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Howdy-loha Whiskey Tango Foxtrot readers! My name is E and I blog over at Adventure of E. I'm a native Texan who's living in Hawai'i (hence the 'howdy-loha.' I'm a little weird, too. According to hubs, a lot weird. I digress.)
Kristen asked us to think up our best vacation and I figured I could come up with a lil' sumthin' sumthin' for her. Which I did. And then I got back on Blogger to copy the HTML for her, and my post was gone. I was very distraught. Trying to recreate my original post, at 10pm the night before I was sending the post to her, severely diminished the amount of quips and witty remarks I had in the original post. That'll teach me to trust only the Blogger's interface. Damn you, Blogger.
My best vacation, in my mind, to-date, was the July 4th weekend I went to San Antonio and then Austin, and hubs proposed to me. However, we have NO photos of that moment and very few from the weekend in general. So, I opted to write about a different vacation; one that included photos.
After some thought, I decided to write about my trip to the Europe/Norway over a summer in college.
The plan was to head to England, hang around, travel to Norway, then head to another country or two. Unfortunately, my trip was shortened, as during the second week of my trip, my Grampa suffered a stroke and passed away a few days later. I immediately flew back home to be at his funeral and be with my family. Despite this, the trip to Europe/Norway was a great one and one that I will remember my entire life.
A little background: I met quite a few exchange students at the dorm I lived in during college. I kept in touch with them and decided to head on over and visit with a few of them. So, while I knew some friends, I did travel solo, and spent many hours out exploring alone.
It was during this trip that I learned I could be a competent, independent, woman. But I think any trip to a far away land, solo, will do that to you.
In lieu of writing up a whole journal about this trip, I've decided to keep it simple with short memories from Euro(ish)Trip 2004... almost eight years ago. Where eight years went, is beyond me. I didn't take as many photos as I would've liked but the decent ones I've shared below.
Euro(ish)Trip Memories:
Flying from Texas, to London, solo.
Taking the tube from the airport to the outskirts of London where a friend lived.
Taking the tube. Solo. At night. It was an experience.
Buddy Thomas flying over from Texas to hang out a few days.
typical tourist picture with Thomas.
Hanging out a pub, during the day, and playing Scrabble with Thomas. Two separate days.
pub.
Learning that Piccadilly Circus, was not, in fact, a circus.
Celebrating my 20th birthday.
20th birthday.
Cars, apartments, showers, washer/dryers, fridges, etc, are much smaller than in the USA.
Flying to Norway, from England, was super easy.
street in Oslo.
Staying in a tiny apartment with 3 boys made me learn priorities very quickly.
Vigeland Sculpture Park opened my eyes to how much art is really appreciated outside the US.
A brown, sweet cheese, was actually quite delicious.
Traversing half the country of Norway over 2 days.
Sleeping in a cabin during said 'traversing.' Waking up at the base of snow-capped mountains was gorgeous.
cabin.
Parts of Norway seem to believe in trolls.
troll x-ing sign.
Waterfalls were everywhere and each one was gorgeous.
waterfall.
waterfall.
Fjording a fjord was a first and very cool experience.
bright blue, freshly melted snow-water.
valley.
valley.
Like I said, I do wish I had taken way more photos while I was there.
So, Kristen, take a TON of pictures over in Germany! Of everything! I wish I had more pictures of places I stayed, what I ate, and of new things I saw.
Thanks for inviting me to share about a vacation I took, with your readers! And mahalo for reading, y'all!
