A Family Reunion - Denmark

So whats happened since my last blog, well im well behind now.  So long versions are going to have to be told later. (Sadly).

In Denmark we met up with family and attended my grandmothers 80^th Birthday. It was fun, my mum had written a song to her from me in Danish, which I had to sing (with everyone). It went off with a treat. It was mainly about how I loved food, which is true. ;)

Mums luggage was also lost during her trip to Denmark so the belated walking stick present was presented at Mormor's house on her birthday, she loved it. It came complete with ugg boots, a horn, mirrors, water bottle and instruction manual.

After that we spent sometime as a family and visited much of Denmark, the highlights for me was the world war 2 bunkers and gun outposts and the old cold war military emplacements. They are definitely stuff im interested in. We spend some time at Hanstholm in the north of mainland Denmark and a old German bunker. It was only dad and I as mum had to visit old friends.

On our 1 week trip as a family we covered a lot of the islands around Denmark seeing  Fanø and Rømø to start with then shooting over the length of denamrk to the larger islands like Fyn and Langeland, and all the way over to Møn before heading back. It was nice as I had never really “seen Denmark” before, yes I had been there lots as a kid but mainly staying where my family lived on the mainland.

I also got to spend some time with my cousin Michael on the rivers in silkeborg and have dinner with several family members. Something that I rarely get to do as we live so far apart.

There was so much more we did in the 2-3 weeks we were in Denmark heres a few photos of the time we were there.

We then decided to go to Italy, Rome for 1 week as a family, this time Bente came along as well. I had been to Italy before, backpacking though it when I left high school but that felt like such a long time ago, and it was somewhere none of the other 3 had been soo it was.

We spent 1 week in Italy as a family, seeing all the major sights, the colloseum, the Vatican, the Spanish steps, the old roman forum. Lots of things, it was nice warm weather and mum and Bente loved the sun. Dad and I still sunburned from USA no so much ;)

One thing that I missed when I was last in rome was the Sistine chapel and the Vatican museum and dome. It was amazing, you see it in all the movies but till your there in the room its not the same. Definitely a highlight. 

We purchased a hop on hop off bus when we first arrived in rome and though a bit of lack of security checking the tickets managed to last us the whole week even though they were only vaild for 2 days. They were also valid for the trains, so one day we took the trains away from rome, as we were traveling we reached a town with a massive castle. This was definitely interesting to me as I loved medieval things.

A tour of the castle didn’t disappoint. We were “not meant to take photos inside” but I was very slow, and always the last one in the room before moving on. Sooo I got some happy snaps. The armory was my favorite.

Ive included a number of photos, here are some of the best ones from Italy.

I left mum, dad and Bente the last day of our Italy trip. I was flying directly back to Vietnam and they were heading back to Denmark as had pre-booked tickets before.

It might seem short, but it was 1 month together with my mum and dad in Europe. It was nice, and we had fun. My parents are great and very outgoing, spending time with them is a real treat (sometimes ;) ).  This trip was a blast, even if my blog is short because im lazy and got behind my 5 months of writing.

Till next time, Have Fun.

Steffen.

A stop over in Berlin – Germany.

It was a long flight from USA to Germany, we didn’t have any stop overs which was nice.

The first day Dad and I checked into our hostel and just crashed. We were jetlagged and tired. There was a guy in the room when we arrived but that afternoon he was gone. We were both convinced that my WMD (Weapon on Mass Disgustingness’) Shoes had sent the backpacker running. They were very… ripe.

 After a days rest we were up early, still jetlagged and were out walking the streets. We found a nice German baker who made some amazing bread with cheese and meats on for breakfast. It was nice to have a descent breakfast after the junk we had in USA. After breakfast it was time to explorer, we had a small map and I could read and say perfect German… so dad asked me “where do we go?” and I would reply down “hugan fluggan fliggan strazen” and not having a single idea if I was saying it correctly… and most of the time it was way off. But it was a laugh.

After a hour of walking around, most things were still closed being the weekend. We ended up at a great park. In the middle was a monument to wars and battles, with a great golden angel on top. It was cool. 
We tried to rent some bikes which were there but they didn’t seem to work. So it was walking time, which wasn’t to bad.

We strolled though the park at 7am in the morning and people were out exercising and enjoying the early morning. It was nice. Popping back out on the main road we arrived at a old soviet war memorial, the tanks were small compared to ones I have seen in Vietnam. From here we could see the arches and the horse and chariot of the Brandenburg Gate.
We headed back into the park and started walking in the direction of the Gate.

Arriving at the gate there was a mass of tourists starting to come from every direction, guess everyone had woken up? People were taking pictures of the road, but it was a sign on the road, it was the path the berlin wall once took and they had layed stones and signs on the original path to show where the wall went.

The gate was amazing in detail, beyond the gate was a bunch of people dressed up in soviet and allied uniforms. I guess it was a important spot in the wall.

We were both still quiet jetlagged, so we started to walk back to the hostel though the park.

The next day we were up and about as normal, still tired but feeling much better. We decided to book ourselves a 2 day hop on hop off bus ticket, for the next 3 days we used the ticket to travel around berlin, no body checked our ticket so we got a free day ;).

The first day we rode the buss around till it took us to a stop where a large memorial to the berlin wall and the war was. We took some time to walk up and down the memorial and read some of the horrible things that happened.

After the memorial we walked a short distance to checkpoint Charlie and got a look at the old checkpoint guard house and some more people in old uniforms.

There was also a wall with images of what checkpoint Charlie looked like before the end of the cold war.

We stopped a few stops along the way at a old church court yard. There was 3 churches around and loads of cafes. We decided it was a perfect place for a beer. Sitting down at a pub we ordered a litter beer… the best beer ever! It hit a dry spot.

We hopped back on the bus and rode it for a short distance again this time I headed away from the centre of berlin along a road to a river. There was about 2km of the berlin wall still intact here, and it was painted in all different murals and paintings.  We walked up and down the wall for a few hours and then came to a bridge it was very old looking but very nice.

Hopping back on the bus we took the bus all the way around its trip on the loop.

That night we headed to a pub we had gone to the night before, and had a plate size chicken snitzel. It was sooooo good. It would not be the last time we ate there.

The following day we hopped back on the bus and headed to a area we had seen the day before on the loop, a large old church.

Arriving at the church we took a look inside and it was truly amazing, there was artwork and sculptures everywhere, the organ was also very large.
We walked around inside for some time then proceeded up stairs.  There was a area with models of the church though its ages and after the war. We kept walking up stairs until we reached the dome at the top.

From the top we could see a large distance over berlin, and the surrounding area.

After the church we walked around the area looking at the buildings before hopping back on the bus and continuing along.

That afternoon we wanted to stop and see charlottenburg palace but when we arrived they were closed. However there was a nice beer festival on outside the palace. Perfect place to stop and have a beer and some grilled food to eat. It was amazing food… so nice to have potatoes and meat again.

The next day we had seen everything except the palace on the hop on hop off tour. So that’s what we did, we headed to the palace and took a tour around. It was not like it was in the olden days, it had been restored and I guess I should not have been surprised.
It was still nice to walk around but the history of the Prussian rulers and things really didn’t mean much to me.

That afternoon we went shopping, I was in desperate need for some new shoes as my old ones were falling into pieces. We found a shopping street and after a few hours of walking around we found the shoes I was looking for.

The next day we packed up our things and headed back to the airport, it was time to head to Denmark.

The trip to Germany was a nice stop, it was very interesting and I really enjoyed the time walking the streets with my dad, it was nice.

Till next time, HAVE FUN!

Steffen.

                  

Part 3 – From Death Valley to LA – The final stretch.

We were up at 4:30am and on the road by 5am out of Las Vegas towards the desert, Death Valley laid in front of us. We wanted to be through it before the sun rose in the sky. We stopped at the Death Valley junction but it was all closed due to the early hour of the day.

It was over cast but still very very hot, we stopped at a small town for some breakfast and to tank up on water. 
We had gone though 3 litters of water between dad and I in a few ours in the desert. For the most of the trip (other than breakfast we  didn’t stop, but we did have a quick break to find some survivor stones from the valley. Dad and Flemming out collecting rocks ;)

I managed to get a nice photo of the road as we were driving down to a low point in death valley, on the photo you can see what looks like a river, but its all sand. Tails of water once being here I guess.

As we climbed out of death valley, the motorbikes started to heat up considerably the signs on the side of the road were telling people to turn off there AC to stop over heating, no sighs on what to do if your on motorbikes?

We drove for another day and we reached Yosemite National park, we went from 45oC heat to 20oC in 1 day. It felt super cold. The change from the heat was welcome though.

After pitching our tents in a nice small camping ground dad and I hopped on the bike again and went for a drive. I wanted to explorer, we would drive 200m then stop and take photos of some amazing lakes and streams, then drive again.

It was so peaceful when we stopped and relaxing. It gave dad and I time to really appreciate the surroundings. We went for a small walk, and enjoyed the park.

A short trip down the road we found the tourist information center and stopped in for a look. There were loads of info on the park and some of the animals that live in the park. One of those animals was the brown bear, a picture that I liked was a mum and her cubs eating at a picnic table (awww how nice, hehehe), poor tourists that lost there lunch.

Back at camp we had some visitors, ground squirrels were popping out of holes all around our tents, they were interested in what we were having for dinner and snacking on.  Every time you moved close to them they would run down there hole for a few seconds then pop there head out for a look to see if it was safe. Soo cute.

The next day we drove though Yosemite, after a small stop for lunch and a hike to another information center we were on our way to San Francisco, and would reach it by sun down.

As we neared San Francisco and it seemed to turn from nice and sunny and warm to down right freezing, and rain. We got to our campsite at the edge of san Francisco that night and dad was completely blue.

The next day we headed into the city to explore. We hopped on a tram and headed into town. We forgot however to check which stop we were to get off at, so we ended up in the middle of no where in San Francisco. From there we hopped on a older tram that would end up at the piers.

At the piers we walked around and got our first sight of the “golden gate bridge”, and Alcatraz island. I would have loved to go on a tour of Alcatraz island but apparently you had to book long in advance.

After a small walk and some amazing clam chowder inside a sour bread bowl, which was AMAZING!. We headed up to the street car, which would ride up and down the famous hills of San Francisco. It was a long queue, but dad and I managed to get great spots hanging on the edge. It was a matter of holding on and enjoying the roller coaster ride.

We ended up in china town where we then walked to Lombard street (the most windy road in the world), it was packed with people driving down the street. I had seen this street in so many movies before. It was cool to be here and see the street. But I wouldn’t want to live here with all the traffic and tourists.

That afternoon we spent our time just relaxing on the pier it was nice to enjoy the ocean breeze and watch people walk past.

The next day we drove out to the golden gate bridge and over it to the other side. It was very cloudy sadly and very hard to see the bridge.

We decided to move on to the coastal road, Hwy 1 another famous road in America running from San Francisco down to LA.

The road was nice, but super cold! Lots of nice views along the way. At one point we noticed lots of people parked at the side of the road and stopped to see what the commotion was, it was a pack of sea lions all living on the beach.

The next day dad and I left Flemming, we wanted to get ahead to LA and explorer a bit on our own, we also had to collect some goods from a motorbike dealer.

The next day we relaxed, we headed out shopping and lazed around the pool for the day at the hotel.  After a nice day of rest, we booked a tour of Hollywood. The tour would take us from Beverly hills to sunset boulevard and the beaches of LA.

At the beaches there was sooo many homeless people it was very sad, however people seemed not to see it, at the edge of the sand was a skate park. Some of the skaters were really good. We watched them for 15 min before the tour had to continue.

We got to walk the Hollywood boulevard past the Chinese theater and see the stars on the side walk. We headed up to a view point where we could see the Hollywood sign.

The next day dad and I took a hop on and hop off bus tour around LA. It repeated much of what we saw the day before but it was just nice to be off the motorbikes and relax.

The next day ended our trip to the states, dad and I were on our way to Denmark to meet the family, but first was a short stop in Germany.

So till the next blog about Berlin, Germany.

Have fun!

Steffen.