Rain Rain Go Away

You know the little nursery tune rain rain go away come again another day? Yes, of course you do you were a kid once. Have you ever felt that way? I sure have. That is pretty much 100% my feelings for Sweden day two. It just rained and rained and rained and rained and rained. Did I mention it rained?
When we woke up, it was already raining. We really wanted to see if the rain would stop, so we decided to go to "The Eye." It is Stockholm's really tall circular building and you can ride to the top of. At the top, the views are supposed to be simply amazing. So we bought our subway tickets and went on the trek to "The Eye."
When we got there, things did not exactly go as planned. The people inside told us it was too windy to go up to the top. This is not the first time wind has ruined my grand plans. Remember that one time we tried to go paragliding in good old Utah? The wind destroyed that dream as well. Well, anyways,  the wind bested me again. This time, it just happened to be in Stockholm. Major bummer. So we took the subway back to the City Center. (P.S. If you are ever in Stockholm, don't try to go to "The Eye" if the weather is even a little bit bad. It is a waste of your time.)
From there we decided to go the complete opposite direction towards the Skansen open air museum and the Vasa museum. The only issue was that we are complete cheapos and we didn't want to buy any more tickets for transportation. So what did we decide to do? We decided to hop on anyways and play the " I am a foreigner and I don't know how to reload my tram ticket please don't put me in jail card." (We seem to be playing that card a lot lately.) To help in this elaborate plan, Jessica and I decided that any time a guard passed our approach would be to talk to him about being lost and bat our eyes as best we could. Jessica was up for tram ride numero uno. Her mad flirting/distracting skills were certainly up to par. She befriended the guard and we made it to our destination. Phew.
We decided to go to the Skansen open- air museum first. Skansen was actually the first open-air museum to be created in the world. We were beyond excited to explore all the buildings and traditional crafts this place had to offer. There was just one small problem.... It was raining like crazy. Paige and Hannah didn't quite like the idea of walking around in an outdoor museum and becoming sopping wet. So, they left to go to the Vasa Museum instead. Jessica, Rachel and I would not let the rain deter us. We were going in. Dun Dun Dunnn.
The museum was just as cool as we thought is would be. We were freaking fraking cold though. (I am pretty sure my hands were completely numb for the whole duration of the experience.)To try to stay warm, we would run from building to building. We saw some traditional Swedish homes, glass blowing, a bakery, a fix it shop and a poet's home. My favorites were definitely the bakery and the glass blowing. The bakery was absolutely delicious, and the glass blowing was mesmerizing. The other  really cool part was that we were essentially the only people in the whole place. It was like our own private tour without a guide and we were a tad on the freezing side.
On the other side of the museum there was a small zoo. We went inside and there was the cutest little grandpa who was the overseer. He motioned over to me and told me to come see something. I obliged him and went over. He pointed at this really odd contraption behind this sheet of glass. "It is a binky dispenser. When kids are old and need to get rid of their binky, they put in through the hole and the cats take it away.... Don't ya wish they had one of those for alcohol? Ha Ha Ha." I seriously died. It was such a cheesy joke I am sure he says to almost all the visitors. It  just made me love it even more.

After the zoo, we found the most amazing full size Swedish carved horses. Sweden is famous for them and this was just too perfect of a photo op to pass up.

A women whose character was a poet and there is Jessica's finger. 

The Bakery. 

 Binky dispenser. Creepy, but cute at the same time. (Do you see the creepy cat on the left side?)

Binky hole. Buh bye binky's

One more because I love these horses.

They were so amazing, and so was the Skansen museum despite the fact my body was frozen. After we met up with Paige and Hannah for our next adventure. The Vasa Museum, aka my favorite place yet! 

(It will be in the next post because this one is humongous.)

XO- Mikele

Sveeters and Sveeden

Ok, by this point Sweden seems like another life ago. I know it has been so long since we went, but this blogging business takes a long time!

So on Day three I woke up pretty sick. When you hardly eat, sleep or drink water it does something to your body. Bad things. I knew better before I did a number on my body, but my cheap side won over my logical keep your body healthy side. Anyways, I did not feel good.
We all got up, got ready and packed our things and said goodbye to one of the strangest hostels I have been to in my life. Thankfully they gave us some directions, but just like always we managed to get lost. We all started asking people frantically on the bus where we needed to go. Heaven shined upon us and we met Timothy. Timothy looks exactly like the black vampire off of twilight. He had the piercing eyes, the great dreads and buff yet skinny black man body. He also dressed very posh as well. To make him even cooler, he moved to Norway from Africa. He told us that he didn't mind taking us to the station because he was on his way there as well. When we got to the station, he brought us all the way to the train and made sure all of our tickets were in order before he left. What a nice guy. (I still thought he might have the urge to suck my blood.... Kidding.) We rode the train all the way to the airport.
At the airport, we quickly and easily got our tickets and went through security. Every airport I have gone to, I have had problems with these brown boots I wear practically daily. For some reason, they beep EVERY SINGLE TIME. Just like always, when I walked through the metal detector, I beeped. Instead of having me take my shoes of and try again, I got a full on pat down in front of everyone. I was laughing hysterically because all of my roommates were yelling cat calls at me because apparently the dude was cute who was doing it. I honestly never really check guys out these days and I was a little annoyed at the fellow for not letting me re-walk through without my shoes like everyone else. Oh well. Now I can say I have had a full on pat down by a supposedly attractive Norwegian police airport man. Oh a day in the life of Mikele...
When we got to the Sweden airport, we were all sorts of excited. It is so cool to land somewhere new. You have no idea what that place holds in store for you, and it is up to the explorer within you to find out. I just love it. At the airport, we did all the necessities. We got some moola, visited tourist information, the typical stuff. Tourist information pointed us to the bus that would take us to the city. We said our thank yous, and boarded the bus. Unknowingly, Paige had left one of her carry on bags in the tourist information center. This particular bag had her 250$ sweater that she got in Santa town Norway. That is one valuable sweater. Frantically she got off the bus to find it. Simultaneously, the people were running out of tourist information to give it to us. God bless you honest tourist information people. You're the best.
When we got into Stockholm, I was just dying. It is the cutest place. I was much more impressed with it than I was with Oslo. It had shopping, the cute streets full of colorful buildings, and tons of beautiful statues and flowers all around. Another thing I thought was really wonderful about Stockholm was the fact that it was on the water. I love cities on the water. They are just so fun.
We wandered all around the streets looking for either the hostel or a tourist information booth. By this point we were extremely starving. We found a panini restaurant and ate like savages. This is what happens to you are staving for days.
After we quickly put our stuff in our hostel and went out to explore the streets. It was rainy, so we went bundled up in our umbrellas and coats to see all the cute sights of Stockholm.

 This was probably one of my favorite streets in all of Stockholm. (It is the one on all the postcards.)

 As with all landmarks, we couldn't feel complete without a jumping picture. 

 "Rinstelefon"

Just cheesing it up in front of some special building. 

Channeling my inner 5 yr. old. 

We had such a blast exploring the town. Our only foe to the evening was the fact that it was just raining and raining and raining. It was soooooooooo cold! We all had to wear coats and carry umbrellas. Apparently we needed better umbrellas as shown below:

 Hannah's umbrella was a wee bit broken.

It even got stuck in her hair. 

Rachel's umbrella takes the cake though. It just snapped all the way in two.

Here is us bonding in a umbrella huddle. (This is what you have to do in order to protect your map from mother nature. )

It was a good rainy day in Sweden.

XO Mikele

Orphanage Lately

We went to the orphanage today. It was as fun as ever. 

 The "Lithuanian face" No smiles, all business.

 The Livened up hallway.

That awesome moment with a Lithuanian Grandpa photo bombs you with the monkey you painted.

My monkey is getting a girlfriend! My baby is growing up.

Sister Swiss painting my monkeys girlfriend.

Bird I painted today. Pretty proud of this cute little guy.

Ribet Ribet

 The train that should be done by next week!

Man, I love this orphanage.

XO Mikele

A day of vikings and Santa town

Like I said before, Norway day two was much better than Norway day one. This was the case for a  few reasons.

#1 Viking ships 

#2  A Ferry Ride

#3 Santa Town

Let's just take a gander at the beautiful wonders that Norway day two has in store. First off, check out this very cool and very authentic viking ship. I cannot believe very husky bearded men really rode around in these things. It is saweeeeet.

 Viking ship for the win.

Selfie in a viking helmet because it's what all the cool kids are doing.

I really really enjoyed the viking museum.  I think I can owe my love for vikings to the time I went to Disney World with my family. We we went, Hannah Montana was still a big deal. Unfortunately, she was having her Christmas concert the same day we went. Due to the over population of Hannah Montana fans, my dad banished our family to hanging out in the Epcot park far away from any teeny boppers wearing  their Hannah Montana memorabilia. Epcot may be lamest thing Disney has ever created, but, they did have a viking ride I found extremely enthralling. Ever since, I have been all about vikings. I think they are just the coolest.   Inside the museum there were three large ships. They even had some viking bones. I was just straight up happy to be there.

We visited a few more museums really close to the viking museum. One museum was about a polar fram, and the other was about a Norwegian who visited Easter Island. They were alright, but I really liked the viking one the best. After a while we were feeling a little museumed out. So, we took some pictures by the beautiful water. After pictures, we decided to take a ferry to the fjord where Santa supposedly lives.  I mean come on. Who dosen't love Santa? I mean everyone has got to love that jolly guy. We said audios to the museums and went back to the center of Oslo to catch a ferry to Santa town (otherwise known as Drobak). 

Now little did we know, but the weekend we were in Oslo, there was some sort of crazy marathon going on. Getting to the water to catch a ferry without getting trampled proved to be quite the challenge. Somehow we managed and we caught the beautiful ferry to Drobak. 

 I just adore ferry rides. They make me feel so serene.

When we got to  Santa Town (Drobak), we decided it was one of the cutest towns ever.This was a good thing too because Santa's house was already closed by the time we arrived. This was a big ol' bummer but it ended up being okay because there were so many other things to explore. It was teeny tiny town, but it had all the makings of a good town. It had the cobble stone streets, yummy cafes, the colorful houses, cute boutiques and the extremely kind locals. We wandered around and just made ourselves at home. One of our favorite findings were these special little signs. They were ALL over Drobak. 

Clearly the poor little town had some issues with the dog poops in the past. Good thing this sign so clearly depicted that dog poop is not allowed. Thanks sign. 

We also stumbled upon the cutest house/ car in the history of ever.

 Also, these naked mermaids. Mermaids are my spirit animal so I was happy about this.

Overall, we had a happy quaint little time in Drobak. I am  so very happy we went!

When we got back to Oslo after a beautiful bus ride, we had one last adventure. We wanted to find Vigeland Park. Vigeland park is one of the most famous places in Oslo. It is this giant part completely full of magnificent statues. I had been wanting to see it the whole time, so we decided to go even if it was creepy and dark outside. This was a tad challenging. We had to ride the tube (subway) all the way there and then walk around until we could find it. Like an hour and asking 10 people later we finally made it. The park was magnificent! I felt like I hopped into the movie Hercules. I swear I was in the same park that Herc and Meg had their first date. It was full of all these pretty pillars and statues. I just loved it. I wish we would have spent some time in the daylight there.

Nevertheless, I am still glad we went.

Norway Day two, you rocked my socks off. 

XO Mikele

 P.S. I found my dad's classic sweater.

 I found the exact Norwegian sweaters my dad bought from Costco years ago. He just looks so Norwegian chic every sabbath. 

I wanted to buy him another one... but they cost 300 buckaroos...