Author Archives: Bob

Boulder — Day 3

Travel days can be tough for planners and participants alike, but we are fortunate that Colorado has put something cool between today’s point A (Denver) and Point B (Estes Park — gateway to the Rocky Mountain National Park). That cool thing is Boulder, a place that deserves its own stayover, at least, and perhaps even a good chunk of a week to give it its full due.

We just had today, though, so we set out to do our best with the time we had.

First things first, a planned stopover at Dutch Bros. coffee, a chain that Nadia knows from her visits to Arizona. She secured a highly caffeinated creation, and we were all suddenly ready for the day.

We moved on and made our way to our first point in Boulder, a park high above the city. We wandered through a wide inclining grassy field (and past at least two more weddings — or at least wedding photo sessions), and we crawled among the ankles of the famous Flatiron rock formations. Zoe even started a brief climb up Flatiron 3, which is accessible only via a very vertical route up a tree-less rock face.

It was crowded with Saturday morning adventurers, many who thought it was a great idea to run up the hill and then scale the rockface barely breaking stride. Several climbers made their way out of our sight line, gaining 100 feet in altitude, in the 10 minutes we watched. Zoe only made it about 20 feet befored she decided to come back down. Her sneakers did not make good climbing shoes.

We finished our loop and then hopped on a shuttle bus that connected the park to the downtown area that held our next points of interest. Down the hill we went and across town, through the impressive Colorado State University campus,

The trolley dropped us on the edge of the city’s bi-weekly farmers’ market. At the center of the tents and stands we found our brunch destination, a tea house donated to Boulder by its sister city, Dushanbe, Tajikistan. This was another point of interest uncovered by Zoe’s research.

On a Saturday morning in early August, the wait time to get in (they don’t take brunch reservations) is about 45 minutes. That gave us time to wander through the farmer’s market.

We saw a very good side of Boulder this morning. The park and hike offered a connection to nature, with a scenery scale that was off the charts, and free public transportation always gets our attention. The community’s embrace of the farmer’s market — it was quite crowded and supported a fair-like atmosphere — was also on full display.

And if that didn’t win us over, the brunch at the tea house sealed the deal. Our orders spanned from Indonesian to Indian to Persian to Mexican, and every one of us walked away full and satisfied.

Boulder is compact enough that we did not even need to walk far to get to the highly popular Pearl Street outdoor mall. We wandered a little here — it is quite extensive well laid-out.

Our guess is that Denver is trying to recreate this with its 16th Street Mall. One standout feature on the Pearl Street Mall: the only retail outlet for the Liberty Puzzle Company, whose intricate wooden jigsaw puzzles have given Jen many hours of entertainment.

The last stop in Boulder required us to collect the truck and head to the outskirts of town for another singular retail experience. All of the Celestial Seasonings Teas in the store are mixed and packed in a plant just outside of town.

They offer a very nice tour and an extensive gift shop that is the only place in the world where you can purchase all 100+ blends they create. Even cooler, they have a tasting room where you can request a samply of any of their teas. It was simultaneously very cool and very laid back.

We stayed there tasting right up to the 5 pm closing time, but when they kicked us out we realized that we were already well on the way from Denver to Estes Park. We pulled into our apartment well before sunset, and if I were to tell you there was an elk waiting for us in the front yard I would obviously be lying. In truth, there were THREE elk there to greet us.

It might have been a family, and they seemed completely disinterested in us and completely interested in eating the grass — though the biggest elk did walk over to check out the pickup truck.

For dinner, we decided to hit up the Estes Park Brewery — and realized that it looked familiar. The adults in our family had been here before. Just like last time, the Olympics were playing on the TV. Luckily, this time, it being Saturday night rather than Friday afternoon, we were able to watch something other than rhythmic gymnastics.

Denver Day 2

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Having checked a few Denver menu items off on day 1, we still had some highly anticipated experiences set up for day 2. An early-morning planning session, taking into account the relative locations of each experience, plus the predicted weather, led us to a plan, but the first stop of the day was a site none of us even knew about on day 1.

Jen received a message from our landlord informing us about a pop-up bakery several blocks from our house that was worth visiting. In fact, even though it did not advertise, it was so popular that it regularly sold out its stock. So, we rumbled the Tacoma all the way down Steele Street to beat the crowds to the baked goods. The croissants and pesto sourdough loaf were worth the effort.

Thus fueled, we were able to hit the town for another round of adventure. The new schedule kept the original plan offering an optional trip the the Red Rocks Park and Amphitheater — yes, that magical place of dreams where John Denver debuted his soon-to-be hit “Rocky Mountain High,” and countless other musical acts have performed in the presence of a lot of people, and a whole bunch of red rocks.

Four of us made the trip, and three of us took the 1.4-mile Trading Post Trail loop (another recommendation from our hosts). Nadia slept in and Lanie opted to spend her Red Rocks time appreciating the amphitheater — which was pretty deserving of appreciation. Built in the 30’s as part of a Civilian Conservation Corps. project that took 12 years to complete, the amphitheater is nestled between two huge rock protrusions. The gracefully curved rows of bench seats cascade from a concourse down rather steeply to a stage enclosed by structures built from brick the same color as the natural rock. Its accoustics rival natural Greek amphitheaters (according to a writeup I read on a sign in the gift shop), and it has hosted events ranging from rock concerts, to graduations, to Easter Sunday sunrise services.

While Lanie appreciated all this, the remaing three of us wound around and through the natural rocks with one eye on the scenery and another on the local bird population. Jen’s pre-trip preparation included printing out a checklist of Birds of Colorado. On this hike, we were able to check off the Lazuli Bunting, Black Beaked Magpie, and several types of swallow.

From the observation deck. Unfortunately the person we asked to photograph us managed to not include the Denver skyline.

Because of our speedy hiking skills, and because Red Rocks is only 25 minutes from our place in Denver, we were able to collect Nadia and move on with the plan for the day before much of the morning has passed. The plan had us visiting the science and nature museum first, then making our way across the large city park to the botanical gardens that were on the other side. All this was in manageable walking distance from our home base.

That’s what our plan said. Reality said something a little different. The first disconnect here was that the Science and Nature Museum held our attention much longer than anyone expected. We could have stayed here for the whole day. The special exhibit on poisons was very densely packed with information and incredibly interesting. (Nadia likes to keep us guessing. Normally she’s the first one done at any museum, impatiently waiting to move on while Zoe reads every word on every sign. This time around, the rest of us were all done with the whole museum and waiting in the atrium before she even got through the Poison exhibit. As a neuroscience major/chemistry minor who hopes to go into research, she had a professional interest in all of it.)

We also got pulled into exhibits on space exploration and archaeology. The natural history dioramas were extensive and brightly rendered. We made it up to the fourth floor terrace for a great view of the park with the city’s skyscrapers in the distance. (Beyond them, we knew, were the Rocky Mountains, but the day’s cloud cover kept them from our view.)

The second hitch in the plan was geographic in nature. The Botanical Gardens were located on the edge of a completely different park. Thankfully, we realized this before we started searching the park to find it. Jen and I left the girls immersed in the Science and Nature Museum while we walked back to HQ to collect the pickup. Then we got the girls for a quick jaunt a few parks over to the Botanical Gardens.

Close followers of our travel will know that science museums and botanical gardens are mainstays of our adventures. It’s rare that we go for both of these family favorites in one day, but Denver was obliging. Even though they weren’t in the same park, the musem and gardens here are on the same side of town, admid grids of appealing residential neighborhoods. We’ve even been able to find suitable parking when we need it, which doesn’t always seem likely given the girth of our pick up truck.

The botanical gardens were buzzing with activity, too. Lots of cars in the parking lot, lots of people milling around. Maybe 40 percent of them were on hand to witness a matrimonial ceremony. We managed to spy two brides walking around, but there were enough tuxedos, matching dresses, high heels and sport coats in the crowd to accommodate at least a few more. It clearly is a wonderful place to get married — there is practically no possible camera angle that would not have flowers in the background.

We saw a fancy herb garden and an elegant and extensive Japanese garden. A specialy here seems to be water lillies. We saw several pools filled with different examples, almost all of them in bloom.

It was all very nice, but to some minds on our tour it was all only the build-up to day 2’s most exciting feature. We grabbed a quick dinner at a microbrewery located in the center of an eerily deserted college campus that was only blocks from the city center. Then we ambled over to the outskirts of town for … well none of us were exactly sure what we headed for this evening.

Ever since she started research activities for this trip, Zoe has been a strong advocate for “The Convergence Zone,” an entertainment venue that offered lots of lore, but very little definitive information about what it entailed. From what we could gather, it was somewhat similar to the St. Louis City Museum, perhaps the best-loved experience from our whole cross-country trip. Like that instiution, the Convergence Station seemed to be at least half-way designed as an art installation. The other half sounded like we would be able to explore, like we had in St. Louis, and maybe solve a mystery?

It required us to reserve a time for entry — and after getting into the main concourse were were meant to take a shuttle to a world called C Street (the shuttle reminded us of an elevator), and then when we got out of the shuttle we were meant to “boop” a smart card against any swirling light logo we saw. This we did, and Zoe particularly loved it. She would have stayed all night, booping and bopping all around among the colorul lights, otherworldly structures, and winding passageways through four distinct worlds and three floors of access.

Zoe was about 30 minutes from solving the whole puzzle when the momentum from the rest of the group gave out, and we pulled her back down to the main concourse. (Unfortunately Lanie tends to get headaches from too much light and sound, both of which this place had in abundance. We knew it it was time to go when we found her curled up inside the darkness of a hollow tree.) We had been in the Convergence Station for about three hours by then. I’m sure if Zoe ever gets back to Denver, a return visit will be the first thing on her agenda.

Day 8: A home base

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Checking out the Copenhagen waterfront from deck seven of our cruise.

We have roamed much of the way around Scandinavia, staying in hostels, an apartment, a sleeper cabin on an overnight train, and — last night — a cruise ship cabin. Mostly we’ve been sleeping five to a room, and every night we’ve been sleeping in a new bed.

Here in Copenhagen we are looking forward to spreading out in one place for a bit. We’re still sleeping six to a room, but we get this room, in probably the hippest hostel we’ve experienced so far, for three nights.

We are also excited because we have ponied up for three days of the Copenhagen Card, which gets us into all kinds of experiences and attractions, including a lot of museums, the famous Tivoli Gardens amusement park, and all public transportation.

With mystery packets in hand, we are now on the case.

In fact, we weren’t on the ground here for more than an hour when Jen and Zoe signed us up to solve a few mysteries. A company has put together packets that mix historical crime information with famous city landmarks to add a little fun to sidewalk travels. The packets were available for pickup right in the train station. It’s on the Copenhagen Card, so we went for it.

Therefore, after storing our luggage in a locker at the New House hotel — just a few blocks from the train station and not quite ready to check us in — we headed toward a place called the Round Tower, where clues apparently awaited us.

Actually, the clues waited a little while, because it started to sprinkle and we decided to duck into a coffee shop. Then, when the showers intensified, we headed into the nearest indoor activity covered by the Copenhagen Card. As luck would have it, we were very close to a double attraction: Copenhagen’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum and the Hans Christian Anderson Experience. They’re right next to each other, and they’re on the Card.

These kept us interested, and dry. And possibly they gave us appreciation for wonders of the world at large, and for Copenhagen’s greatest contribution to children’s literature. Remember, we just had coffee, so we were pretty much raring to go. The rain just had to stop. And it did!

A nook for resting on the way up the Round Tower

At the Round Tower, also on the Card, we wound our way up a spiraling cobbelstone ramp to a place designed to hold an observatory. The tower pokes out over the surrounding neighborhood of old buildings and narrow streets.

See any ducks or dogs? Us neither.

It gives a nice view view of the surroundings, but, being in the center of the city, it probably isn’t that effective as an observatory anymore. There is still a telescople up there, but we did not get to see it.

No clues were apparent from the top of the tower, so we eased our way back down to street level where…still no clues were apparent. We were meant to be looking for a carving with three ducks and a dog. It was supposed to be somewhere near the tower. There were lots of people milling around, but not a lot of livestock.

We looked and looked until the coffee boost ran out totally, and a sizeable portion of us were dead on our feet. By now our room was ready for us, so we walked back to the hostel and settled in.

It is a very cool place. There are multiple bars, a restaurant, a workout facility, a yoga room, and an indoor soccer field. It has people of all types staying there, but it is geared toward backpacking types. There is a special dinner each night for people looking to connect with other travelers. There are also special events and meet-up spots to allow solo travelers to connect with each other.

Our room had sixs beds, each mostly enclosed, with power hookups inside each little pod. There is a bathroom and a shower — separate from each other — in the room. It’s actually pretty good for a family if you rent the whole thing out. So, that’s kind of the vibe of the place: A lot of young single people and a bunch of families with young kids. It is also very close to a lot of the downtown action.

We lugged our bags up to our room and lay them down to stay for a while. Some of us snuggled into our bunk pods, and those of us with energy remaining headed out for more Copenhagen Card adventure.

This time, it was the nearby National Museum, which occupied us with extensive exhibits on pre-historic Denmark and a Viking experience where we got to see a part of the longest Viking ship ever recovered.

They eventually kicked us out of the National Museum because it was closing. Back at the hostel, we tried to sign up for the night’s special dinner, but it was already filled up. (It turns out that we would have been out of place; the tacos were really meant for young single types.) Instead, we dove into the slightly more expensive, but amply-stocked salad and pizza buffet that was on the other side of the restaurant.

After all that, some of us still had energy to go out looking for dessert. Here, as in most parts of Scandinavia, ice cream is easier to find than murder clues.

Day 7: Now we’re cruising

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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 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 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.

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.