Anyways - it started off with driving to Paris, where we had booked an Airbnb rental place for three nights. (Luckily I got to sleep in the car on the way there a bit. Literally packed all of my stuff in Germany the night before... Took more time than I thought it would!)
Quick nap on the way to France
Walked the first night to the Eiffel Tower - Better by night than during the day!
During our first full day in Paris we spent a lot of time sightseeing - trying to hit as many tourist traps as possible. Going up the Eiffel Tower, L'arc de Triomphe, and shopping on the Champs Élysées (Holy expensive!) were must sees. Great dinner to top it off - including Escargots.
Cooked snails are so much better than you would expect
The second full day was a busy museum seeing day. We started off with The Louvre in the morning and saw the Mona Lisa which was tiny! (31 x 21 inches) Worked our way to Musée d'Orsay, saw some more famous works of art and then had a soufflé lunch - one chicken & one rhubarb-peach for dessert. Delicious! Something that I need to learn how to cook. Finished off the day with the Catacombs and just wandering throughout the city.
Within The Louvre's glass pyramid
Splitting the dessert soufflé with mom - Don't know how anybody can polish it off on their own
Catacombs*
*Interesting fact about the Catacombs - If you bring any bags or backpacks with you, security will check it on the way out to make sure you didn't steal any of the bones!
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What do French people call a really bad Tuesday?
A Trajeudi
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After wrapping up in France, we headed out early to catch our ferry from Calais, France to Dover, England. This is where things got a little bit messy. The workers of the ferries had organized a strike, which combined with a migrant crisis created almost all of the ferries being cancelled, the Euro-tunnel being shut down, and a backlog of traffic reaching all the way into Belgium. A five and a half hour drive (including time change) ended up turning into a fourteen hour journey. At least we had French croissants to snack on!
An 11 o'clock dinner at one of the only places that was open - Italian!
We pre-bought tickets for the Big Red Bus tour (hop-on, hop-off) that runs throughout London, so the majority of the first day was spent sight-seeing and stopping at all of the different places of London. I ended up obsessing over the Snapchat Geofilters that were scattered all over the city. I ended up only finding around 20 of them, but from what I hear there were well over 30 in the area.
Example of a Snapchat Geofilter
Big Ben from the bus
The day was finished up with a trip on the famous London Eye (which receives more visitors than the Great Pyramids and Taj Mahal - strange, huh?). The view of the sunset from our 'capsule' was pretty neat. Not going to post any selfies because I had chocolate all over my pants. The Aero chocolate McFlurry was still worth the brown stain. :P
The London Eye
The view outside of our window was pretty spectacular
Woke up the next day and got to try some different British foods - some great, some not so great...
Scotch Eggs from Tesco were an example of the great foods London has to offer
...and the not so great
I met up with my British friend on the second day with the idea in mind that maybe she could show me a little bit around the city, ignoring the fact that she had only been to London a handful of times when she was younger. Our walk around the city resulted in her hair burned by some sketchy shop owner who was trying to use a lighter on the leather jacket she was trying on to prove it was real leather. On top of it he offered to sell the jacket to her for a 20% discount because of the incident. And we got lost in Soho. Successful adventure indeed!
With Zoey
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With more success than entering the United Kingdom, we took the ferry back to France and headed North. Following quick stops in Belgium and The Netherlands we arrived in Hamburg, Germany (which is probably one of my favorite cities in Germany after my previous trip there) and we arrived at a 'hotel' called NewLivingHome that I had found online and booked on the way to Hamburg. The place doubles as a hotel and a retirement home. Seems a bit peculiar at first, but was a great place to crash.
As one review described it: "If you need a place to stay and want to get a cultural glance at the lives of rich, retired Germans at the same time, NewLivingHome is the place to be."
Nice sauna and swimming pool
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On our way towards Finland, we had to pass through Denmark and Sweden and take the ferry from there. (Can I count Estonia as well as a country that I've been to? We did have to go through through Estonian waters on our overnight ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki.) As soon as we started driving through Scandinavia (particularly around Copenhagen) it started getting really, really cold. Does Scandinavia ever get to see summer?
Sweater weather in Sweden
Sunset on the sea
Once we arrived in Helsinki we walked around the small capital city of about 600,000 residents. We saw the fish market, checked out Finnish Moomintroll gift stores, and ate tar flavored ice cream at a viking restaurant. Finland really does have some of the best contributions* to mankind! (*see Salmiakki - salted black licorice)
We took an hour's drive north to visit our Finnish exchange student Joonatan who is staying with us in Michigan for the 2015-2016 school year, and had a wonderful assortment of baked goodies that his family had made. It was a great opportunity to be able to meet him before he arrived in the USA!
"Viikinkiravintola Harald" Viking restaurant where we had dessert
For the few days of the European Tour, my family drove up to the Northern region of Finland near Oulu. My family is Finnish, so we stayed at a family cabin on a lake and relaxed while enjoying the nature and saunas. I had the chance to meet some of my cousins and other relatives who I had never had the chance to meet before as well as visit a few of my friends and past exchange students from Raahe, Finland during a day trip. Unlike London, I had amazing city tour guides and didn't get lost. (No offense to Zoey - if she ends up reading this!)
2 am in Northern Finland. The sun never sets in the summer here! Will definitely mess up your sleeping schedule if you aren't keeping track of time.
On Raahe's harbor
One of the many selfies
Family reunion at the cottage
One of the reasons why Finnish relatives are the best relatives
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The time went by way too fast, and before I knew it we were at the Helsinki airport on our way back home. We flew first from Helsinki to Munich and despite only having one hour to connect flights, we made it in time to catch our Air Canada flight to Toronto. (We flew back to Canada instead of the USA since my uncle and aunt live in the city and could pick us up from the airport. It's a confusing, international family tree - Canadian parents and Finnish grandparents)
My first meal back home? Lasagne, Caesar salad, Canada Dry & Oreo ice-cream cake for dessert. It's funny what we miss after not having it for a year.
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