Amsterdam

Sorry it has been so long! We’ve been doing a lot of very little to write about! Pretty much all of last week was spent just walking around The Hague while Grace was at work, or me just being home researching some stuff for school next semester.

Thursday, however, was a big judgment at the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia) where Grace works so I went in to watch that. It was really interesting to see the whole set up and be able to be in the gallery. The families of the two men were also in the gallery, which made it even more charged. The first one was found not guilty, and the second guilty and sentenced to 12 years. Basically it was a lot of cheering followed by a lot of crying. It was also strange because you could tell that it was just bad situations – the men were acting in war, yet probably committed terrible war crimes, so it was just weird to watch it all.

Thursday night was even more exciting. Grace told me that we should get a really late dinner and go walk around or something, so after a long nap we headed out around 8pm. As we got closer to where the restaurant was, I noticed a girl sitting who I thought looked familiar, and she was! Nura had flown in from Romania where she is working for the summer, and she and Grace had conspired to surprise me on my birthday weekend! It was very exciting!

This is me, completely surprised that Nura is there

Friday Nura and I went into Grace’s work to watch some actual trials. They were a lot different from the judgment I had seen the day before and pretty slow moving, and very detail-oriented for something that was so vague and long ago – a lot of research must go into it all. That afternoon, the three of us headed to Amsterdam. We pretty much just walked around to see the city. We went to the Anne Frank House, and then were going to go to one of the other major museums but had lost track of time and they had closed by the time we were done with that. So instead we went and walked through the Red Light District, and in some attempts to get pictures of a nearby canal, got yelled at by some prostitutes who thought we were taking pictures of them.

On Sunday we decided to go to eastern Netherlands to the Kroller Mueller museum, which is in a national park and has free white bicycles that you can take around the park and the museum. When we got there though, most of the bikes had been taken from the main entrance, and were all now in the center at the museum. We finally managed to get some (Grace rode a child size bike =) ) but coming back was not so lucky because all of the people who left the museum had moved them back to the entrance, so we had to walk a couple of miles. That night, they also took me out to dinner for my birthday.

This is from when we were walking around the sculpture garden at the museum

Monday we slept in and just lounged around for the morning. Nura had to leave out of Amsterdam so we went back to see her off. We had about two hours before she had to leave though, so we rented a paddle boat to paddle through the canals. (For those who don’t know, almost all of Amsterdam’s streets have a canal going through the center of them, and they are all connected, so you can essentially navigate through the entire city just by boat)

This is my view from the paddle boat

That was pretty much the weekend – I leave to go home on Thursday, so I will probably take some last minute pictures around here today and post them later, as well as maybe go see one of the museums we couldn’t go to in Amsterdam.

This is a video from paddling - I thought I had gotten Grace in it, but apparently not - you can still hear her though!

Terschellilng

We left super early on Saturday morning, took a three hour train ride up to the north of the Netherlands, and then a ferry across to the island of Terschelling. We rented bikes for the two days we were going to be there so we could bike around - the island has bike paths galore and even some of the beaches were only accessible by bike!

The first day we started biking around the West side of the island to get to the opposite side and the beach that was there. We started late, and on our way back we ran into a lot of rain! The weather there was incredibly unpredictable. When we finally got back to our hostel, we attempted to play some cards but decided to crash early and get a good start the next day.
We woke up pretty early and thought that we would bike along towards the east side along a coastal route. We ended up biking through the middle for a little bit and then found our way through a farming community to the coast. Basically this path was between a slope towards the water and a slope of grass full of grazing sheep who Baaaa'ed at you as you rode past, and some charged! We rode for a little while until we realized it was a giant island and was going to be like this for a while so we turned around and went back. We spent the rest of the afternoon lying on the beach and walking around the main the street until we had to catch the ferry back. Six hours later (and a wrong train) we were back in the Hague and asleep.

Den Haag

Hello!

I left Stockholm on Wednesday afternoon and flew to Amsterdam to spend some time with Grace in The Hague! At first I got on the wrong train, haha, but it all worked out ok because an Irish lady helped me get onto the right one.

I've only really been here a day, so I don't have many pictures, but there will be some soon! The city is really cute and full of canals and interesting architecture, and tomorrow we are leaving bright and early for a five hour journey up north to one of the islands in the northern Netherlands for the weekend. So I'll definitely post some pics when I get back.

Stockholm

Hey!

We got to Stockholm Friday night, and we've been pretty busy walking ( A LOT) around the city. WE haven't done anything too exciting. I think I have bad luck with Stockholm hotels because ours had a nightclub under it and construction during the day, so we switched rooms today and got a really nice suite overlooking the library and park across the street.

On Saturday night I went to a Kent concert in a park on the southern island. Kent is my favorite band, and coincidentally they are also from Sweden, so my dad had bought me a couple of tickets to their concert in Stockholm while I was here. It was a gorgeous night to be outside and just listen to music!

Yesterday we went to Uppsala, which is the 4th largest city in Sweden and home of Uppsala Univeristy, which is where I'm interested in going for grad school. It was a cute little town, with a gorgeous cathedral in it, and the university seemed pretty quaint too.

We're still just bumming around. Tomorrow, Mom goes home to Tucson and I will go to Amsterdam and The Hague to stay with Grace !!!YAY!!! I think we are planning on going to some islands up north for this next weekend.

NorwegianCountryside

We left Solstrand and headed to our next stop: Utne. Our drive to Solstrand from Bergen had been very short and on a major highway, but this drive was much much much different. Tiny narrow roads with no lines because they can often only fit one car across anyways, that curve and twist and climb along the fjord edges, with the most amazing views ever. The locals drive on them pretty fast, and just stay on the side, and if you run into a semi approaching, you have to slam the breaks and drive off the edge a bit, or back up depending on what is possible. The roads also end randomly and you have to take a connecting ferry across the water to another island or peninsula?…whatever it is called – we’ll call it land.

The other interesting thing from driving is that we got to see the countryside. There are tiny little towns nestled in the most beautiful places that have maybe 15 houses total in each one. The buildings are old, and you can tell that the road came after them because of how close and windy it can get near them. Also, with the farmers, they leave stuff out like cherries in separate packages in a stand, and then just leave a sign telling you how much to pay, and just trust that you will. It’s a pretty idyllic lifestyle.

We got to Utne and it had been a mix of sun and rain all day. The hotel was founded in 1722! It had all kinds of crazy quaint stuff in it, and a really neat layout. It wasn’t luxurious, but it was still really fun to just look around at all the antiques that it had.

We woke up today with a super bright sun in our eyes rising over the fjords. TODAY WAS SUNNY! And calm- look at some of my pictures. There are lakes in them, but you can’t completely tell its water because it is like glass and just reflecting the land above it. There were hardly any clouds which was really good because this was the day we were having a 2 hour ferry ride. We left and drove to Gudvanger (which is actually the place we were at the other day on our way to Bergen) and caught a ferry to a place called Kaupanger. It was STILL sunny out, so we got to sit out on the deck, and since it was a ferry and not so much a tour boat, it wasn’t so crowded and was quite peaceful. Two hours later, we got to Kaupanger, and continued our drive to Balestrand. Here, we are staying at a really old hotel from the 1850s built in the Swiss style, but we didn’t actually get to stay in the old part, just the 1960s add-on. The original building is really interesting though, and the view of the fjord is amazing here as well. My favorite part though is the mountain on the other side of our hotel – it’s completely picturesque and right now the sun is setting behind it.

Tomorrow we are driving back to Bergen, so there won’t be much to tell of that, and then the next day we are flying to Stockholm (yaaaay). I think we are both sad to leave this part of Norway though, it was definitely much better than either of the two cities and I think it gave us a good idea for what the country and people are like.

Oh, I would also like to add that birds are scary, and people who feed them are not nice. On our boat today there was a tour of Italians (they have a strange thing for birds anyways right – they stand in their squares and get covered in pigeons, no?) and they kept feeding the seagulls, who would then hover and dive and squak. And then the lady sitting next to me did it out of her hand. Now, some of you know that I have a fear of birds, so this was NOT ok with me. But, it did make for some interesting pictures.

Fjords

We rented a car this morning, and drove a bit south to the edge of a fjord for about an hour, found our hotel, and now we're just hanging out at the hotel. Its absolutely breathtaking, and our room has a nice sitting area with a picture window overlooking the fjord. It could only be more perfect if it would be sunny!

http://picasaweb.google.com/kelsey.layne

I put pictures up on my web-album (the link above), but here are some videos

Bergen

So we’ve had three full days in Bergen and we’re leaving tomorrow on our driving trip around the fjords.

The first day we pretty much just walked around the city. It’s pretty hilly, and the old town part, Bryggen, is really interesting. It’s a line of old wooden buildings (not originals because apparently this city has some issues with fires, multiple fires) that the German traders used during the Hanseatic League. The league was a sort of economic alliance for the region and the cities that took part benefited enormously, and also have very similar characteristics – Bergen looks a lot like Tallinn and the buildings are very similar to Riga too.

This is Bryggen

We took a tour the first day through the old part – each long row of a wooden building was one trader, who lived there with boys who were his apprentices. They weren’t allowed to have fire in the buildings – even to make warm food (again – they have fire issues yet still managed to burn down like five times even when they were that careful) but had these communal buildings where there was a kitchen to get warm meals, and a sort of social drinking atmosphere, along with the enforcement of moral codes.

This is the passage way in between some of the old buildings.

After the tour, we tried to find a place to eat. Apparently you have to book far far ahead though, and at other restaurants they don’t have such a thing as a waiting list (or waiting – people just walk right in and sit at an open table!)

The second day we kind of just did nothing – I went shopping for some jeans since I’ve worn through them all with walking around and Mom did laundry. I think I got the better end of the deal.

Today, we walked down to the castle past Bryggen and toured the two older buildings there. Its interesting because in some places they are so keen on preserving the old that you can’t really tour it because it will either ruin it or it is in such bad condition that you just can’t. Ive noticed here though that they just rebuild/redo it to look like it once was, and then let you know what is the old and what isn’t, which is kind of cool because it means you can go through it and get a good picture for what it was like. (Again, fires destroyed these buildings, along with a German bomb at one point).

First, we went through an old hall that was built for a king’s wedding. Below the hall was a really cool network of rooms and multiple stories that was used for meetings and living. Then we went through a tower nearby, which was living quarters for the king later on, and that was so fun to walk through. It had narrow passageways and all kinds of crazy staircases to go through. And the design was so complicated that without the magic red arrows on the walls telling us where to go we would probably get lost. Oh, we also found out the hard way (and perhaps the blonde way) that people were shorter back then. I was walking up a staircase and at the end I hit my head really hard on an entryway and yelled out ouch, Mom follows me and asks why I said ouch, just as she hits her head on the same part. The people behind us managed to figure it out though.

Then we took the Floibana, a cable car, up a super steep mountain to an overlook of the city. We stayed there for about an hour until it rained (it rains here ALL the time!) and then came back down to have an early dinner at 2 since that seems to be the only time we can get in a restaurant here. I tried some reindeer filet, which was really good. Mom was not so adventurous, but the other day we did try some of the ground liver paste that they serve at all the Norwegian breakfasts. Not so good.

Train from Oslo to Bergen

We woke up super early Thursday morning and dragged our luggage to the train station. We took a train from Oslo for five hours to a city in the mountains called Myrdal. This was super high up - much of the area we were in was above the tree line, and covered in snow still, and people still lived up there!
From Myrdal we took a train down to a city called Flam. This is a really famous railway because it goes down the side of a fjord and is really steep with some awesome views. It was really amusing too because everyone kept switching sides of the train and every time we came out of a tunnel it was like playing peekaboo.

At Flam, we took a boat for two hours through a tiny finger of the inner fjord. It was raining and freezing, and full of a giant group of Chinese tourists, so it was kind of miserable and crowded but we survived. I put a picture of a map of the part we went on, compared to the whole fjord to show an idea of how giant these are!
we took a boat from Flam, on the bottom right to Gudvangen, on the bottom left. It took about two hours.

my finger is right underneath that horseshoe that is in the above picture.

We got off the boat in Gudvangen, and took a bus up the other side of the fjord, which was probabl my favorite part. It was super steep and winding, and gave us some amazing views of the fjord. None of my pictures do any of this justice though, so I didn't take toooo many.


This is video from the bottom of the fjord right before we got onto the bus..

.The view from the bus back towards the water on one of our switchbacks.


Then we got off at Voss, and took a train on to Bergen. In total, this trip took about 13 hours so we went straight to bed after taking nice warm showers.This is from the train between Voss and Bergen


Publish Post

Back on the Right Side of the Ocean

Hello!

So I'm back in Europe, this time with my mom. We flew into Oslo yesterday and after a few days here, we'll take a train to Bergen, and then drive around the fjords. Then we'll fly to Stockholm. After she leaves to go home, I'll fly to Amsterdam where my friend Grace is staying for the summer, and stay with her for a couple of weeks.
The main street from the stairs of the palace


So we've only been in Oslo for one day (we got in yesterday around 4, and went straight to sleep until this morning!) but we've done a lot. First we walked up and down Karl Johan's Gate (gate is street - i think that the you pronounce the 'e' at the end of it) which is their main street between the central station and the palace. Then we walked down to the harbor and took a boat to Bygdøy, a peninsula that houses a couple of the main museums. We went to Vikingskipshuset, which has three viking ships that were excavated from the area - they were all used as burial graves for people. (I have more pictures and explanations about the ships on my online picture album) Then we walked to the Folk Museum, which has over 150 old buildings from Norway. And some were REALLY old. They were mostly the same, but still interesting to look at and see how people lived.This is the view of Oslo from the boat - there are lots of hills and valleys


The main, big Viking Ship


It was supposed to rain today, but instead turned out to be a gorgeous day so we're going to go back out and wander around a bit more.

Oh, and I've noticed that Oslo is kind of a cross between Helsinki and Stockholm city-wise. The water and landscape are really similar to Sweden, but its a lot more hilly - kind of like Minnesota.

This is video from our boat ride...sorry its not very 'stable' but if you watch it enough you can get motion sick and feel like you were there too!

Home

Hello,

So the plan was for me to keep traveling around Sweden, meet my friend Mike in Istanbul and go north up to Prague, and then to meet my mom in Norway for a couple of weeks. then I was going to go to Amsterdam to stay with my friend Grace before heading back home.

Apparently though, when I fell in Russia a couple of weeks ago, I fractured some bones in my face. I've been having headaches and went to see a doctor when I was in Stockholm and had a CTscan done. Sooo, I flew back the next day and am now in Arizona to see some doctors here about sinuses/fractures. Not quite a good end to the trip, but I think I'll be able to get back later on.

Thanks for reading this though, and you should definitely go see Russian, and Stockholm, and other places too, but those especially =)

~Kelsita

End of my Trip

After Tallinn, John and I took a ferry up to Helsinki across the Baltic to spend a few days in the Finnish capital. We pretty much walked around and saw the city. The center of the city itself is very managable and easy to get around. They have a nice park that leads down to a marketplace next to the water. There is also Stockmans, the Finnish department store which is the largest in the region and if I recall correctly it was 7 stories tall and took up a couple of giant buildings. I tried to shop there, but was a little overwhelmed myself, so that can tell you how big it is, haha. =)

Our last day in Helsinki, we took a boat out to the island fortess of Suomenlinna, which was run by three countries at different points - Sweden, Russia, and Finland. It was a nice day trip and just something interesting to spend the day walking around on.

Me on Suomenlinna Island

Friday morning, John and I both had flights to catch - he was heading home and I was goign to Stockholm, (for those of you who spend anytime at all with me will know that I LOVE Stockholm). I arrived early morning in Stockholm and found that my hotel was under contrustion so it was not as nice as I thought, but oh well, still a good area. I spend the next couple of days just wandering around - I've been there twice before so there isn't much sightseeing left for me to do, and I didn't take very many pictures, but it is still my favorite place to go. It is located right where the Baltic meets Lake Malaren, and the city is on a bunch of various islands, and then further outside there is the Stockholm archipelago with lots of summer homes and resorts that people take ferries/boats out to each summer. It's also an incredibly clean city, and very big - much bigger than Helsinki - so there are a lot of cool neighborhoods to walk around and explore.

This is a picture of the most upscale street in Stockholm (i.e. where I will be living in a few years =) )

This is a picture taken from Gamla Stan (old town island) towards Sodermalm (the south island, where all the cool young people/working class people live)

Riga and Tallinn

Ok, So I really enjoyed being in Riga. People I had talked to said that they didn't really enjoy it that much, but it seemed to have a really cool atmosphere and lots of stuff to do. The Old Town was a good mixture of old but modern (including shopping! haha)

The center part of Old Town in Riga

A large and veyr pretty park just outside of Old Town Riga

We left Riga on Sunday and took a bus up to Tallinn. the bus was pretty crazy - it had free coffee, really comfy seats, and then free wifi internet on top of all of that! We got to Tallinn and checked into the hostel, which is really quiet but nice and in a good location. Tallinn is very Scandinavian, and very large. You could definitely spend many days just wandering around all of the alleyways here. There are also lots of cool little shops and cafe's. One is absolutely amazing! It is like a little hobbit hole - low ceilings, random crooks in the wall, and its from the 1800s. We also went to eat at this medeival resteraunt in town, where they serve things like wild boar and bear. I had lamb, which was amazing!

from a lookoutthe really cozy cafe

Tomorrow we are taking a ferry to Helsinki, where we will be until May 9ish.