There's Always Room for Fika [Sweden 2019]

Fika [fee-ka] Swedish (n.) a moment to slow down and appreciate the good things in life.

After a brief stopover in Poland, Elizabeth and I continued our European food tour in Sweden. Don't worry, we walked almost 70 miles over the course of a week, so eating our way through Europe wasn't the worst thing that could have happened. 

Tunnbrödrulle, caramel cat candy, and semla

Before I start RAVING about the best food in Sweden, let's cover the runners up. First, tunnbrödrulle, which is pretty much a hot dog in a wrap. Ours came with mashed potatoes and mustard for a truly interesting treat. And honestly, I didn't hate it. It was an odd combination of foods and kind of tasted like a heart attack going down, but it was pretty good. And it was from a food truck on the banks of the some body of Swedish water and felt very cultural. The caramel cat candy from Vete-Katten did not feel very cultural, but it was CAT SHAPED CANDY and it was the same color as my kittens, so it was a must. And lastly was semla, which is a Lent pastry and was kind of a let down. It tasted like air. There was some tiny bit of flavored something in the middle was a pretty dang good, but the rest of it, both the filling and the bread, was kind of tasteless. Maybe we just didn't get it from the best bakery?

But now to the real winners of the culinary scene. Drum roll, please.

Kanelbulle and hot chocolate from Espresso House

So basically these are cinnamon rolls, but skinnier? And they have glaze flakes instead of liquid glaze. I don't know, man, these were amazing. Elizabeth and I also tried ones that were cardamom flavored and both became daily snacks. I will spend the rest of my life dreaming about kanelbulles. 

A sausage bun, moose lasagna, and reindeer with lingonberries

I. Did. Not. Hate. This. When creating our Scandinavian Bucket List (which clearly was all food related), Elizabeth and I knew we wanted to try reindeer. Could we BE any more Scandinavian? Anyways, we didn't find any in Oslo, expect the smoked one, so when we saw a sign for reindeer at The Hairy Pig in Gamla Stan, we knew we had to stop. As an added bonus they had moose, so all right, twist our arms. The moose lasagna was BOMB. To be fair, it was mostly cheese and how can you go wrong with cheese? But regardless, it was amazing. The reindeer was kind of a let down after all the hype, but even ground beef isn't anything to write home about when you just cook it up with little/ no seasonings. The lingonberries were actually my favorite part of the reindeer/ lingonberry mix. And they sell lingonberry jelly in Epcot, so heyyyyy.

Glögg-- aka, hot wine

After long days of freezing temperatures, we had to warm up with some hot wine. Plus we saw it advertised on one of our boat tours and then just really wanted it. We stumbled across Cafe Sten Sture, which, in retrospect, might have been my favorite restaurant we went to in the whole trip. I mean, we ended up going there two days in a row, so we must have liked it? It's this bar that's underground and in an old dungeon. So it was dark and stone, but also spacious and cozy. And the bar tenders were so nice. They had lots of recommendations for things to do and had lots to chat about. We got some glögg both nights and desserts the second night-- think apple pie that was more like a cake with ice cream.

Swedish meatballs

Maybe these were a little heavy for our last meal (literally ate these and went straight to the airport), but holy cow, they were divine. I could eat kanelbulle for breakfast and these meatballs from Meatballs for the People every day and not totally hate it. Plus, it came with mashed potatoes and lingonberries, so how could you even be mad!?

In case anyone was worried that we did nothing BUT eat, never fear. We spent an extraordinarily long time on boats for the middle of March. And regretted everything except the reindeer fur blanket, honestly.

We also spent quite some time riding the subways around. Which is a thing, okay? Because a handful of the subway stops are painted and they are ASTOUNDING. That rainbow one was all sorts of amazing.

We also rode the SkyView, which was a spherical ball that took us up and over the side of an arena in Stockholm for views of the city. It was free with our Stockholm pass, what can we say? We also visited Drottingholm Palace which is the private residence of the Swedish royal family. No royalty was seen on our trip. It was beautiful, old, and also free with our Stockholm pass.

We gave a big thumbs down to the Nordiska Museum which we thought was going to be cool Swedish outfits, but ended up being famous place settings. And other things that I honestly don't even remember, but what does it tell you when place settings are the most memorable part?

We gave a big thumbs up to the Vasa Museum, though. So the Vasa was this giant ship, supposed to be a big freakin' deal, and it sunk like 15 minutes into its maiden voyage. Yeah, bummer. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. This giant wooden ship sinks and is at the bottom of this lake/ ocean/ sea for THREE HUNDRED YEARS. And when they found it, IT WAS FULLY INTACT. Like, straight up, you can go to see this museum to see the original ropes and sails and everything that was on the ship. Apparently they also founds bones from people who had died on the ship, which really makes me wonder how poor of swimmers they were honestly. We kind of figured that the Vasa Museum would be as thrilling as the Nordiska Museum (read: not), but it was way more fascinating that we could have predicted.

We packed a lot into seven short days. A lot of pastries, a lot of hot chocolate, a lot of delicious food, a lot of laughing, and a lot of walking. When it was all said and done, we begrudgingly headed to the airport. We were leaving behind so much good food and had so many things that we still wanted to see.

Scandinavia-- you were something else.  

Pinching the Cheeks of Poland and Gaining 20 Pounds in 20 Hours [Poland 2019]

Elizabeth and I had one goal in Poland-- eat as much as we possibly can. We only had about 20 hours there and, as our hotel didn't pick us up from the airport like we thought they were going to, we ended up with 18 hours from start to finish. There was a lot of food to cram into 18 hours, but we were up for the challenge.  

It's SO cute! How can you not want to pinch it's cheeks?!

We dropped our bags off at the hotel and immediately went to Pierogarnia Mandu for pierogis. Because if you went to Poland and didn't get pierogis, did you even go to Poland? We got the traditional pierogis as well as the fried (tasted like little pizzas) and dessert (chocolate with raspberry) ones. As much as I love chicken and tacos, I mighttttt be able to eat traditional pierogis forever. Plus, I think that Elizabeth and I paid $20 for all of those pierogis (plus drinks) which absolutely made them that much more enjoyable. 

After polishing off the pierogis, we walked around Gdansk and proceeded to indulge in some apple pie, a strawberry milkshake parfait thing, and assorted mixed drinks. And seriously, I think we paid maaaybe $20 for all of that. Gdansk was SO cheap and the food was SO delicious which was a dangerous combination.

Delicious food continued the following day (are you seeding a trend here?), when we had the best breakfast of the trip. It had broccoli fritters, COME ON. And that breakfast sausage was what dreams are made of.

After a bomb breakfast, we had about four hours until we had to leave for the airport, so we used that time to walk around Gdansk, buy (and break) some souvenirs, and eat some more. Gdansk is as adorable as it's food is delicious. If Elizabeth and I had a dollar for each time we said "It's SO cute!", we could have funded our entire trip.

And not just one little part that you see on Pinterest is cute, but the entire Old Town area is precious as heck. Each road we turned down was more adorable than the last. Which made it really difficult for us to remember where we had seen the bakery that smelled so amazing, it stopped both of us in our tracks. "I don't know, it was on that cute street with the colorful buildings? Maybe some cobblestone roads?"

It quickly became time to head off to Stockholm, and our one real regret in Gdansk is that we didn't have time to go to the World War 2 Museum while we were there. Other than that, Gdansk far exceeded any and all expectations that we had for our 20 short hours in Poland.

No Way, We Went To Norway! [Norway 2019]

When Elizabeth and I booked our Spring Break trip to Scandinavia, we had a certain picture of Norway in our minds. We pictured fjords and Northern Lights and snow and reindeer. None of these things exist in Oslo, at least not in the way that we had imagined them. So we felt kind of down about Norway, solely due to our lack of planning. Oslo was beautiful and when we sat down to talk about it, Oslo was actually an amazing city. 

We arrived at our hotel in Oslo around 2pm on Monday and left for the airport around 11am on Wednesday, so we didn't have a ton of time in Oslo. We spent our first evening walking around the city which was incredibly safe, even for two female travelers and even when we were wheeling around our luggage. We spent some time walking on the Opera House-- it's totally allowed, we weren't trespassing on night one. Later that night, we got hot chocolate at what would become our favorite coffee shop, Espresso House, and waffles with cheese and jam at what would become our favorite waffle shop, Harald's Vaffel. 

The Opera House, which was designed for people to walk all over it, and the view from the Opera House.

Espresso House: like Starbucks, but Scandinavian, so cooler. 

Walking (more like huffing and puffing, if we're honest) over the Opera House and watching people sit in saunas then jump into the harbor took up a large part of our time in Oslo. Since we had loved it so much the night before, we did it again on Tuesday morning in hopes of the sun being behind us and being able to see more of the city. We mostly just saw giant pigeon birds. 

After our morning walk around downtown Oslo, we took the subway up to Holmenkollen. It's a ski jump tower that was built in the late 1800's and was even used in the 1952 Winter Olympics. There's a museum under the tower that chronicles a bit of Norwegian history as well as the history of ski jumping. The view of Oslo from the top was breathtaking, as was the fact that the jump tower is almost vertical and Elizabeth and I were both certain that we were going to take a tumble.

The best part of Holmenkollen, though, was that as we were leaving, a bunch of skiers were preparing to do some practice ski jumps. So we ended up sitting at the top of the ski jump for about 30 minutes watching them practice over and over. It's amazing-- it's so fast and so high. I feel like I'm a pretty brave person, but I definitely draw the line at ski jumping.

After getting our blood pumping by walking down the stairs at Holmenkollen, we decided to go for some tamer entertainment. We headed to Vigeland Sculpture Park which was tamer in the fact that we didn't have to climb stairs or hold onto railings for dear life, but ended up being an entire park of nake sculptures and I thiiiiink Elizabeth and I laughed the entire time. We tried to be mature about it, but we just couldn't. Especially when other adults were there actually appreciating the sculptures.
Whenever you Google Vigeland Sculpture Park, you see pictures of the angry baby statue, so we HAD to find in. In our minds, this statue was going to be like 10 feet tall. There was going to be no way that we'd miss it. In reality, it was approximately 2 feet tall and situated on a bridge with at least 50 other little statues. The eye rolls were real. In the end, it was decided that Elizabeth and I just don't appreciate art.

Photos like these are what make people think this statue is huge. 

We'd worked up an appetite, so we walked to Mathallen Food Hall. As like most food halls, there were many different food stands, so Elizabeth and I just went crazy. We got pasta, we got paninis, we got three different desserts. And we enjoyed every single bite. WE also tried moose, reindeer, and whale sausage. Which tasted like smoked meat and was nothing to write home about, in my opinion.

Chocolate cupcakes and Passionfruit Pie at Mathallen.

Dinner was another stop at the real star of Oslo-- waffles from Harald's. The cheese, called brunost or brown cheese, is a combination of goat milk and cow milk and sugar. It looked sketchy and tasted delicious. I would have never put jam and cheese together on a waffle, but clearly the Norwegians know better than me. It was amazing. I would go back to Norway solely for more Harald's Vaffels.

Tuesday morning, we packed up, checked out, and did a little last minute shopping. Obviously we couldn't leave Norway without any troll memorabilia-- spoiler alert, I bought two. We took one last stroll at the Opera House and one hot chocolate at Espresso House before waving bye to Oslo and boarding the train to our next stop-- Poland! 

You've Un-Loched My Heart [Scotland 2017]

We'd originally added Scotland to our itinerary to check another country off our list and to unwind after days galavanting through England and France.  A couple of laid back days in Europe before heading back to our real lives in the States. Scotland ended up surprising the heck out of us.

We signed up for a day tour to the Scottish highlands. Holy. Freakin'. Cow. It was gorgeous. It was a little bit foggy and a little bit rainy the entire time, which just screamed Scotland. I even listened to Scotland The Brave (aka, the one bagpipe song that everyone would recognize multiple times. 

Everything was so GREEN. I felt like it was perpetually St. Patricks Day.

The whole point of the Scottish Highlands tour was actually to go to Loch Ness and do a tour in hopes of seeing Nessie. We stopped in the town of Fort Augustus, where we boarded a boat that took us out onto the lake. A little piece of trivia-- 'loch' actually means lake, so it's literally called Lake Ness.

The tour was incredibly informative and the tour guide was very entertaining. We looked at sonar to see the differences in depths of the lake, learned fun facts about the surrounding villages, and kept our eyes peeled for Nessie. Another piece of trivia-- Loch Ness is actually very, very deep. There's more water in Loch Ness than in all of the lakes and rivers in both England and Wales combined. It's also very dark with low visibility due to a high concentration of peat in the water. 

Unfortunately, Nessie was ever elusive and we were unable to catch a glimpse of her this time. We boarded the bus back to Edinburgh where we wandered around the cobblestone streets, grabbed some dinner, and did a little shopping. Including a super soft Scottish blanket and Scottish gloves that I'm obsessed with.

We didn't have any plans for the follow day except "see Edinburgh". We bought tickets to tour Edinburgh Castle and, as most historical tours, some parts were amazing and informative and I could have stayed all day and others parts were a bit forgettable. The views though? They were definitely NOT forgettable. 

The view of the city from Edinburgh Castle

After touring the castle, we continued our self-led walking tour. Mostly to shops where I could buy pictures of the Scottish Highland cows (they're just SO adorable!), to somewhere we were could eat, and to The Elephant House which is where JK Rowling wrote sat to write some of the Harry Potter books. There wasn't any Harry Potter memorabilia or anything, we'd seen all that in London, but it was still a quirky little stop. 

We rounded out our Edinburgh tour by talking the long, windy walk up to Calton Hill for some more castle views. We got in a bit of exercise before our long flights home and had more amazing views of the city-- a city that I never expected to love.

You're What The French Call Les Incompetents [France 2017]

Paris has always been one of those cities that I knew I would go to, but didn't know when. And honestly, since I knew that I would end up there eventually, I never really actively planned a trip there. Thank goodness for Caitlin, because she loves Paris and insisted that we stop there. And it was awesome. 

We still had some time for sightseeing when we arrived in Paris, so after checking in to our hotel, we headed to the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel freakin' Tower, folks. It was as breathtaking and as high and as windy as I imagined. We arrived in the late afternoon and were at the top level of the Eiffel Tower to watch the sun set over Paris. And it was in that moment that I fell in love with Paris.

Or maybe I fell in love with seeing cities from above because I also love Rio from the top of the Sugarloaf and London from the London Eye. Honestly, it might be that.

Once the sun had set, we took an incredibly expensive bike ride to the Arc de Triomphe where I stood (almost) in traffic for the perfect Instagram pic. Basic girls gotta be basic, even in Paris. And continuing on our quest to be basic, we meandered down Champs Élysées and didn't buy anything because, even in Paris, we're still poor teachers. 

The following day we headed back to the Eiffel Tower, so that I could get my daytime Tower pics before taking the train to Versailles, which was the royal French residence in the 1600's. I had never been there, so I toured the inside of the palace while Caitlin walked around the garden. Holy freakin' cow, I have never seen a place as ornate and intricate as the Palace of Versailles. I think I walked around the entire time with my eyes as wide as saucers. As amazed as I was by the palace, I was more excited to see the gardens. Apparently old, expensive stuff isn't my jam, but flowers are?

The gardens were also HUGE. We're talking 800 acres, 50 fountains huge. After walking across, what felt like, all 800 acres, we ate ice cream and macarons. Again, carrying on with our basic-ness.

Our last full day in Paris was spent sightseeing all of the famous Parisian locations-- the Louvre, Notre Dame, love lock bridge, and lots of little cafes. Macarons were eaten in abundance and hot chocolate from Angelina's was drank. Although I could have done with exponentially more macarons and less hot chocolate. 

After only two and a half days in Paris, we were off to Edinburgh, our last stop in our Eurotrip. We bid au revior to France with once last trip at Laduree for some more macarons at the airport for jetting off to Scotland. 

Second Star To The Right And Straight On Till Morning [England 2017]

Caitlin and I were both bit by the travel bug when we were in college, hence both of us doing our student teaching in Rio de Janeiro, albeit different years. She traveled throughout Europe in the summer of 2016 while I was galavanting through Central America, but by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, we were both ready to book another trip. Next thing we knew flights were booked and Eurotrip 2017 was in the works. 

We started planning the trip the way any 20 something does these days-- pins the heck out their travel destination, starts to narrow down what is actually feasible, finds some AirBnBs, and then figures out what food must be consumed. We narrowed it down to London, Paris, and Edinburgh over the course of 8 days, so to say that it was going to be a whirlwind would be a serious understatement. 

We flew into London and hit the ground running. Literally, we changed in the hotel bathroom and ran out the door, so that we could find the ice cream macaroon sandwiches before our tour of the Globe Theater. From there we traveled to Buckingham Palace, where we didn't see the Queen, but we did see the changing of the guards. And honestly, it was a heck of a lot less exciting than I had imagined. Unfortunately, since the Queen wasn't home to invite us in for tea, we had to settle for getting as far as the Buckingham Palace gift shop. Honestly, I didn't hate it. 

I was SO STOKED for Day Two in London. STOKED. Because we had tickets to Warner Brother Studios to see where the Harry Potter movies were filmed. I geeked out HARD. There might have been squealing involved, honestly. We got to see SO. MANY. props and outfits as well as sets that were used in the films, and we got to drink authentic butter beer. 

Day Three was devoted entirely to embracing our inner tourist. The tackier, the better. We took pictures with double decker buses, we stared wide-eyed at Parliament and Big Ben, we waved at Westminster Abbey from the top of a double decker bus, we rode the London Eye, and we moseyed across the London Bridge. Sometimes tourist things are tacky, but sometimes tourist things are awesome. Day Three was filled with tourist things that were awesome. 

It also rained which made me feel like I was actually in London. I loved every second of it. And was also incredibly thankful for both my rain jacket and my umbrella. 

Totes glam in London, obvs.

After three quick days in London, we princess waved goodbye to the Queen and boarded the train to PARIS. I'd insert the dancing girl Emoji right here, if I could.

Chase Your Dreams And Touch The Sky (Dopey Challenge 2018: Full)

While thinking about and "training for" and panicking about the Dopey Challenge, I was most worried about the Full Marathon. I'd crushed plenty of 5ks, I'd done a couple of 10ks, and had schleped my way through a couple of halfs, but A FULL MARATHON was a whole different beast. TWENTY-SIX POINT TWO MILES. At once. Seriously, it sounds terrifying.

As with the 5k, 10k, and the Half Marathon, Tasha and I rolled into Epcot really freakin' early. We got our character pictures and stood near the heaters until it was time to shuffle to the corrals. And then sat there and turned into little ice cubes with our friends from the previous day who were also worried about not finishing A FULL FREAKIN' MARATHON. 5:30 rolled around and we were off-- well, Corral A was off. We stood around for a little bit longer until it was finally our turn.

Pre-race photo and post-race photo-- there was an obvious temperature difference

Our strategy for the full was the same as the half-- run as far as we can out of the gate, and then continue with intervals until death was imminent. It was still FREEZING at the start of the full, so I was still wrapped up like a Chipotle burrito in my two Mylar blankets and one fleece blanket. I'm sure it was adorable, but it was super warm.

Things picked up around Magic Kingdom where we ran into our friends, the Flamingos, as well as Tasha's mom who was there with water and snacks. And let's be real, even though I had done it the day before, running down Main Street, towards the castle, was magical as heck.

My favorite moment of the entire weekend was when Tasha and I ran into Richard at the Grand. Richard worked as a greeter at the Grand Floridian since 1991 (!!!!) and was just the cutest little man. We saw him during the half and he wished us good luck, and we spent the rest of the race talking about how much we wished we had taken a picture with him, so it was literally a dream come true to be able to take a picture with him during the full.

 The second best moment was obviously when we got free snacks as we ran through Hollywood Studios. But really, can you blame me? We were at Mile 23ish, were going on 7ish hours, andddd had just zig-zagged approximately 4-5 miles throughout Wide World of Sports. That candy, however stale it was, was a godsend.

From the time we finished our candy until mile 26, we talked about how excited we were for the bags of ice waiting for us at the finish line. Seriously, who knew that stale candy and free bags of ice were all needed to make some girls happy?

Approximately 8 hours later (no one ever said we were fast), four bags of ice, 8 packages of stale candy, and countless snacks taken from strangers on the side of the road, Tasha and I crossed the finish line officially labeling me as a marathoner and both of us as Dopey.

THE moment we became Dopey

Honestly, almost a year later, I'm still shocked that it even happened. I mean, 48.6 miles in one weekend in wild. Doing it with little to no training (is ill advised and stupid) is even wilder. But it was actually fun. Tasha and I thought about crying a lot, thought about quitting a lot, and laughed a whole lot more.

Dopey,  you were awesome, and, in the nicest way possible, I hope that I never see you ever again.