Here are a few images from our walk along the East Side Gallery in Berlin. The East Side Gallery is a roughly one kilometer section of the Berlin Wall that is covered in murals. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, artists were invited to paint on the wall to commemorate freedom and German reunification. The artwork seems to perfectly mirror the creative and subversive spirit of Berlin.
As Eric already mentioned, Copenhagen was a bit of a blur because jet lag was in full force, but we did make our way out to explore– sleep deprived and half-conscious as we were. I found Copenhagen to be a beautiful city, but also quite tame and orderly. I remember reading somewhere that people in Denmark are some of the happiest people in the world, according to the World Happiness Report. While the Danes didn’t necessarily come off as overtly happy to me (or at least not particularly friendly – though neither were they unfriendly), they certainly did seem to have it together. Of course, I only had a few short days to form an impression, but Copenhagen felt pretty socially homogeneous to me, and like there were rules and ways of being that people generally followed without question. The cycling culture around the city is a well-oiled machine.
Another sweet shot of the boys retrieving the key to our first Airbnb from the lock box.
Alex, Sawyer, and I took a trip to the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) while Zach rented a bike to explore the city, and Eric took a quick nap.
Is that a Picasso?!
The next day we took the train up to Roskilde to check out the Viking Ship Museum, which was a big hit.
The boys were promised ice cream if they’d dress up as vikings.
Zach did the bargaining.
Aboard a viking ship.
A jumbo burger before a stop at the cathedral. Zach enjoyed the burger, but don’t ask about the wormy-looking ham pizzas that Alex, Sawyer and I ordered. Disgusting.
The boys were all pretty enthralled by our visit to the Roskilde Cathedral. Let’s see if they keep up their cathedral enthusiasm all the way through the end of our trip in Italy. We have many more cathedrals and castles to look forward to in the near future.
So, Copenhagen was a blur. The whole jetlag thing is VERY real. If I was at home feeling like this I’d be laying around in my underwear, staggering around scratching my backside. Instead, I drank coffee…lots of it…and roamed the streets with Kelly and the Boys. Denmark was a quick stop, only three days in all. We walked 19 miles in the 2 full days we were there (yes, I’m keeping track). We smiled quite a bit, scowled and poked at each other just as much. We ate burgers, pasta & ice cream in an attempt to keep the kids happily energized. Kelly ate what she described as the “best pastry she’s every tasted”. We hung out in a super old church, the first one I’ve been in since, hmmmmm, the 1900’s? We spent an afternoon at a 175 year old amusement park, which provided killer views of the city. A highlight for me was our trip to the Vikingeskibsmuseet (Viking Ship Museum) in Roskilde.
We’re in Berlin now, after a one hour flight from Copenhagen last night. I think we all slept well, hopefully adjusted to Europe time. Enough talk, time for photos.
Breakfast, the morning after arrival. The best pastry she’s ever tasted.
Pissoir? What’s that?
Our first family portrait in a looong time.
Hey look, an important Danish guy!
Mood bribery.
A Danish cheeseburger, more mood bribery.
Nayhavn – If you google Copenhagen, this place will show up first.
Alex, Sawyer & Zach on a ride at Tivoli. Tivoli opened 175 years ago, it is the second oldest operating amusement park in the world. The oldest is also in Denmark. History, culture & fun all at once!
More Tivoli. Z & A are up there. This one put you about 200′ up, it offered an amazing view of the city. Unfortunately the ride attendant checked our pockets, so no photos.
Slept…
…like…
…babies.
Sawyer’s sunglasses broke…he’s up and ready for day 3.
The Viking ship museum. This place was a hit!
These boats are nearly 1000 years old!
Our grumpy Viking stare, with a Sawyer photo bomb.
Boat builders at the museum not only replicate the viking ship, but also the building techniques.
At the rope making workshop.
…more interactive stuff at the museum.
Roskilde Cathedral – construction began in the 12th century.
Crypts in the Roskilde Cathedral. All the kids were captivated by this place.
More soon, from Berlin!
We made it! It’s 4 AM here, 6PM back home. I can’t sleep, everyone else is snoring. Same as usual. Good time to share some photos. In an effort to document our trip for the family without boring everyone, I’m going to write less. Photos with captions it’ll be. We have our good camera with us, but all the visual aids you see from me will come from my phone. We made it here through an overnight in LA. We had most of a day in LA before a 10 hour flight from there to Copenhagen. Our route: Anchorage -Seattle (short layover) – LA (overnight at ES hotel) – Copenhagen. Please pardon any grammatical or formatting errors, Kelly will swoop in behind me clean all that sort of stuff up when she logs in.
Brother Shane & Sawyer. We left our car at Shane and Cel’s place in Anchorage, he gave us a ride from there. Thank You!
Eric, Sawyer, Alex & Kelly waiting for our flight in Anchorage.
A rare selfie, with Sawyer on our way to LA.
Kelly & Alex, fight to LA.
Our meetup with Zach in LA, he spent the last month with Mom & Dad touring through Canada, the Pacific NW, other western states. He came in from Vegas.
We walked Venice beach during our short stay in LA.
Shout out to my buddy Scott!
A little tasteless humor.
…more beach walking @ Venice.
Alex has an annoying foot injury, so we rented him an electric scooter for a couple hours. Zach got in the mix.
The Pacific seemed colder here than in Alaska.
Pull ups at Muscle Beach!
We’re staying at Air BnB’s for most of our trip. This is our doorstep, @ Carstensgade 72, upon arrival last night. Sawyer is collecting the key from a lock box. We were exhausted.
The ‘hood, looking from the place we’re staying at for the next two nights.
Out for a quick bite during our first evening.
You may have noticed that we’ve dusted off the ‘ol blog recently because we have a few new adventures in the works.
Eric already wrote about our bus conversion plans. We also leave in just over a week for a trip to Europe. We will be traveling to Denmark, Germany, France, and Italy. It will look like this:
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I tend to like to travel without a plan, but for this trip we had to get pretty organized because of both time and money constraints. Our trip is 35 days and is sandwiched in between the time that Alex gets out of school and Eric leaves for the summer to go to work. Homeschooling is handy for this type of flexibility, so it wasn’t a concern for the other two boys who are currently homeschooled (though Zach joins Alex at Career Tech High School next year). Europe is no SE Asia when it comes to affordability, so we had to be sure to book affordable AirBnb stays and the cheapest train tickets and flights– which means booking ahead.
We are excited to sneak in another adventure all together before our older boys are moving on to more independent lives in the following years. Looking forward to sharing our travels on the blog. Here’s to hoping that I can get our photos from this trip posted in under three years this time!