Giving thanks

So much to be thankful for this year:




Family, who we count on to make us laugh


Friends near and far (they're funny too)




This amazing opportunity to be in London together


Scruffy puppies


and pretty red ones too


(they're best as a pair)


Home (or maybe we're just starting to miss it a little...)

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours from lovely Londontown! We love and miss y'all.

Lisa & Nicholas

The rest of our trip, brought to you by the iPhone

Forgot my battery charger and Sigtuna ate the last of my camera battery. Thus, here's a random assortment of pictures from the rest of our Sweden trip, courtesy of the iPhone:

We ate a very traditional meal on our last night at Gondolen, overlooking this view:


And ordered this adventurous, traditional Swedish appetizer of herring prepared six ways, both pickled and cooked:

Dad would be proud that I ordered this. It was semi-gross, semi-delicious. The jury's still out.

We went to the ice bar:




And along the way saw a few things that made us scratch our heads:



(GROSS)



Waddled around the cobbly streets of the Gamla Stan in our chunky warm clothes:



And happened upon this tiny, timber-ceilinged cafe in the Gamla Stan, which had to have been one zillion years old and was oozing warmth and charm:







What an amazing adventure this was! We can't wait to return to Sweden; it was perfect in spite of its weather and dark days. Thanks for stopping by!

Charming Sigtuna, Sweden's oldest town. Home to:

Country scenery


Monastic ruins


Runic stones (which inspired Tolkien's Hobbit)






Charming streets


Crooked doors, Christmas wreaths


Apple trees


Window boxes


Country homes


Happy tourists in their Smartcars


and of course, varm choco, courtesy of the local chocolatier.

Vasa

The Vasa Museum is dedicated to a 17th century Swedish warship that sunk before it even left the harbor, thanks to an overzealous king who wanted two cannon decks rather than the standard one (among other impractical requests). It was pulled up nearly completely intact in the early 60s and still hasn't completely dried. This was a really interesting museum with an amazing array of well-preserved artifacts from the ship that give insight into 17th century naval warfare and life in Sweden. Falling into the small world after all category, Vasa has ties to Texas. Apparently, our friends the Aggies (and their world-class marine archeology program) have been called on to help preserve the ship. Read more about Vasa here.

The sun sets in Sweden...

...at 3:30 PM. Luckily for Stockholm (and us), it's even prettier at night.

Hej! from Sweden

We decided to take our next trip to Stockholm; it's so difficult to get to from the States, and well, we'd never been to Stockholm before. Everyone warned us it would be cold, but we don't mind the cold - so, off we go!

Stockholm, a city of glittering islands connected by bridges, is considered the heart of the Nordic countries. We learned quickly that it is quite expensive (we are finding London to be quite the bargain compared to the rest of Europe these days), but we found a fantastic Orbitz deal on a brand new hotel that helped defray costs. Our hotel was on a serene, lush island in the middle of the city called Skeppsholmen.



The hotel is housed inside of an old navy barracks, which has been gutted and redesigned in sleek, modern Scandanavian decor. Two other main islands of the city, Gamla Stan and Ostermalm, surround Skeppsholmen, which makes for a beautiful walk home. A delicious smorgasbord breakfast was included too, which allowed us to skate through lunch some days and splurge instead on a fantastic, traditional Swedish dinner. Swedish cuisine is DELICIOUS.

The people in Sweden are so incredibly friendly, and all speak perfect English. It was the first country I've been to where people automatically assume we are native but we didn't speak a lick of the language (not even "sorry, I don't speak Swedish"), so it was a bit disarming when people started speaking to us in Swedish like we'd known them all our lives!

November in Londontown:

Guy Fawkes (remember, remember the 5th of November!)


Ice skating


and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Harrods!

Getting jiggy

Our trip continued with an Irish music pub crawl hosted by local musicians. The 2.5 hour tour stops at a few well-known pubs in Temple Bar and a few off the beaten path. Delicious pints, more stories and fantastic music that speaks for itself:





Needless to say, it was a great evening!

Glendalough

Glendalough, the next stop on our tour, is a medieval monastic settlement in Wicklow. The valley of Glendalough was carved out by glaciers, forming the two lakes (glen da lough) once the ice thawed. It was founded in the 6th Century by St. Kevin, a hermit monk.


Once a walled city, these arches are largely what remains of those walls today, and still serves as the gateway to the city of Glendalough.



This monastic graveyard is still in good condition and is a very popular place to be buried; you have to have lineage though to get a plot. This was a little spooky, perfect on Halloween!


They're all a little overgrown, but what else would you expect at a 1300 year old cemetery?

Time to hug the celtic cross! You're supposed to make a wish while hugging it, and being able to get your arms all the way around it is apparently extra lucky.




Guess which one of us has all the luck?


This is St. Kevin's Church, with some lovely fall scenery behind it. Now time to walk to the falls above.


It looks this way all the way to the top...


...where a kind Irish lady and her two little ginger-haired boys snapped our picture.