It all started when I was a young child. Just the simple amusement parks such as Lagoon or Disneyland. Maybe the occasional camping trip every now and again and then there is Idaho. I can honestly say that Idaho is my second home even though I have never lived there. My aunt and uncle own a swimming pool up there and a camp ground with it. So, once or twice... ok maybe three times a year we like to take our trailer up there to go and swim around, camp, and drive to Jackson hole, Wyoming to go and see the plays that serve dinner. Well, growing up, this is where I learned how to swim. I loved my swim lessons because I got to do this with all of my cousins. I guess you could call this the family reunion. But me, my brothers, my sister, and my cousins would all go at the same time to learn our swimming/ first aid lessons. It was an absolute blast. We would experience this in the morning and then at night we would go back to the trailer and eat homemade hamburgers and donuts and we would just sit and play games or explore the campground. Then my all time favorite parts of this annual trip. It's night time. I love the beauty of the sunset as it hits the mountain at full force and bouncing off into the greens surrounding the flowy river. I honestly could just stare at this sight for hours. We would ride our ATV's up the canyon that we were staying in there and go to this camp spot with a fire pit and roast marshmallows. I'm pretty sure every time we go up we stay there until at least midnight solving the worlds problems. Then once we get back we get into our bathing suits once again and go take a dip in the hot tub. This is especially fun because the whole pool is closed but because my uncle isn't done venting about the crazy mother-in-law, he opens it back up just for us to go and sit and drink soda's and have a really nice little venting session. I can honestly say that this is my favorite place in the world. Ok, just kidding, second favorite place.
My all time favorite place is Geiranger, Norway. I kid you not when you visit this place (if you so desire) you will fall in love with it. It is the tiniest little village ever but it's so beautiful. I went here on a cruise but everybody who lives here has boats so that they can get from one place to another. It's such a little fairytale land. Everything that you see is so green. The houses look like little hobbit holes because the doors are just surrounded by grass. The roofs are filled with green and the front of the houses have either grass or ivy growing a long side it.
In the picture above you can see the water falls. This water fall is called the seven sisters waterfall because there are seven waterfalls right next to each other and when you are up close and personal to the waterfall you can see a little hut that lives right behind it. How these people are able to get up there every day, I have no idea. I'm sure it must be fun in the winter though.
Also, there are Fjords surrounding the whole thing like a dome
I love it!!! This picture was taken in July and there's still snow on the mountain!! Oh ya, but still it was 74 degrees outside. This village was seriously so beautiful and while we were there, there was this guy who brought his whole herd of reindeer down to his little shop to grab food. We say watch out for deer they say watch out for reindeer. No big deal. Then me and my family went hiking further up the mountain and there was a church with a wedding going on in the church. Now for any of you who know anything about Europe in general, you know that marriage really is very rare. Most people now a days just live together and have kids with out the commitment of having to stay together for life. So, that was pretty special to just happen to come across a Norwegian wedding. Anyways, so we were on our hike and another thing we came across was this tiny little cafe that served the absolute best waffles I've ever had in my life. Let me tell you how they served them and how I now eat waffles. First off they're heart shaped. That's very important. Then for the topping they first spread it with sour cream and then on top of that they put strawberry jam. It's heavenly! I love cultural food.
So, ya Geiranger is my favorite place in the world but that wasn't the only place I went on this cruise. We first started by flying to Denmark which was absolutely amazing. We were in Copenhagen for five days and one of those days was spent in this place called Hillerod. This is my moms favorite place in the world. This is another one of those fairy tale places. Especially at sunset. There is the Fredriksberg castle that was absolutely magnificent inside but right before that, it was one of those towns that you see at the beginning of beauty and the beast that is just lined with little shops that have the best pasteries and chocolate milk in the world. Then you can go behind the castle to what I call Narnia. Seriously it's the biggest backyard I've ever seen. And you walk around to see that all of the grass is trimmed and green as well as the bushes all being designed in some fancy way.
We went to other places in Denmark but who has the time to hear about that. Anyways then we boarded the cruise ship and headed off to Aulesund, Norway where we met up with our foreign exchange student and her family that we had a few years before this. The first thing they did when we got there was take us through an under water tunnel to get to her house. It was trippy. Then when we got to her house they fed us the most exotic food I have ever tried. They fed us whale (which by the way tastes nothing like fish it's actually more like a really deep steak), They fed us musscox (which is like a soft beef jerky), I tried some bread with Norwegian mayonaise and fresh shrimp on it. Now when I say fresh shrimp I mean as fresh as it comes. Literally the fisherman catch it, we buy it, then we take it back and wash it off then you rip off the head and the tail and eat it. That's what I mean by fresh. Anyways then they took us to the top of the mountain to overlook the whole valley and it was so beautiful. What I love about all of the places that we went was that every where you looked it was so green and there was water surrounding everything. Anyways then on the way back down from there they gave us pancakes with twinky filling. It was literally like a giant pancake twinky. It was so good.
After Aulesund was Bergan and that was beautiful, then it was Tromso where we met up with another family friend Marit, to take us around and that was a blast. It's been a long time since we've seen her. I miss her and her family a lot. Then we went to the North Cape which is the most northern part of Norway. It was cool to say that I've stood literally just a few miles away from the North pole but it was pretty boring as far as activities go. Then we went to Geiranger:) and after that we hit our last stop in Christensand. This is where I found the largest McDonalds I've ever seen. Seriously, imagine a palace and then don't change anything.
Oh!!! I forgot to tell you. The sun stayed out for 24 hours everyday that we were there. The sun never went down. It was weird. Me and my siblings stayed up until three in the morning playing poker and we were'nt even tired. It was rediculous.
Well, ya sorry about the length. I will tell you more about some of my other trips later and don't worry I will keep them brief from now on but how can you put such beauty and light into such a small post?
I understand most of this
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