Elizabeth's Europe Trip!

[eurovizion]

Turkey durkey

[eurovizion]

Trying alcohol free wine because I love my baby

[eurovizion]

Had the pleasure of eating some traditional Polish soup called Zurek made by Lidka’s mom. Super tasty and a bit sour.

[eurovizion]

The Eurovision continues … I think I got 4/11 countries in before I gave up on this blog a few years ago but I’m back at it. Visiting Warsaw, Poland for the night and I’m reconnecting with my old roommate Lidka who lives here. Her husband picked me up from the airport and gave me a drive thru tour of the city (lots of the city was rebuilt after WWII and apparently every post soviet country has a Palace of Culture.) Apparently she has a full on child now.

[eurovizion]

Things to know about Oslo: Oslo has weird art! Going through this park was like a sculpture scanger hunt hike but was super fun! There is a view of Oslo, fun nature, odd sculptures (what else is new Oslo?), and a mysterious glass building in the woods…

[eurovizion]

Stop 4: Oslo: a fun and odd city with a humungous opera house overlooking the sea!

[eurovizion]

Here are my two pictures of Finland featuring fun graffiti :)

[eurovizion]

The cruise ship there was huge and I met these German girls backpacking with way bigger backpacks then me. They said they can't walk even 30 minutes with their backpacks on!

[eurovizion]

I also took a cruise to Finland and stayed there for exactly one hour. Reports from others say that was just the right amount of time (finnish people don't have a reputation of being very social). The cruise ship had lit features such as a ball pit.

[eurovizion]

Stockholm is a really clean and tidy city! I liked the people I met here including someone I stayed with that fed me a lot of kava and awoken me with the cutest hamster, and had very social bunny rabbits. I also find Sweden really pretty for having huge parks all around the city. I think this city reminds me a lot of Los Angeles in it's hugeness and Portland in it's open mindedness and efficiency and Seattle in it's city planning innovations! Everyone here was so nice, the "sweeds" as they say are definitely very mellow and kind. I hope they get faster access to health care, as one couch host did discuss how the doctors don't feel as much urgency due to a lack of liability. Eep!

[eurovizion]

Something I loved about Sweden was the art in the public transport system. A polish couch surfer said he spent about 2 hours hanging out on the blue line to admire the art of each station! I love thar and I love when people are passionate about public transit!

[eurovizion]

One really magical and memorable experience I had in Stockholm was going to the lake at 3am with a Swedish person that I can only call a wizard who had extremely long hair and a speaker lantern. I don’t have pictures but really feel like I should state this experience for my memories! and My most memorable experience in Sweden I have no pictures of which is okay because I don’t love being glued to my phone all the time. He showed me an abandoned building in the woods and then we reached the most beautiful lake I’ve seen, it was so clear and quiet that we could hear birds arguing with each other from the other side of the lake. We swam in the peaceful water for a bit and no one else was there except for the quitesr fisherman on the distance. The sun set and rose I swear in the span of an hour! It went down at around 1am and came up at 2am. It was really beautiful!

[eurovizion]

A bummer about travelling is sometimes you're not in love with a cultures preffered culinary combinations.. for example, Swedish fika (a word for general snack time) of meatballs is always paired with jam! Hmm.

[eurovizion]

Favorite animals from Skansen include this roaming peackock, chicken, small monkey, warthog, and reindeer! There were also wolves, mooses, wolverine (not too exciting), lynx, seals, bears, and anything else your mind can imagine!

[eurovizion]

First animal sighting walking into Skansen!

[eurovizion]

This Swedish horse chose a very goth chique look!

[eurovizion]

Skansen, Stockholm, Sweden: An open air park, which has an amusement park, a zoo, many restaurants, a huge garden, aquarium and more! It was the first national park in Europe connected to the city!