Family Time in Scandinavia

I suppose a good place to start with the family vacation is about where I left the last post... There were a few days between the end of the last post and when the family arrived and I had some chores to do before the arrival. When the family finally did show up the vacation that ensued was pretty good.

14th June. I went to the housing office to return Ariel and Megan's keys. Ariel left me chocolate to aid my performance of the task.

15th June. A quite boring day. Basically all that I did was carry my road sign up to storage on the 6th floor then take a picture of it there.

16th June. With the parents arriving the following day, it was time to clean out the room for good. Here is the accumulation of liquor bottles from the semester.

17th June. Time to collect the parents. Here's the first family vaca roll call.

We made our way into town and to the hotel. We got to stay at the Skrapan hotel, but not even in the actual tower. From this view you can see about where our rooms were in the white horizontal part of the structure near the right middle of the frame. Still not bad, though.

After checking out the hotel, we went for a walk down to the beach. Clearly the family is still struggling to grasp the concept of roll call.

This sight nearly popped my brain. Five months in Västerås and I never realized that it contained two Spicy Hot's.

Minutes later we stopped at the real Spicy Hot for a lunch.

After lunch, we headed back to Junior to finalize the abandonment of my Swedish abode.

The final departure would be with the family crew for a traipse around Scandinavia with a final destination of HOME!

18th June. Brother and I held a conference to discuss which sights of Västerås we would see during the day. Clearly, Brother lacked my intensity.

After missing our bus to the Viking burial mounds, we went to the tourist information center which I did not know to exist before our defeated trek from central station back into the Centrum.

We stopped for a coffee before boarding the Elba boat for a ride around the lake. The game for the trip would be to take as many pictures as possible of Mother.

We picked the perfect time to leave as a squall rushed the lake from the north. This is the underwater hotel. It's a real place...see?

All of the squalling had us trapped in the inner shelter of the boat so we didn't get as much sightseeing as I hoped.

Luckily it had more or less cleared up by the time we were getting back to shore.

In addition to the underwater hotel, Västerås also has a "Hotel Woodpecker" which is in a tree. It should not surprise you to learn that the same man is responsible for both hotels. And, I just learned (by looking at his site) that he also built those really tall chairs from Elba.

Next stop: get in that tower.

It was surprisingly simple. The tour even came with a free tour guide/photographer.

And a nice view.

After that, we went to look around the school.

I'm really gonna miss having a sky bridge at my school.

During my time in Västerås, I walked this route innumerable times, but it was this time that I first noticed...

THIS DRAWING! Pretty cool.. You can see brother looking at where it is located in the previous picture.

I had planned to take the family to taco buffet, but it had ended for the season. So we went to Coop instead.

Busy day. The final activity was a trip up to the sky bar. And another photo of Mother.

BTW, this did not make sense to me. The hotel gave that stuff out.

19 June. At hotel breakfast in the morning our table was too small for dirty plates. So I developed a technique to dump them on an adjacent table. I didn't consider that someone would sit at the dumping table. My thumb conveniently points at the discarded dish (complete with miscellaneous breakfast refuse).

Brother and I agree that the high point of the vacation was acquiring the Volvo. You will see many more pictures of its precious face.

After dropping my bags with Florian, we rushed to a Mc Donald’s where the Parents managed to thoroughly confuse the workers there.

Roll call in the Volvo.

It didn't take long for Brother and I to remedy the situation in the previous image.

At one point there was this horse.

Our first experience with a Swedish information station. These are found on the borders of EVERY city/town and quite helpful when you're lost (due to a non-functioning GPS unit).

We made it to the hotel which was very old and traditional.

It offered many activities including wooden box with a rotating handle at reception.

And large wooden shovels for hallway maintenance.

Aww...

The Parents' room was quite nice and featured activities of its own. Including pointing at the lake.

The view from our (cheaper) room was still quite good, save for some mild obstruction.

However, the true value of our room arose from its alternate status as EMERGENCY EXIT. See on the right of the door there? That is in fact a key to our room hanging outside of our room.

Luckily a thin piece of non-sharding glass would maintain our safety in the night.

Dinner that night. I finally got to eat a REINDEER!! It was not really that good.

They did have some interesting salt available for photography, though.

One of a nine-shot photo session of Mother after dinner.

20th June. This is approximately how the hotel appears from the outside.

Interesting...

Brother secured a shot of Mother with her find.

Still in control...

Many houses in the area kept one of these in the garden.

We took the Volvo to its natural habitat...the Swedish forest.

The forest contains many mosquitoes.

Aww...

While in the forest, we encountered this.

You can see just how happy that Volvo is.

So that's what it was for.

Aww...

After driving in the forest a bit longer, we came upon the old limestone quarry that the smoke stack was built for. The Swedes put a concert area in it.

Driving around the countryside, we saw many of these. It was almost midsummer and everyone had their maypoles at the ready.

After some more time, we came upon a nice view of a city in a valley while searching for food to eat. The town was probably called Siljansnäs.

At dinner Brother noticed something interesting about the hotel keys. If you ignore that last 'A' with the key hanging just so...

The sunset that night was quite nice.

21st June. The time came to leave that hotel. Brother and I spied on the packing process from the hotel's sky bridge.

This was a popular form of traffic control in the countryside.

We got some Swedish dinner at an IKEA once we got to Oslo.

The hotel there was pretty cool. It was in strong support of sky bridges.

Father was too grumpy from the drive, so it was only Mother, Brother, and I to get a roll call on one.

It was nice of the hotel to offer warm drinks for free. There was some puzzle involved in obtaining them, however. Nevertheless, we should take pictures with those drinks.

First at the designated hot drink area.

Then in the forest. (Despite our location, we did not see any cats)

Then in the hotel bar. Mother thought it nice to shake her head for the long exposure.

22 June. In the morning, we went to the airport to get a new GPS unit. Father practiced artistic photography while Mother supervised.

First place in actual Oslo that we visited was the opera house. Brother found a crevasse to get in.

Roll call at the opera house.

Next on the agenda: drive up to the royal palace and take a picture of the Volvo there.

After the palace, we went to the "statues of naked humans" park.

23rd June. Brother and I attempted a record for number of times locked out of hotel room in Norway.

Father and I consulted another roadside information station to seek a nice coastal route to Malmö.

We stopped by a beach at one point so the parents could frolic in the waves.

We took a walk around the city before dinner to locate some sites of the city.

There were some statues of cats on steps near a canal. Mother pleaded with us to take pictures of them and Father fiddled with his iPod to take a picture.

Tour guide Stefan shows Mother the oldest building in Malmö while Father lags behind.

That police car came tearing through the town square with deadly speed just to stop at the T.G.I. Friday's. Probably for a dine and dash-er.

24th June. We decided to take a drive over this bridge to Copenhagen.

Once we got there, we decided to take a canal tour.

Before we could depart, we had to learn about the regulations of canal boat riding.

After no time we were on our way! We saw this building.

And this one.

And this one.

And this one. I think they said it used to be for building boats before it became a place for people to live in.

This was a pretty good one. Part of the library I think.

And then right before the tour ended, we got really close to the wall.

Of course we ate some Danishes while we were there.

While we were eating Danishes, there was a garbage truck right where a sign said specifically that it shouldn't be.

We went in this church for the next picture.

While there, Brother took this picture which I thought came out kinda neat.

We headed back to Malmö for the night and I took this picture from the hotel. I think it would have been much nicer if the hotel didn't keep so much glass in its windows.

25th June. We hit the road early and were driving through Halmstad when I advised Father to turn down a street to get a better look at a church. The police did not like that, though, since cars were not allowed on that street. They made us aware of their discontent shortly after I took this picture.

The rest of the drive was uneventful and we arrived at our destination without incident.

Unfortunately, we rolled into Stockholm on midsummer day so everyone was in their summer homes. So we washed the Volvo.

We got back to the hotel just in time for a portrait of the Volvo and hotel at the same time.

26th June. Some relatives met up with us and we went to a house that my Dad's family lived in for some time. We made sure to get every member of the crew in the picture, including the Volvo.

After having coffee at the relatives' house, we headed into the city.

Once in old city, we went to the church where the princess got married.

Here's what the inside looks like.

Before dinner, we walked past the narrowest alley.

After dinner, we saw a band playing near the royal palace.

27th June. The Fam Crew paid a visit to the Vasa museum. It's a pretty interesting story.

Back in old city, brother and I rediscovered some stair-down-sliders. Tyler and I encountered these exact ones during our first encounter with Stockholm.

On our way back to the car, we happened by this tower. Before driving past it with the relatives, I never knew it was made out of glass. I still didn't quite believe it until this moment.

28th June. Our last day in Stockholm before boarding a boat to Helsinki. We took a trip to the Hard Rock.

There's the boat that we got on.

There was a nice sunset to see that night.

Before hitting the hay, we saw a boat that I recognized. Interesting.

29th June. Once we got to Helsinki, I rounded everyone up for the standard roll call of Helsinki.

Across the street was a building that was not under construction the last time I visited. It was wrapped up real nice.

Faced with the prospect of walking Helsinki, the parents decided to enroll us in an open top bus tour. Brother and I sat behind some Russians for the first leg.

The bus stopped near the main post office at one point and Brother noticed the cool ceiling.

Right before bussing back to the boat, we hiked up the stairs to that big white church to have a look inside.

When we came out, we could see the boat over some buildings.

Once on the boat, we documented the leaving process of such a boat. First step is to blow a bunch of smoke out.

Then they unhook the huge ropes holding the boat in place.

Finally, the boat driver pulls the boat out if its parking space.

There were some nice views of the city on the way out to sea.

I wasn't sure it would happen, but we actually did get an on-a-boat roll call using a ceiling mirror.

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. Except that brother spotted a gypsy in the tax free shop. Do you see it?

30th June. We got up before arriving in Stockholm and had breakfast on deck before documenting the boat parking.

First, the boat driver picked out a good spot and got the boat in it.

Then some guys on the ground pulled the big ropes ashore and tied up the boat. Simple.

The boat driver still seemed concerned about something, though.

Before disembarking, we had a pretty good view of our hotel.

That evening, we spent some time training the seagulls near our hotel. We threw some cheese balls out the window and taught them to come up to our window on the 14th floor to get us to throw more out.

The training made for some pretty good pictures of seagulls.

Once we ran out of greasy snacks to feed the gulls, we were still able to trick them by sticking a hand out the window.

1st July. In the morning, the time came to pack up the Volvo and skip town. Actually, skip country for that matter.

I have a feeling that I took a picture similar to this when leaving the states.

At the airport, we unloaded the Volvo and prepared to return it to the rental people.

Leaving the Volvo was one of the saddest parts of leaving Sweden.

We got to the gate just in time for the final boarding call.

Very similar to leaving Chicago for Sweden just five and a half months before, they closed the gate right after Brother and I went through.

Just like that we were all on a plane back to the good ol' USA.

After some negotiation, I was able to secure an entire coke to go with my whisky.

Mother got a personalized gluten free meal.

Everyone else had to settle for the standard meal of meat balls and potatoes.

As per Swedish regulations, we were served a sandwich for breakfast.

And just like that, we found ourselves in Chicago with a ten hour layover.

Luckily, our connecting flights were not linked, so we stood in line to re-check our bags.

On our way to leaving the airport for the city, we encountered a sky bridge.

On the train to the city, Mother and Father found a man to talk to about where to get off to see that tall building.

After getting off of the train, we saw this thing, which I think might be famous.

From underneath it, you can see the tower.

When we got there, most people were surprised to learn that it is now called 'Willis' instead of 'Sears.'

Once on top, we got in one of three new glass out-boxes which were recently put in.

There's Mother in one.

Back at the airport, I spotted our ride back to Albuquerque.

Shortly after, we got on it.

Before too long, we were flying over the city to land.

Good trip.

Well, that's pretty much it for my international adventure. I may or may not keep posting things here. I still haven't decided if my life is that interesting...