Aussie in Sweden (and other places)

As most of you will know, we fly home tomorrow so this will be our last post from abroad. We will finish off the blog and put it all in order when we get home.

We last updated when we were leaving Sweden which means we need to fill you in on the fantastic time we had in Amsterdam. Our first impressions were not too good, we met an Aussie who was clearly in Amsterdam for the one reason I’m sure you all know and as soon as we boarded the trams we were overwhelmed by the smell of marijuana smoke and dodgy looking characters. However, the next day turned this around completely and our final impressions of Amsterdam are great. We started the day with a canal ride and saw most of the city from the water, we then hired bicycles for the rest of the day. We visited the Gassan Diamond Factory and Anne Frank’s house where Sam was too sick to go inside. However, no cold was keeping him from the Red Light District which we wandered through that night. Here’s a photo of Sophie on her bike with the skinniest bridge in the background.

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The next morning we had to catch a flight to Edinburgh which was a bit sad because we would have loved to stay in Amsterdam longer. The rainy weather made us feel a little better as we had perfect weather the day before and flew into perfect weather in Edinburgh. Our hostel was about 30 metres from the central station (which is where the airport shuttle dropped us) and right in the middle of the main sights. We visited Edinburgh Castle that afternoon. Here’s a photo of the view from the castle before we went in and of the castle as we left.

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That night Sophie had a Haggis Samosa and it began to snow as we were going to bed. The next day we walked down The Royal Mile (which starts at the castle) to the oddest looking building ever which is Scottish Parliament and Holyrood House and Park. Here’s the mountain in the park which we decided to climb in the sun and wind. It too had a wonderful view of the city.

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We then caught the train out to Glasgow for a few hours where we (in the rain) visited some of the sights including the Cathedral and Necropolis, the oldest house in Glasgow and the Modern Art Museum. We headed back to a very cold and windy Edinburgh.

We were up early the next day to catch the train to Windermere in the Lakes District and when we arrived we found out we were lucky as many trains had been cancelled due to bad weather. Despite Sam’s continuing cold we headed out to the lake which was no small feat in the gale force winds. The lake looked more like an ocean but the scenery around was still nice. Here’s a photo of Lake Windermere (the biggest in the district).

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The next day we caught the train to Manchester and all went well again (even though news reports said 13 people had died in the extreme winds) and we arrived at our hotel which was certainly not close to the train station. We stayed in Eccles which is a little town on the outskirts of the city and it was completely dead at 7pm despite being a Friday night.

The next morning we headed into Liverpool to attempt to get tickets to Liverpool vs Chelsea (as 2 previous attempts online failed). We first stopped at the store for Sam to buy a scarf and jersey and we then headed out to the stadium. With heavy police presence it was hard to find ticket scalpers but we managed to find a group. Because of the calibre of the game they weren’t willing to budge on prices so we had to pay £125 ($312.50) each. The tickets we got were in the diehard Liverpool fan section which was next to the away supporters bay so that made the atmosphere incredible. Fortunately Liverpool were 2-0 up after 20 minutes (and at full-time) so the crowd were very happy. Here’s a photo of the stadium before and after it filled up.

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That night we went back to our hotel in Manchester where we left to go to Cardiff (Wales) the next morning. We arrived late afternoon to wet weather so we decided to have an early night because Sam felt too sick to do anything. In the morning we wandered the city taking in the sights and the shops until we caught the train to London that afternoon.

We arrived in London and made our way to Sophie’s cousin’s (Sam and her husband Chris) house in Fulham without any problems. That night we had dinner with a number of Sophie’s cousins who live here in London and they gave us a few tips on what to do over the next few days. We bought a hop-on hop-off bus tour ticket which lasts for 48 hours. That afternoon we just stayed on the bus and did an entire loop of the city (no photos, we forgot the camera). That night we saw Mamma Mia! at the Prince of Wales theatre which Sophie really enjoyed.

Today we woke to snow covered cars, houses and trees. We took a cruise down the River Thames to Greenwich. Where we had quite a good view of the London Eye which is shown in the picture below. We spent the evening with Sam and Chris and their two boys (Harry, 3½ and Thomas, 1½) watching football.

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And that brings us to now, we really should get to bed since it is midnight and we still have a few things we want to do tomorrow before we fly back home. This time tomorrow we will be 4 hours into our 24 hour journey home!

See you soon
Sam and Soph

Hey,

This is just a really quick update before we leave Sweden for the last time and fly to Amsterdam in a couple of hours.

Last time we updated (which we know was a while ago, apologies for that) we were in Gothenborg. We spent the day with Emil, we visited Slottsskogen which is huge park in the middle of the city, where we again saw moose and various other animals as well as a great view of the area. Attached to it is the Natural History Museum which has almost every type of animal stuffed and claims to have the only stuffed whale in the world. Here’s a photo of it.

The next morning we caught the train down to Copenhagen, where we spent the next two nights. The weather was pretty miserable: cold, raining and windy but despite that we walked the main streets of the city, saw the Palace and made our way to the Little Mermaid Statue which is said to be the most photographed woman in the world. Here it is.

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On Monday we decided to go ice skating as we had seen many people doing the day before. When we arrived there were only 3 other people on the ice so we had plenty of room to muck around. Here’s a photo of us, the rink and surrounds were really picturesque.

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That afternoon we flew back to Stockholm and again stayed with David. The following days David went to work and we had a veryrelaxing time sleeping in, browsing the city shops and exploring the surrounds. The highlight was our trip to the Vasa Museum which houses a restored ship which sunk on its maiden voyage in 1628 and they brought up 333 years later. It was really incredible to hear of the sinking, the restoration and to see how well preserved the ship is. Here’s a photo of it.

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When we woke up on Thursday morning there was snow on the ground and cars!!!!! But we didn’t get to see it actually snowing. Fortunately at midnight on Thursday we looked out the window to see snow actually falling. Sam and I went out and stood in it for a while and were so happy that it actually snowed when we were here. Here’s a photo of Sam just outside David’s door.

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And here’s his backyard.

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Last night we had Andreas’s party which was a gathering of Swede’s from all over the country and a really good chance for them to catch up as most had not seen each other for a few months. Just like it was in Australia Sam and I were the Australian minority and attempted to have them speak English as much as possible. Here’s a photo that includes a fair few of the Swedes we met in Australia.

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We got home at 4:30am this morning and have a bit of sleep, but now we are off to the airport. We are staying in Amsterdam for the next two nights, we then fly to Edinburgh and stay there for two nights and continue on the UK leg of our trip.

We will be home in two weeks so we will see you all soon.

Sophie and Sam

We hope you enjoyed your New Year celebrations and here’s what we’ve been up to over the last few days.

We were up early (6am) on the 30th to get to Kungsberget (King’s Mountain), which meant we saw the 8:30am sunrise on the way. When we arrived, the five of us (Sam, Sophie, David, Gustab and Stina) got our lift passes and headed to the learner’s slope. It was both of ours first time snowboarding. Some of us (Sam) picked it up quicker than others (Sophie) and consequently, here’s a photo of Sophie and a video of Sam.

After lunch Sam tackled a more difficult, longer and steeper slope which was definitely faster and more fun but made him look like a real beginner again. We had a really good day, Sam is very keen to go again but Sophie, not so much. The next day we both felt the effects of using muscles we didn’t know we had. Here’s a photo of the slopes from the carpark. This photo was taken at 4pm and the sun had already been down for an hour.

Over the next few days we didn’t do too much, just some general exploring, window shopping and sight-seeing. Stockholm has four main parts which are all so well kept so we are really enjoying our time here. Here’s a photo of the old part of Stockholm in the afternoon.

On New Year’s Eve, David had a black-tie dinner to attend so we had a pretty quiet night at his apartment because Sophie was feeling quite sick and we were both a bit sore from the snowboarding. Fortunately, there were fireworks going off constantly from 8pm on almost every corner. Here’s a view from our vantage point of the midnight fireworks.

On the 2nd we flew to Göteborg where Emil picked us up from the airport and then took us to watch his Floorball training (Floorball is Ice Hockey without the ice). He then dropped us at his apartment which he has vacated so we can stay here for four nights. Göteborg is a really nice costal city despite the constant drizzle. Yesterday we wandered down the main street and shopping mall and visited the Swedish Design Museum. Tonight we went out to dinner with Ludvig in the old part of town and tomorrow we hope to spend the day exploring more of the city with Emil.

We hope everything at home is good, we still haven’t seen any real snow but with another 10 days until we leave Sweden, we haven’t given up hope, yet.

Sam and Sophie