Side trip to Sweden

When we were in Denmark we decided to make a little daytrip into Malmo, Sweden. And this is the first thing we see as we cross over the bridge into Sweden... We should have stopped by for some of their Swedish meatballs.

We spend the morning at a beatiful park and had a pinic lunch there.

You would think that Swedish birds would be nice, but not so much. A bunch of these birds were stalking around the area while we were eating lunch and as soon as we would move for even a second, they would move in and start attacking our food, even pecking holes through our bags trying to get to it.

But our lunch, really, they could have it. This "tasty cheese," not so tasty. And I don't think that it is just because France has turned us into cheese snobs.

We went to a really cool reptile center. This black mamba was really eying Jonas. Everyone had a good time, except Daniel said that he was grossed out by the end.

I loved these buildings

Jonas reminds Daniel of an ewok.

The kids working on some religious art.

Giant Danish Snails

"Once upon a time there was a frog from Spain who thought one day, 'hmmm, maybe I would like to be cold,' so he got on a train and went to Denmark." Thus commenced one of Jaxon's nightly stories when we were in Copenhagen. I had found super cheap Ryanair tickets to Denmark, you can't beat 3 Euros a piece, so why not? It was good fun, but COLD! It has been unseasonably cold throughout Europe this May and Scandanavia was no exception. Luckily we brought our winter coats and didn't let the weather hold us back. Jaxon's first discovery when we got into town were the very big snails. It is hard to have a picture do it justice, but they were the biggest ones I had ever seen and they seemed to be too big to even squeeze back into their shells. For Jaxon, it was love at first sight.

The evening we got in we decided to check out the town. We walked for a couple hours straight. Jaxon didn't mind at all because he had found his snail friend. He inched slowly up Jaxon's coat and after awhile his entire sleeve was covered in snail slime and bubbles. Daniel couldn't take it anymore and finally talked Jaxon into trading his big slime machine for two small ones.

Nyhavn, probably the most picturesque canal of the city. It was even better when the fog lifted and we could see it the following day. However, none of our pictures turned out that great.

We went on a boat trip through the canals (I had never thought of Copenhagen as so watery before) the next day. One of the funnest parts was having the duck down as we went under the low bridges.

The Christianborg district

Jonas peeking through the bridge.

The boys trying out being little Danish students.

We spent a good amount of time at the National Museum. They had a wonderful children's museum that focused on Danish history with a little bit of Pakistan mixed in. It seemed a little out of place, but why not. Here Jaxon and I are trying out the Pakistani bed.

Riding the Viking horse.

The Viking kitchen

And no Viking exibit is complete without a boat of some sort.

Playing in the outhouse again.

Jaxon was really intent on wanting a piece of corn from a street vendor. He seemed to appreciated it, which made me glad. It was most likely the most expensive ear of corn he will ever eat in his life: 2.50 Euros.

I'm not sure if Daniel was trying to warm Jonas up or trying to steal some of his body heat. He seemed more bothered by the weather than the kids.

A church in the Kastellet district. We went there the go see the Little Mermaid statue, the most photographed statue in Denmark. What we didn't know is that the Chinese had pulled a little art switcheroo with the Danes and she was in Shanghai. Nonetheless, the had the live video screen of her so we could see all the people walking by her without even noticing. Oh well, it wasn't as bad as missing the puffins in Shetland.

Jaxon rolling down goose poop hill.

We ran across this little pond walking back to our hostel which was located right on the edge of a nature reserve area. It was fun watching the swans for awhile.

Hiking to the top of the town hall clock tower.

We debated whether or not to go to Trivoli Gardens, the theme park that gave Walt Disney the idea for Disneyland, since it was pouring rain when we were deciding, but we went for it anyway. We ended up getting lucky because it stopped raining and we were able to have a wonderful last evening in Copenhagen. And it would have been worth it if only for the ColdStone Creamery. I am not usually temped by American restaurants that I see, but this is the first ColdStone I have seen and it was a wonderful treat.

One of Jonas' favorite things: chasing ducks and chickens. He could have spent the entire evening enjoying this activity, and in fact, he spent a whole lot of the evening doing just that.

Jonas never became totally at ease on the tilted ship.

I clearly could not capture this with my camera, but I wanted to remember the moment anyway. They had live music playing in several areas of the park and Jonas loved dancing to the jazz in particular. It was one of the best parts of the evening.

No better way to end a late night out than by finishing off a chocolate cake as a midnight snack.

Luckily we did manage to get up in time to spend a little while at the open air museum before we had to catch our plane. It was good that we got to go at all, but we could have spent a lot more time there. It was a highlight.

Chasing chickens again.

And with that we rushed away to catch our 3 euro flight back home from the most remote airport that we had ever seen: a 2 hour train ride from Copenhagen to a small village followed by a 1 hour bus ride to the middle of nowhere. We actually got really lucky. We made the bus within minutes and were not aware that they were only running every two hours. Otherwise we would have missed the plane. However Jaxon would have been happy; he told us that he wanted to live in Denmark forever. When we asked why he replied, "Because they have really big snails!" He is easily swayed. I reminded him that the biggest snails live in Africa, to which he replied, "I want to live in Africa." So there you have it. Hopefully there will be big snails in the next place we live.

Spring Break in Germany

For Jaxon's spring break this year we were able to go visit my parents where they are serving their mission in Nuremberg, Germany. What a treat for me to be able to see them without dealing with a superlong flight and weeks of jet lag (kid jet lag, that is)! I am definitely going to take advantage of it while they are in Europe. We had a great time with my parents, we ate really well, and I got to reconnect with old friends. The only thing that could of made it better would have been having Daniel there, but he had to work. Also, if Daniel had been there I would not have had any reason to try to find a way back to France with any urgency when our flight was cancelled due to volcanic activity... Hanging out in Nuremberg. It is such a perfectly quaint city with a beautiful old town and a castle to boot. Most of it has been rebuilt since it was flattened during the second world war.

A little bit of bouldering around the castle

Enjoying my first bratwurst of the trip. So delicious!

Jaxon loved this bridge

Jaxon going out grocery shopping

My parents appartement is perfectly situated, right outside the old town and just next to the Peignizt river where there are miles of trails (which I took advantage of for my morning runs) and several beautiful parks.

I made a few trips to this store to stock up on Lebkuchen, which I love.

The kids and I spent a day at the Nuremberg Zoo. It was huge! And beautiful. We had a great, exhausting day.

One of the highlights: this baby giraffe was just 10 days old.

We went to the seal and dolphin show. Jonas absolutely loved it. I think we need to take him to Marineland.

This park, part of the children's zoo, was awesome. Check out that slide!

This was Jaxon's favorite goat. He hung out with him on the rocks for a long time.

Jonas flashing the goats.

Jaxon had been talking about seeing the buffalos all day, I am not sure why. But he wasn't disappointed.

I still need to work on my video taking skills with the camera...

Getting back to France turned out to be very tricky after our flight was cancelled the first day of German airport closures. I finally decided to go by train. Daniel was going to be in Geneva a couple of days later, so I decided to meet him there so I could have his help for the last 4 hours of the trip from Geneva to Marseille. This ended up being a very good choice, because the French train system had decided to go on strike during the worst tranportation disruption ever and our train was cancelled to Marseille. Our car had broken down the weekend before I left and miraculously Daniel found a car to rent to come to Geneva. So we did make it home...after sixteen hours of travel instead of 3. But no complaints. The kids did great.