As I said in the Europe Part 1 post, we eventually had to leave the house in Breda, but since we were already in Europe, we extended our trip to visit Scandinavia. This time, we met up with Zack's brother and our sister-in-law. Par-Tay!

What did we see?

Sweden

We met up with Cameron and Lauren in Stockholm, Sweden and wasted no time exploring. The moment we stepped off the train from the airport, we walked all over town (keep in mind this was while carrying our travel packs!). Gamla Stan, the old town of Stockholm, was a highlight of the day. The buildings were colorful and the cobble stone streets made me feel placed in another time! Viking princess maybe??

Drottningholm Palace

If you have time, check out the Vasa Museum! It has one of the only fully intact ships from the 17th century; it was pretty sweet. Too bad the thing never made it out of the harbor before it sunk..oops. 

Probably no surprise to you, but we biked a lot of this city. They conveniently had city bikes to rent so that was our main form of transportation. We were clearly spoiled by our time in the Netherlands, because Stockholm was way more hilly! By the end of even a short bike ride I would be out of breath. 

Norway

I think Norway may be one of my favorite countries I have visited. The landscape was to die for! We did the Norway in a Nutshell tour and it was worth every penny. We did the one day trip so it took us on a few different trains, a bus, a boat and a trolley. We saw mountains, waterfalls, farmlands, valleys, charming villages... and each leg of the journey was planned for us, so we just had to hop from one form of transportation to another. The company basically just books your tickets so that you make each connection. There wasn't a tour guide but enough people do it that you can just follow everyone else to the next pick up zone. Taking a boat through the Fjords was breath taking! It was a little cold and the wind was a bit much but it didn't matter because I couldn't get enough of the view!

We stayed in Bergen while visiting Norway and I would 10/10 recommend to a friend! The city was tucked away in the beautiful mountains and it's also a port city so you had the water on one side and the mountains on the other. Who cares if it's one of the most expensive countries in the world?!? I want to move here! Cameron had to keep reminding us that we were here in the spring - when the weather was nice - but we needed to think of what it would be like in winter with freezing temps and no sunlight because of how far north Norway is from the equator.. ok ok so that turns me off a bit. Zack and I can make it our summer home then ha.

Water fresh from the waterfall. 

Denmark

I once did a school report on Denmark and ever since then, I always wanted to go. We only had time to stay in Copenhagen so I know we barely even scratched the surface of what Denmark has to offer, but I was still impressed with what I saw. Our days consisted of bike rides (yes, more biking) and boat tours. Denmark is also known for their mid-century modern furniture so naturally we had to visit a few of the well known furnitures stores in the area.

Our final hurrah for the trip was dinner at Soren K. Probably the nicest/fanciest/most expensive restaurant I will ever eat at. The 5 course meal was extravagant and simple all wrapped into one. I tried Steak tartare for the first time and wow...it was amazing.

Final Thoughts

Each country had so many amazing things to offer. I love the outdoor scenic scape type of vacation so this was right up my alley. I loved the culture, the food, and the landscapes. I did not love the price tag on it ha but it was a once in a life time chance so it made it all worth it. There was never enough time to see everything but what trip ever gives you enough time? 

We made a Part 2 video so watch it. Or don't. It won't hurt my feelings. 

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What did we do?
At this point in the journey it had been over 5 weeks since we left home. 5 weeks - and while that had gone by so fast, we were starting to feel the effects. I actually really missed grocery shopping and cooking in my own kitchen!  Once we left Chicago we had several loooong days of driving ahead of us, so to make that a little easier on us, we made a point to stop and see a few places.

Nauvoo - Another church history site for us. We of course showed up 1.5 hours before closing and it's a whole town with fun things to do and tours of the old homes... Having little time, we politely asked for the 5 minute tour in the Brigham Young house and the bakery. We also walked the temple grounds which were beautiful!

Bloomington, Minnesota - Zack's cousin and her husband currently live here so we made a point to say hi to them. They offered to take us into the city but to be honest we just wanted to relax and have a much needed night in. It was fun to catch up with them and see where they have been for the last several months.

Commentary by Z: Are you true Americans if you're 10 minutes away from the Mall of America and don't go see it? Cause that's us...
Badlands National Park - This has been on our list of things to do for awhile so we were excited to get out of the car and see a National Park! It was so cool to see the transformation in the land; one second it's prairie with small rolling hills and the next, this dramatic scene sorta pops out of no where! Being winter, the park was nearly empty so we just enjoyed the scenery before we had to move on.

Commentary by Z: Been wanting to come here ever since I read a biography about my boy Teddy Roosevelt. He used to have a ranch out in the badlands, can't imagine living out there. Awesome place though, would love to come back and spend a weekend camping!











 That hair and expression though
Mount Rushmore - We got up pretty early to see Mount Rushmore before the crowds came and it worked out because we didn't have to fight anyone for a good place to take a picture! Interesting fact - Mount Rushmore was created for the purpose of bringing in more tourism. It worked on us!

Drive from South Dakota to Utah - it was a long day, I think over 10 hours of driving, but the good news was that for such a long day, we never hit a breaking point where we felt like we would never get home. Also I feel like people give Wyoming a bad rap for having nothing along the drive but I thought it was pretty in it's own way...it helps that I don't ever make that drive though so it wasn't familiar.

Where did we eat?
Colonial House - We had a dinner break in Rapid City, SD and chose this spot to eat. The service was pretty quick and the food was good if you like traditional American food, which we do so it worked for us.

Other food - this last leg of the journey took us through a lot of open space so when we could find food (fast food) we jumped on the opportunity not knowing when we would see food again. We tried to avoid food chains majority of the trip but there were some instances where it was more convenient to grab a quick bite and move on.

Final Thoughts
We are home! 6 weeks of driving around the USA complete! We will write a separate post about the trip overall but man is it good to be home :). Funny how excited I think we both were to see our house, to sleep in our own bed, and to go to a grocery store! We had a blast on this trip. 10/10 would recommend to a friend!

Commentary by Z: I had spent so long wanting to get out and travel and see our country that it feels weird to be back, but I also was so ready to be done after 6 weeks living out of a suitcase. It definitely scratched my travel itch and was an amazing experience, one that I'll remember and talk about for the rest of my life.

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What did we do?
You know that massive snow storm we hit while driving to Chicago?? Well it was also still in Chicago by the time we arrived, so instead of doing a ton of sight-seeing, we stayed in our friend's place where it was warm and overlooked the beautiful city (we also played board games because we really love board games :) ). The good news though was that by late afternoon we had about a 2 hour gap where we could walk the city before the snow picked up again. In those 2 hours we covered:

Not a bad view!

The Bean - a classic but MUST on my list! Zack had already been before but he was nice enough to show it to me! I'm such a tourist sometimes and even got a little giddy when we came up to it! It was so cool so how could I not be excited?! The snow stuck to the walls of the piece so I couldn't get the best view of the reflected city but it didn't matter!









Commentary by Z: The architecture boat tour is a little pricy at ~$50 but definitely worth it. Did it a year ago at night and even though it was cold its an awesome way to see all the buildings and hear their history!
Chicago Riverwalk - We would have loved to do an architecture boat tour but it was way too cold for that (we will just have to come back in summer!) but it was cool seeing the river and how it was surrounded by buildings.

Grant Park - We both loved this park and how it buffers the city from Lake Michigan. It was covered in snow and looked magical!

Lake Michigan - I am just amazed how massive the great lakes are. I mean of course they are huge but did you know that they are so big that they create their own weather systems?? Ya, that massive storm we hit was because of the great lakes and turns out the term "lake effect snow" is a thing! I had never even heard of it until we drove near the great lakes and experienced it ourselves.





Chicago Cultural Center - it was so cold the we partially stopped here to warm up but it worked out because it was beautifully covered with mosaics on the walls and ceilings.



Target - ok ok so I do love Target buuut what I realized was that I had never been to a big box store in a city before until we stopped in Chicago. I didn't know that 1. they typically are more than one floor and 2. they have escalators for your shopping carts. Yes. An escalator exclusively for the shopping carts. It was really exciting to see :) Like really exciting! So exciting I didn't even get a picture of it because I was just watching it the whole time.

Commentary by Z: Pretty sure I have a video of it somewhere that I will most definitely be showing to our children.

Where did we eat?

Lou Malnati's Pizzeria - I have never had deep dish pizza before and so that totally showed when we went here for dinner. I didn't know that it takes 45 min to cook!! It was a busy night though so we placed our order right after we checked in at the hostess stand and by the time we were seated and got our drinks, we waited another 20 min for the food, which all things considering, was not a bad wait time. The pizza was probably the best thing ever and I would recommend it to everyone...buuut be prepared to over eat and then feel really sick... I don't think our bodies were ever meant to process bread, cheese and pepperoni by the pounds. That night my stomach felt like there was a rock in it...TMI?? Well I'm just preparing you! It was worth it but probably a good thing that I don't live in Chicago or I would be in real trouble and most likely 100lbs heavier...
Portillo's Hot Dogs - I don't know if you have ever had J-Dawgs (a hot dog place) but if you have, think of that but _better_. This place had more variety with burgers, sandwiches, salads and of course, the hot dog. I just got their classic hotdog and it was great! Although I'm not really sure how you mess up a hot dog...? Zack got a 2 meat sandwich and that was also yummy, right Zack?


Final Thoughts

Well, Chicago was definitely cold haha but also a really cool city! I think it's safe to say that it's on our list to come back and visit when it's warmer! The food is great, the streets were clean, and there's plenty of things to do! A bonus, it wasn't as windy as I expected! Until next time Chicago!

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What did we do?
We left Vermont and headed to Chicago but split this up in a few days knowing that we had a few places we wanted to stop and see along the way. We wanted to see a few places that mean a lot to us in terms of our faith, so we stopped by some church history sites for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Palmyra, NY and Kirtland, OH. If you have more question about why these places are significant, you can go to https://history.lds.org/section/historic-sites?lang=eng and it will dive into the history a little more! For the sake of time, I won't go into the nitty gritty details, but the sites themselves were beautiful and it was interesting to learn more about the history behind the buildings.

Commentary by Z: It also snowed like crazy and we were amazed anybody else was out there in that weather. Aaaand we asked a nice old man at the visitors center to give us the 10 minute version of the tour so he nicely cut his hour long tour down to only 45 minutes! 












this snow storm was crazy!




Along this drive we also stopped at Niagara Falls! I had been before but this was Zack's first time! It was...incredibly cold! Just another place we were reminded that it's still winter. We didn't have our passports with us because Zack had to renew his in preparation for Europe sooo we had to stay on American ground. The view was still amazing and because there were fewer people, we got a better view of the falls. Fun fact! Aaron Burr (you know from the musical Hamilton) had a daughter named Theodosia. Well, when she married, her and her husband honeymooned at Niagara and started the popular trend to make it a popular honeymoon destination. Who knew that Hamilton would teach us so many things throughout this trip!! Just another reason to love it more :)

Where did we eat?
Saks Thai Cuisine Inc: We came here after visiting Palmyra. It was cold and snowy so the roads were bad. We keep making the mistake of saying we will eat lunch but then get busy with sight-seeing so we push lunch back until it is dinner time...this was another one of those times and so we were starving by the time we finished seeing the Sacred Grove, Hill Cumorah, and the Book of Mormon Publication Site. We both had curry here and my only complaint was that they didn't give us a lot of rice like thai restaurants normally do. They gave us huge bowls of curry and only a little rice so the proportions seemed off..I like plenty of rice with my curry.

Grillcheezerie Sandwich Shoppe: This place is in Ann Arbor, MI along the main street in town. Zack got the Piggy Mac (mac and cheese with pulled pork and BBQ) and I got the Shroom Sandwich (mushrooms were a main ingredient). Both were really good and the service was quick...buuut that also might have been because it was late (like just before closing late) and we were two of the few in there ha!

Final Thoughts

The leg from Vermont to Chicago was cold and snowy most of the trip! The worst of it was the day we left for Chicago...what should have been a 4 hour drive turned into a 7 hour drive with horrible road conditions from the blizzard...ya we drove through a blizzard which wasn't the smartest buut we wanted to move on and see our friend in Chicago before he left for a trip.

Commentary by Z: I was super disappointed because I really wanted to go check out Detroit, but the weather made it pretty much impossible. It's one of those cities that is well known and everyone talks about how much it's struggling right now, but I wanted to see it for myself! Maybe next time :/
Overall it was a still a lot of fun and I'm glad that we split this leg up so we had a little more time to see the things we did!

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