there was a major discussion about the debt ceiling. There were probably lots of people in the galleries over there checking all that out.

It was a near miss, but still a very interesting look into how things work on Capitol Hill. As an added bonus, they never collected the gallery passes we received from Rep. Pappas. They never even looked at them. So we can go back and check the whole thing out again if we want.

In the meantime, the stage was set for a day of exploring galleries with Ken, who did not seem to mind that we were 17 minutes late meeting with him at the Hirshhorn Museam just one block up from the Air and Space Museum on the National Mall.

Most of this is made of tinfoil!

And so began a day of getting a little off the main trail of museums in DC. We had another near miss when we learned the special exhibit at the Hirshhorn was sold out (it didn’t look that crowded there), but then we moved on from main gallies of modern art here to a more intensiave tour of the National Gallery’s Sculpture Garden.

After lunch on the patio of the cafe there, we moved on to the Renwick Gallery, which is Ken’s favorite and is located right next to the White House. It featured one large, ballroom-sized installation that was a larg net suspended from the ceiling lit by subtly changing lighting. It also had on display an assortment of very cool woodwork and pottery. It was only one floor of galleries, but the time we spent there was worth the walk.

On our way to the Renwick Gallery, we got to peek at the president’s residence, but it was not easy. There were lots of extra barriers and many security personnel around. We would later find out that this all had to do with a state dinner that evening to welcom the President and first lady of South Korea. If we had only stayed around watching for a little while longer we might have gotten invited to the dinner. Another near miss.

Anyway there was more art to see. And gift shops. By now we were walking through the streets of the city part of DC and not around the National Mall. We made our way to Chinatown and there, in the shadow of the hockey and basketball arena, we found the National Portrait Gallery. Aside from housing a lot of portraits, this build also had a major collection of American Art, and it also offers a fantastic covered central courtyard where we lounged over iced coffee and continued to get caught up with Ken.

In these galleries we were able to see portraits of all the Presidents (though no official portraits have been painted for Trump or Biden because they are either in office or looking to run again for President). We saw the famous portrait of Michelle Obama. We saw lots of work by American artists, and we generally had our artistic appreciation vessels filled up right to the brim.

After that, all that was left was a nice dinner at the Founding Farmers and Distillers restaurant a brief walk from the museum, and then we were saying goodbye to Ken. We owe him many thanks for taking a day off from work to show us a lot of places (and artwork) we would not have gotten to on our own. It was a very big hit of a day for us.

Death march, DC-style

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We’ve got to give Lanie credit for being a trouper on this vacation. Without any sisters as moderating influences, she’s been left to bear the full brunt of Bob’s and my travel style. Today was another day of miles and miles of walking, punctuated with various monuments, museums, and the occasional snack.

We said goodbye to Kathleen and her lovely family this morning and headed into the city for a couple of days at an airbnb on Capitol Hill. Normally we avoid driving into cities like the plague, but this time we really couldn’t avoid it. Some may recall an unfortunate episode last time we were in DC, where we failed to read some signs carefully enough and our car got towed to a random nearby street and we had to wander blindly around until we found it. The issue was that on certain streets at rush hour, the parking lane gets turned into a travel lane. This time we reaped the benefit of that system, since we arrived just after rush hour so there was still copious parking right on the National Mall.

We started out with monuments — Washington, World War II, Lincoln, Vietnam, Korea. All of them were flooded with giant mobs of middle school students, but at least we didn’t run into any of our own town’s middle school students. There were also a large number of Korean people trying to hand us brochures about Jesus. We weren’t sure whether they’re always at the Mall, or whether they were there specially because the president of South Korea is visiting this week. But despite the crowds and the Jesus pamphlets, it’s an inspiring feeling to stand at the feet of Lincoln and read the words of the Gettysburg Address carved in marble on the wall.

Some cool stuff we saw at the American History museum: A piece of the original Woodstock stage, C3PO & R2D2, and Jill Biden’s inauguration outfit complete with matching mask.

With some time left on our meter (and the car still accounted for), we started the round of museums. The great thing about the museums here is that, in addition to being uniformly stunning, they’re all free — so you can make just a quick visit without feeling like you’re wasting money. Lanie’s top choices were Natural History and Art, but we decided to make a quick stop at the American History museum as we were passing, since Kathleen had recommended it. This was a very cool museum! And not at all what we expected. We saw the original (huge) flag that inspired the national anthem, and the collection of First Lady dresses. But most of the other exhibits we saw had to do with pop culture, science, and technology. They were very well designed to draw you in and we ended up spending a lot more time here than we expected (but still not nearly enough to see everything, which was the theme of all the museums we visited).

After a trek back to the car to refill the meter, we retraced our steps yet again to head to Natural History and Art. We were running out of steam a bit by this point, so we really didn’t begin to make a dent in all the offerings. I think it would take a month of daily visits to fully appreciate even one of these museums. But with our energy and our parking meter both running low, and a notification that our airbnb was ready for us, we headed back to the car and made the fortunately uneventful drive to Capitol Hill.

Our Capitol Hill neighborhood

What a gorgeous neighborhood this is! Quaint brownstones, colorful townhouses, flowering trees, brick walkways — and we even got a parking space. An hour or two to relax before meeting our niece Kelsey for dinner was just what we needed.

We met Kelsey at Eastern Market, just a few minutes’ walk from our apartment. This was another great area, with cute shops and restaurants in a pedestrian-friendly block. We were sufficiently recovered to stroll around for a while before settling down for some Italian food and later, cookies. It was an early night, but the death march continues tomorrow.

Day 2-3: Tired legs around the National Mall

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Long escalator to Bethesda Metro — easy on the legs

An underarching question marked our firstday touring DC: Are our legs sore from walking (and running) around New York a few days ago, or are we stiff from sitting in the car through New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland?

We certainly weren’t sore from the cushy reception we received in Bethesda from old friends Kathleen and Daniel and their family. We will be staying with them for two nights on their trip, and they are quite fun hosts — but, they’re not on Spring Break this week, so we will be hitting DC on our own for a few days.

Alone, that is, except for the beneveolent help of our Congressional delegation from New Hampshire, who have hooked us up with a tour of the US Capitol Building (thanks, Senator Shaheen!) and tickets to the galleries of the House and Sentate (thanks Representative Pappas and the staff intern who brought the passes down to us from his office only a few minutes after a cold-call request phoned in from the Capitol Building Welcome Center).

Underneath the Capitol Rotunda

The tour of the Capitol was a first for all three of us. Everything is quite shiny in there, and very solid looking. The tours are run with incredible efficiency. We entered in a group of about 250 people (the bulk of which were from two large groups of middle schoolers — there are lots of large groups of middle schoolers here), saw a quick movie and then split ourselves into walking groups of about 30 people. We all got headphones so that we could hear our individual guide speaking to us, and then snaked our way through some corridors of power. We were divided, wired in, and touring just minutes after the movie ended.

New Hampshire’s own John Stark

Our walk covered the crypts, where George and Martha Washington were meant to be buried but somehow got out of it; the immense and ornate Rotunda; and statuary hall. We even got to see both of the statues New Hampshire has contributed to the Congressional collections — John Stark and Daniel Webster. Every state gets two statues. We didn’t know that that before the tour.

In the canopy of the National Botanical Gardens’ rainforest

At the very end, our tour guide told us about the “call your Congressman” trick to getting gallery passes, and we decided to give it a try. That all transpired in the time it took Lanie to peruse the gift shop (there’s lots of gift shops here). Unfortunately, neither house was in session that day; but not unfoturnately, the passes are good for the whole Congressional session. We’re plan to come back on another day so we can see legislators in action.

From the Capitol we kind of wanted coffee an so we wandered over to the Botanical Gardens, where we found — a coffee bush! We also walked around in a very steamy enclosure that supported a mini rainforest with an emphasis on orchids.

Other gardens we saw had cacti and hydroponic themes. We found an ourdoor space with roses in bloom. Lots of things were blooming all around.

The blooms were quite distracting, and it wasn’t until we visited the restaurant at the nearby National Museum of the American Indian that we finally got around to getting coffee. We had been advised that the food was good at this museum, so we decided to try some corn bread and a sampling of their salads as a late mornng-snack. Our legs by now were really needing some rest.

Outside the NMAI

In the museum we found some particularly moving and sobering reminders of how American Indians have been portrayed in mainstream American society. This was counterbalanced by very serene architecture, landcapaing, and Native American art.

Exampls of mainstream portrayal of American Indian culture

After snacking and touring the museum — already our third stop of the day — we were still on the move. The next point of interest up the street was the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

Beneficiaries of a brief nap under the stars

Both extremely popular and limited in floor space because of a major construction project, the Air and Space Museum was the only place on the National Mall besides the Capitol that required us to reserve an entry time. While we waited for our 2 pm reservation, we wandered off the Mall for a few blocks to find a quiet place to order and eat a noodle bowl lunch. We bypassed the many food trucks parked outside of the museums because: 1. they all seem to have exactly the same food; 2. they don’t display their prices. Our legs weren’t too tired to walk a few blocks for noodles.

That’s not to say we weren’t tired. Two of us closed our eyes and rested a bit during the planetarium show in the Air and Space Museum, and after an hour or so of touring the halls of this, our fourth major tourist attraction of the day, we were about ready for some ice cream and quiet time under a shady tree on the Mall.

Then, it was time ride the metro back to Bethesda and rest up for another day of DC touring.