Summer Vaca Pt. 1

It's been beyond a perfect summer, and I still have 3 weeks left to go before reality sets back in. I figured, however, while I have some time on my hands, that I would go ahead and write blog post number 1 about my summer. My summer holiday (because it is considered a holiday now that I'm a pseudo-European and all, rather than a vacation) started on June 18. Dave's parents arrived to Helsinki on June 15, and we all enjoyed the sights of my town for a few days, before setting off on the 18th for Turku, a city on the west coast of Finland. Turku was lovely, but our visit there was short lived. We were ony in Turku for one night before we left on a ferry for the Åland Islands, but in that one night we managed to have a walk around and check out the town a bit, my favorite part was seeing the hot air balloons that happened to be out that night. 

Massive wooden ship.

Hot air balloons really scare Dave, I suppose that really unlikely possibility of floating away into space is a completelely justifiable reason to be petrified of these magic balloons.

After departing Turku we headed off on a ferry for Mariehamn. Thank you Wikipedia for the following explanation: Mariehamn is the capital of Åland, an autonomous territory under Finnish sovereignty. Mariehamn is unilingually Swedish-speaking and around 88% of the inhabitants speak it as their native language. Åland and Mariehamn have a reputable heritage in shipping. The Flying P-Liner Pommern museum ship is anchored in the Western Harbour. The Eastern Harbour features one of the largest marinas in Scandinavia. Anyways, the trip centered around exploring the marina, and the food and drink scene, needless to say it was lovely :) Mariehamn is a quaint little city that made for a really pleasant few days. 

Wind turbines at sea!

This guy taking in the view as we enter Mariehamn.

Walks around Mariehamn.

We found this guy hanging out.

From Mariehamn, our journey continued onward to Stockholm. The ferry ride to Stockholm was really beautiful because there are countless islands between Mariehamn and Stockholm that are filled with summer cottages that are pretty perfect. 

I wouldn't mind hanging out in one of these all summer.

Sailboats decorated with summer solstice flags.

Weird island filled with dead trees and countless nesting birds.

Playing with the mirrors on the ferry ride.

This dude enjoyed the ride as well.

Approaching Stockholm!

Once we arrived in Stockholm, it was non-stop fun! We explored the sights by day, and the restaurants by night, a good way to see a new place in my book! The summer solstice occurred while we were in Stockholm, and we celebrated by having a lovely picnic in the park, that was good fun! I also found Stockholm to be the more impressive version of Helsinki, where there seemed to be more life in the city, the people seemed to be a little more friendly, and the plethora of activities to partake in seemed to be a little bit more. Not to knock Helsinki, but yeah, Stockholm was a much more exciting representation of Scandinavian cities, in my humble opinion. We also managed to explore the city by boat a bit, and that was good fun. We even made it to the Biological Museum, where Dave tested out his newly acquired bird identification skills on all the stuffed specimen :) We also meandered the streets of the 'old city' and those were really cool! Of course photos never do anything justice, but I'll let them do the talking from here on out..

Walking around the old streets of Stockholm.

This is where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded every year, and where it all originated.

More beautiful old buildilngs.

Summer Solstice picnic in Djurgården.

Stockholm's Biological Museum.

This guy geeking out over the birds and quizzing himself.

Cities with amusement parks are the jam!

View of Stockholm from the boat we took on the waterways.

We stumbled upon a really amazing photo exhibit, but I was more intrigued by this guy's vest filled with patches, because he had one from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a taste of home in Sweden :)

This beautiful boat has been converted into a hostel, neat!

We sat on this bench playing I spy for a long time; and yes, Dave and I have matching sunnies, I know, how puke.

Just because I like it.

Sadly we never made it here.

Neat art.

On our last night enjoying the never-setting sun.

This was probably the highlight of Stockholm for me, watching this dude in a wheelchair drag his friend on a long board, all while blasting hip hop from a boom box he was holding in his lap.

And that is followed in a close second to how entertaining I found all of the Soft Kok & Bars..

After Stockholm, Dave and I parted ways with his parents, and made our way slowly to Hirtshals, Denmark. The first night out of Stockholm we stayed on the western coast of Sweden in Strömstad, and we found a really nice hill to put the tent on for an epic view of the sea.

View from the tent

Enjoying the view.

The next day we took a ferry from Gothenburg to Frederikshavn, Denmark. Upon arrival, one of the first things we discovered were free bicycles for rent, so we snagged some of those up to cycle our way just out of the city a bit, where we happily set up the tent on the beach! The spot we found was so perfect that we decided to stay a couple of nights there. We just spent the days hanging out on the beach, and exploring the city by bicycle, it was really nice and relaxing.

The tent hidden in the back corner.

The dune between the tent and the beach.

Dave got in because he's a lot braver then I am. Oh and I like filters for my photos, obviously :)

 After Frederikshavn, we decided to go to the northerly most point of Denmark, Skagen, because from here if you wak out far enough you can go to the point where the North Sea meets the Baltic Sea. Dave and I went on separate journeys out to the tip, because the day he decided to make the hourish journey from our tent to the tip of the coast, it was a nasty rain/hail storm, so I decided to skip out and hang out in the tent. The next day I ventured off for the same journey, and I concluded that it was really worth going to Skagen! Seeing two currents splash into each other is really an incredible sight. The closest to something like this I have ever seen was when I saw where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean, but seeing sea meet sea is a tad different then seeing where river meets sea. This part of Denmark was so beautiful as well, with fields upon fields of green grass, it was a nice couple of nights. When it wasn't raining, we went on lots of walks, and ate lots of good food!

View from the tent, trees for days!

The sand dune before the beach in Skagen.

The coastline here was filled with MASSIVE tankers, it was kind of creepy.

Walks on the beach.

Solo adventure to the very tip!

The seas coming together.

My artsy selfie of my reflection between the two currents.

Looking back down the coast on my walk back to the tent at the amazing amount of tankers.

After leaving Skagen, we finally made it to Hirtshals, where the ferry to Iceland departed from! I was so giddy the morning we went into the ferry terminal to finally depart on the long awaited trip. This is where I will leave this blog post for now, because I have deemed Iceland worthy of it's own post, or two! 

Ahhhhhhhhh I can't wait to tell you all about ICELAND!!