Hamburg - Copenhagen - Södertälje

It feels good finally being back in Scandinavia! Back to similar languages, same culture and nordic nature. We woke up early to take the 08:43 train to Flensburg. Thereafter, we took another train to Copenhagen and then further up to Södertälje in Sweden. We had reserved seats in the direction Flensberg - Copenhagen as well as Copenhagen - Södertälje, but on our way to Copenhagen we stumbled on a problem. After being on the train for little over an hour, when we reached Denmark and had a stop on the 5th station, a group of middle aged corpulent women with their bicycles entered the wagon. (About 20 of them) Mie and I, sat in our seats minding our own business when one of them claimed with astounding impudence that the seats num. 71 and 73 was reserved for herself and a friend. We showed her the reservation ticket and called the hostess. She was confused about what to do, but after listening to the lady pleading and saying she wanted to sit next to her friends, she asked us kindly if we could move to some other seats. We were not particularly willing at first, since we already had reserved seats num. 71 and 73 back in Hamburg, but to not seem like two obstinated Norwegians, we followed the hostess to the very first wagon next to the engine driver. 1st class, free coffee/tea, comfortable seats, air-condition and an entirely silent room, we were happy that we yielded to the superiority after all. The hostess came in several times, gave us chocolate and fruit, said she was sorry about the terror in Oslo and thanked us for changing the seats.

Det er deilig å være norsk i Danmark!

Now we're at Scandic hotel in Södertälje in Sweden, just outside of Stockholm. We'll sleep for a few hours before we're on our way home at 08:53 in the morning. We're expecting to be in Norway at 14:12. :-)

Ich bin ein Hamburger!

(We just had to say it) :p

We originally had plans to go to one of Sandemans free tours again this morning, but because of the sleep-junkies we've turned out to be, we overslept! We then decided to take a look at the city for our own instead! Unfortunately, Mie didn't feel very well, so she went back up to the hostel. Honestly, she didn't miss much though. This was probably one of the most boring cities we've been to. However, I must say, we're pretty tired of cities in general..

   Later we met at Reeperbahn and the Beatles Platz and had a look at the famous street filled with brothels, strip clubs, discotheques and other special shops. Not as impressive as The Red Light District, but still far from anything we're used to.

 

Tomorrow morning we're leaving Hamburg and going to Copenhagen where we'll stay for a couple of hours. We will then go further to southern Sweden and stay for one night before we go back home! :-)

A memorial of The Beatles right next to Reeperbahn

Alles Goed?

Today, we left Amsterdam to what we believe will be our last stop, Hamburg! Amsterdam has definitively been one of our favourite cities to visit! We especially appreciated the laid-back atmosphere everyone seemed to posses, though that's probably due to all the marijuana they've smoked. Seriously! There were coffee shops and people smoking in each street and park we went to. However, the sweet smell covers the streets in a rather welcoming way.
The only bad thing we experienced about the stay is that we each day almost got hit by either a bicycle, a tram or a car! It seems like the bicycles have the first claim to the road, then the trams, then cars and at last, the people. I saw several people got hit by bicycles every day and it seemed like some bikers even tried to hit the tourists on purpose!

I'll quote columnist Peter Preston for the Guardian and his perfect description of bikers in the busy city: "The woman in the tight white top and even tighter black trousers teeters out of an upmarket clothes shop on very high heels and glances balefully at a lowering gray sky. It's raining. She puts up a small white umbrella, unlocks her bike, wipes the saddle and pushes off down the street when her mobile rings. She extricates it from a tight breast pocket, clicks and begins a conversation. The hand that holds the umbrella is doing the (wobbly) steering. You've never seen so many road safety no-nos in your life. But hey! Welcome to Amsterdam!"


The next day we went to another of Sandemans free tours and they are absolutely magnificent! We went by and heard historical stories about The Old Church, The Dam Square, The Jewish Quarter, Royal Palace, The Jordaan District, The Anne Frank House, The Begijnhof Convent,The Widest Bridge and Narrowest House and, of course, The Red Light District!

The next day we went to Madame Tussaud's wax museum! We had to stand in line for about an hour, but when we entered, we were met by handsome Jack Sparrow! We got to see celebrities like Robert Pattinson, Justin Bieber, Robbie Williams, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Ronaldinho, Lance Armstrong, Madonna etc. Later in the evening, when it got dark, we went out again to visit The Red Light District when the girls were all in action! It was hilarious to observe the guys' eyes as we walked pass the windows with the half-naked ladies!

Anne Frank's house

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Smallest house in Amsterdam

Midt i ostehavet fant jeg noe kjent og kjært! :)

In Bruges

Yesterday, we didn't have any special plans, so I decided to go to Bruges! It's a small yet beautiful city just an hour by train from Brussels. It's not without reason the city is called "the Venice of the North", it's a charming town with small canals and bridges, cobbled streets and great architecture. I saw Basilica of the Holy Blood, The Minnewater lake, The Belfry tower, Church of Our Lady, Beguinage, The Town Hall and the Market. I also went to a wonderful free harp concert with Luc Vanlaere! Everything he played was self composed and all of his songs had their own interesting story.

I also tried out Belgian Waffles for the first time and they were way sweeter than expected! In fact they were utterly different from the Norwegian ones. The Belgian waffle had a layer of sugar inside of the waffle, instead of on top as what I'm used to. Besides, it didn't have the typical waffle-taste but it wasn't too bad!

 

There are small and charming chocolate-and waffle shops everywhere in the town!

  Next up is Amsterdam! 

Zürich - Europa-Park - Brussel

After taking the train from Pisa to Milan, we had some problems in the direction towards Zürich. We had reserved seats on a direct train from Milan to Zürich, but due to an accident in the railways somewhere between Italy and Switzerland, we had to take four different trains in order to get to Zürich. It was very chaotic on the train because they only informed us about this in Italian. Not knowing where to go or what to do, we ran out of the train and followed the stream of people. Confused and feeling completely lost, we entered the most crowded train, hoping it was the right one.

On the train we met a Swiss guy also heading towards Zürich. He was really helpful and translated what the Italian guard said, enlightening us about the problems. Knowing that the hostel's last check-in was set as 22:00, we were afraid not to reach it in time because of the delays. The guy tried to call the hostel for us, without success. He then looked up the exact directions and followed us to the hostel's street when we arrived in rainy Zürich at 22:15. The hostel was still open, in fact it was open more or less the whole night. The staff at Langstars hostel was really friendly, telling us that the only reason why the check-in was set at 22:00 was because people will then arrive at 24:00. If they had set it at 24:00, people would arrive at 02:00. In all, they were really flexible and understanding!

The next upcoming days were filled with a lot of new experiences! We had in advance agreed on meeting a good friend of mine from right outside of Zürich. He guided us through the largest city of Switzerland where we i.a saw the exclusive shopping street "Bahnhofstrasse", The Limmat - the beautiful river running through the city with view over the great mountains, ETH - among the top uni's in the world, the Polybahn, churches etc. Later in the evening we went to the cinema to watch Harry Potter! Since the majority of the population speak German or French, the movie was subbed in both languages! However, the biggest difference happened in the middle of the movie, when a random commercial suddenly showed up. Apparently, it's normal to have a break during the movies in the cinemas in Switzerland.

The next day we went to Zürich's zoo! There were lots of animals to see and they all had a great amount of space to move around in, which was great since we're originally not huge fans of animals in a cage. We saw fascinating animals like lions, elephants, red panda, snakes, penguins, seals etc and some ridiculously big sheep, almost the size of a pony! After the zoo we went to my friend's home where we had been invited for dinner! His family was incredibly welcoming and lovely, and we enjoyed wonderful Raclette in a real Swiss way! :) The next day we had plans in going further to Rust, Germany, to visit the Europa-Park, but since we hadn't found any places to stay, we were offered to sleep over at their place! Such a wonderful family! Thank you so much! :)

We had to check out of the hostel the evening before we went to the park, because the check-out started at 07:00, while we had to be up at 06:00. Eager like young kids, we went to the park which is the biggest amusement park in Europe after Disneyland Paris. The park is just a few hours from Zürich, therefore taking a day trip to Rust is very convenient. We had a lot of fun and took the biggest and highest roller coaster in Europe! When we were about to leave back to Zürich in the evening, we heard the terrible news about the bombing and shooting back home. We were completely shocked and almost the rest of the evening resulted in reading and watching the news about the catastrophe.

We have now arrived in Brussels, Hotel Beau Site, and we're going to stay here for two nights. Our original plans were to go to Antwerp instead of Brussels, but since there were no spare beds in any of the hostels there, we decided to take a day-trip to Antwerp or Bruges instead.

We extend our condolences to the families of the victims and everyone touched by the terrible events happening at home

Arrivederci, Italia!

Yesterday, we went to The Piazza del Duomo, the 'Cathedral Square', and viewed all the sites that were in the park. The Cathedral, The Baptistery, The Bell Tower, Camposanto, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo and of course the chief attraction, The Leaning Tower! There were people everywhere taking different Leaning Tower poses, and of course, we joined in as well!

   In a few hours we'll be taking the train to Milan and then directly up to Zürich where we've booked a hostel for 3 nights. The train is expected to arrive in Zürich at 21:30 and the last check-in at the hostel is at 22:00! Hopefully we'll make it!   

Camposanto

On top of The Leaning Tower

Rome, The Vatican City and Pisa

Throughout the 5 days we've spent in Rome we've seen a lot! The Vatican City and the Vatican Museum, Piazza Navona, Pantheon, Temple of Hadrian, Colonna Traiana, The Spanish Steps, Trevi Fontain, Quirinale, The Palatino, Arch of Constantine, the Colosseum and of course a lot of churches!  
            
                                                  
We spent the first days by getting to know the city and regard the beautiful and historical buildings right around each corner. We looked at the Arch of Constantine, The Palatino and The Colosseum. We met two men dressed up as Romans who took some pictures with us. It was fun until he suddenly asked for 10 euros, from each. Anyway, we got to beat him.

The next day we changed hostel from Camping Fabulous to Country Club Castelfusano. After getting our bungalow, we went to The Vatican city, The Copula and St. Peter's church. We had to dress up properly since the Vatican had a dress code, saying not to flash your knees nor your shoulders. 
We were stunned by the beautiful paintings and all the art the buildings contained, and we viewed the city from the top of St. Peter's church. We were more and more amazed after each room we entered, and when we finally found the famous 'The creation of Adam' in the Sistine chapel, we spent a good thirty minutes just sitting on a bench with our heads up towards the ceiling.

It was strictly forbidden to take any pictures of the art, but tourists were repeatedly caught taking pictures anyway. Many of them even forgot to turn off the flash! When the guards kept saying "No photos!", the urge to actually take some pictures got out of control. I hid the camera in the purse and took a bunch of pictures from there, trying to hold the camera steady in the dark room. It was exciting for a good while until one of the guards came up towards me. I put my feet up to hide the purse and took a fast glance at Mie who smiled nervously. Preparing myself to be thrown out I was suprised when the only thing he said was "Your shoes." and I realized I had lost my sandals in the eager of taking illigal photos. 

In the evening, we went to a restaurant to enjoy the Italian cuisine and when we were about to leave we met the owner right around the corner, telling us how much he liked Norwegians! We were always such a happy and smiling people, he told us. :-)

The last day we spent at the beach, relaxing and enjoying the sun and the lukewarm water. I was smart enough to buy a sun lotion with higher protection this time and I'll keep doing so from now on!

Today (17.07) we took the train to Pisa and we're going to the Leaning Tower and take a look at the city tomorrow. We had booked a room in Hostel Pisa, which lies only 5 minutes walking from the train station and 20 minutes from the Tower.

Trevi Fontain

Vikings vs Romans 1-0

The Spansih Steps

Norge (Norway) ice cream?

Change in plans!

When we arrived in Verona yesterday afternoon, we found a place to look for hostels. As we already had found a couple, and downloaded their adresses to Mie's laptop, we thought things would go smoothly. However, Mie's laptop ironically crashed.. therefore, we lost all of our information. We ran around and asked for internet access but no one had nor knew about places where it could be. We then decided to spend the day well and see as much of Verona as we could, before we continued with night-train to Rome.

We arrived in Rome around 06:30, and decided to look for hostels yet again. Ironically (again) there was no internet access there either! I had nothing else to do than to call my dad/the saviour of the day. He booked a nice hostel online to us, Camping Fabulous, and saved us from a expensive night in a hotel. :-)

Rome's going to be explored in the upcoming days! 

Juliet's wall of love

   

Juliet's house