Monday, July 12, 2010

Viking Adventures! Part 1

Hey All!

I'm alive I promise!

And yes, our trip was amazing. There are going to be a LOT of pictures to go with this post (2 posts actually) so be prepared!

Our last day in London was filled with lots and lots of sight seeing

This is a dragon statue that guards the city
We hit up the Tower of London as well! Pretty awesome history there and of course the little brothers loved it
An Executioner's mask
And some graffiti from some of the prisoners held in the tower

All Hayden wanted to see in London was the London eye... London delivered
And of course a classic pic with Big Ben himself
Kind of a cool pic of the House of Parliament
The Fam by Tower Bridge!
Later that night, I talked my family into going to see Les Mis. SO amazing! If you haven't seen it yet it's definitely worth your time!
However, I was shocked to see this lil guy walk out on stage...
On my honor, this is the only time you will see a picture of a Jonas brother on my blog.
Ever

Lil Nick actually did a pretty decent job! He wasn't nearly as talented as the other performers but he didn't rock his usual nasally voice so that was a pleasant surprise!

After rockin London for 2 days, we drove down to Dover and jumped on our Disney Cruise ship!

Here's some pics of my cute family.
Love Hayden's face in this one :)
AND... I just thought I looked real sassy in this one.
I'm a little vain sometimes
Our first port of call on our lil trip was Oslo Norway! We ended up just doing a little city tour which was pretty fun. We got to try some Norwegian goat cheese which was a very interesting experience. It's like eating fudge it's so rich! Here's the little butcher shop where we tried it.
The weather was beautiful. We packed for 60 degree weather and it ended up being about 85 the entire time we were there.
Norway is famous for their trolls. These little guys were all over the city so of course I had to show him some American love.

Alright, this picture is kind of random. I got Shirley Temple's every single night I was on the cruise just so I could practice tying cherry stems with my tongue. By the end of the trip, I was pretty skilled!

Alright next stop was Copenhagen Denmark!

This was pretty much a typical moment with my dad. One of my favorite pictures of him. :)
This beautiful city has a ton of canals going through it and people actually live on their boats! Pretty charming place
A kind of cool shot of the cathedral through one of the fountains
One of the most beautiful waterfronts I've ever seen!

Next stop after Copenhagen was Berlin! We had to take a 3 hour train ride to get there but the countryside was beautiful
This is the east side of the Berlin Wall. It's called the east side gallery because after the wall came down they hired a bunch of artists to come down and paint one of the remaining sections
Life goal #287-Touch the Berlin Wall... Check
Of course we had to stop at Checkpoint Charlie and the brothers found some pretty great souvenirs...
And the general joined in as well
Part 2 continued below...

Viking Adventures! Part 2

Alright, the next part of my trip was probably one of my favorite parts

St. Petersburg Russia!

What an amazing city

The buildings were massive. There were THOUSANDS of palaces there that literally took up entire city blocks

good news was the buildings were beautiful. This is "The Church on Spilt Blood" Probably my favorite building ever
Next:Catherine's palace. Keep in mind this is the SUMMER palace. The royal family only lived here for about 2 months out of the year...
We got to wear these attractive booties to protect the floor
The Ballroom! Alright, everything you see that looks like it's gold, is gold. Amazing right?
A little more detailed shot
This isn't a mirror you're looking at. It's a hallway! The royal family liked gold a little bit..
Pretty excited to be there. :)
And of course, it wouldn't be Russia without vodka and champagne! The Russians were pretty disgusted that we wouldn't try their most famous product, but I thought it was pretty funny they offered Hayden some.
We also got to visit the Hermitage museum that happens to be located in the old winter palace. The rooms were almost, if not more beautiful than the artwork on display

Here's a little piece by a guy named Michelangelo.. you might have heard of him before.
Just check out those back muscles and remember that he carved this out of MARBLE!
Mom was pretty excited to see some of Van Gogh's work in the flesh. He has always been her favorite. :)

This is her in front of a Monet

Our next stop was my favorite of the trip which really wasn't expected because I had never ever heard of the place until the day we got on our ship. It was a little town called Tallinn in a country called Estonia! It was seriously the most charming place I have ever been in my entire life
It was a little medieval town. The buildings had so much personality and all of the roads were cobblestone
And of course there were the street artists. Every once in a while you would just walk by some person sitting there painting a watercolor and selling their paintings.


Yah... we might have left some money in Tallinn because of these guys.
My handsome brothers, taking a breather
And the familiy in front of the city!
Fantastic right?
More views of the buildings and such
This picture is kind of an inside joke between my family. Yay for Icons! :)
Another highlight in Estonia was stopping at this little medieval restaurant. The place was so legit!
They even had bear and reindeer on the menu!

Here's Britton and I drinking our non-alcoholic shnaps. Non alcoholic shnaps AKA black current juice. Tasty tasty!
Here's my meal! Complete with barley and that pastry looking thing was called a bean bag.


Our last stop on our lovely little cruise was Stockholm Sweden! Unfortunately I didn't take too many pictures of the actual city because after Tallinn, it was kind of a let down. However, we did go to this place called the Vasa museum that was pretty amazing.
This ship is almost 400 years old! She sank on her maiden voyage out in the harbor and when they found her the brought her to the surface and restored her for us to enjoy!

Well, after the cruise wrapped up we stopped at Dover castle to get a little more sight seeing in before we had to head home.
Heading up the LONG flight of stairs to the top!
The view was pretty great if you ask me.

That just about wraps up my most recent adventure!

Now, it's onto being a responsible adult and doing some summer school and actually starting to do real summer things! Snow cones, camping, and bike rides are at the top of my list at the moment.

I'll keep you updated!

XOXO