Trip of a Lifetime Part 5 - New York City, USA

FINALLY!  We made it to the fifth and final part of this trip! NYC.  The Big Apple.

August 5-6, 2017

Originally, this part of the trip was supposed to last a day longer than it did.  We were supposed to fly out of JFK on August 7th (my dad's birthday) but we ended up leaving on the 6th instead.  More on that later.

We fought the crazy lines, as I mentioned, in the Amsterdam airport and flew, uneventfully, to JFK.  The flight was a lot longer coming back than it was going over.  On the way to Amsterdam we had a tailwind the entire way.  Coming back, we had a headwind.  So it took us 7 1/2 hours to get back.  Mara was a trooper, as always, watching movies, coloring, eating and sleeping on the flight.  We landed at JFK around 1:00pm or something.  

I should take this moment to mention that by this time I was so travel-weary that I wasn't nearly as good about taking photos or committing things to memory.  My memories of NYC are a little bit blurred and occur in snippets.  So for that, I apologize.

We arrived and after a very unpleasant taxi ride to the hotel (I was unbelievably carsick), we checked in and relaxed in our rooms for a while.  We were on the 30th floor!  Definitely the highest hotel room I've ever stayed in in my life.  Mara was full of energy so we didn't stay put for long.  My mom and dad wanted to rest, so Corky, Mara and I packed up the stroller and headed out to explore Central Park (which we were literally across the street from).

We found Victorian Gardens, a small amusement park located within 

Central Park.  Mara was elated to discover that she was, indeed, tall

enough to ride many (almost all) of the rides.  She had been such a

great traveller that we wanted to spoil her.  Admission was kind of

expensive but we did it anyway, and MAN did she have a ball!

Pregnant mommy couldn't go on many of the rides, so Daddy

picked up the slack.  They spun those teacups so dang fast! Mara

loved every second of it and didn't want to leave when it was

dinner time.  Now she's a ride junkie. LOL! 

As we were leaving Central Park, we walked past this big expanse of grass and saw two French bulldogs playing!  One was brindle, just like Abby, and I missed my dogs so much that I begged Corky to let us go over there and ask if we could pet them.  I can't remember the other one's name, but the brindle one was named Rita and she was ADORABLE.  Frenchie owners understand what it's like to miss your BatPig when you're on vacation, and they were more than happy to let us love on their little piglets for a while.  Mara loved it and kept trying to pick Rita up.  Rita was a pretty good sport about it.  Finally, after lots of snorting (from the Frenchies) and kisses (from us), we thanked them and went on our way.

We ended up meeting my parents (my sister was off visiting a friend who goes to NYU)  and walking to a restaurant called Rue 57 for dinner.  It was kind of a French/American place.  Mara got a grilled cheese, if I remember correctly, and I had a caesar salad.  Mara was exhausted by this time and was starting to crash and burn, so we quickly ate and ran.  She went to bed on her cot without much fuss, and we both crashed soon after.

The following morning, Mara got up around 5:30am.  Not too bad considering our sense of time and space was totally obliterated.  I had been suffering from some pretty severe sciatic nerve pain since about midnight and, to my horror, could barely even walk.  When the nearest Starbucks opened at 6:00am, Corky and Mara set off to get coffee and breakfast.  

Thankfully, once I got up and started moving around, the pain lessened and we decided to go out.  Around 7:30am, we left the hotel and walked to the end of the block where we found...... this fountain?? I have no idea what this was, but Mara loved running around while we studied the subway map and tried to figure out how to get to Chinatown (Corky's request).

We then figured out where we were going, bought a metro ticket, and down underground we went!

Mara in the station, reading the map.

Mara on the train.  She liked it!

We walked around Chinatown for a while.  Some of the little markets were just opening up, but most everything was closed still.  We went to a Chinese bakery and got some moon cakes (a tradition) and Corky bought a piece of chocolate cake for later.  

We continued walking until we stumbled upon Little Italy.  Everything was closed.  It made for a nice quiet walk down that street.  Mara looked like she was about to fall asleep, so we decided to walk a while.  Corky saw the Empire State Building in the distance so we walked in that direction.

As we walked through SoHo, Mara fell asleep.  

Little Mara, asleep in the big city.

We saw this huge old church in SoHo, and it had these black metal

doors next to it.  The doors had these little tiny window flaps in them.

We opened one and peered in, and this is what we saw! Kind of creepy.

We walked past NYU and found a Fresh & Co., a restaurant that serves healthy food.  We were kind of hungry so we went in.  Corky had a breakfast quesadilla and french toast, and I had a bowl of oatmeal.  Mara slept through it, but woke up right after we left.  She was not happy.  She'd been such a great traveller all this time that I really couldn't blame her for just being done.

My dad called as we were about to get on the subway, so I told him I'd call him right back because we had a train to catch.  When we surfaced by our hotel again, I called him.  He informed me that there was a weather advisory for the New York/JFK area for the following day - the day we were scheduled to fly home - and that it would likely cause our flight to be delayed by quite a bit or cancelled altogether.  He asked if, provided my mom could switch our flight, we could be ready to leave that afternoon instead of the next.  I had wanted to give Mara an extra day to get back toward our own time zone but I also really wanted to get home.  So, of course, we said, "sure!"

My mom was able to successfully switch our flight to the same flight only a day earlier.  The trouble was that none of us were sitting together except Mara and me!  This wouldn't have been such an issue except that a) this was an almost-six-hour flight on a smaller plane, b) Mara was in an awful mood and c) I couldn't get an aisle seat (which sucks when you're pregnant and have to pee every twenty minutes).  We ended up trapped by this lady with a sleeping baby.  Mara was freaking out over everything.  Thank god the plane was new enough to still have screens in the backs of the seats.  Had it not been for that, the whole flight would have sucked ten times worse than it did.

We arrived back in Portland at 9:30pm exhausted, disheveled, achy and so ready to be done with airplanes.  

The greeting we received from the dogs upon our arrival home was one of the best things ever.

The trip was amazing, challenging, overwhelming, fun, tiring and definitely crazy, but I am so glad we went.  I was so happy to be able to finally experience Norway after hearing stories about it my whole life.  Amsterdam was fun and I wish we had more time there - oh well, maybe another time!  I'm so proud of Mara and how well she did with all the travel and transitions and I'm so grateful to my parents for making this trip happen.  The memories are things we'll have forever.

Trip of a Lifetime Part 4 - Amsterdam, Netherlands (2nd Edition)

August 3-4, 2017

So the main reason we returned to Amsterdam was money.  It was cheaper to fly into and out of Amsterdam as a round trip (even though we flew into JFK instead of back to BOS afterward) than to fly to Oslo and back.  The other big reason was to keep Mara from having to sit on too many ridiculously long flights.  As it turned out, she did great on the long flights for the most part, so she probably could've handled it.  

We discovered that this really was too long of a trip and that it had too many transitions.  Mara didn't struggle with the transitions necessarily, but it was just hard to be bouncing around from place to place with so many people and with me being pregnant.  We were all pretty good sports about it, though.  Especially Mara.

So our second time in Amsterdam I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I did the first time.  Partially because I was just so weary from traveling but also because we did a lot of the same stuff as we did the first time (like playgrounds and canal rides).  

Also, I should note that I have no idea what day we did what.  We were only there for a day and a half, so I can't even remember when things happened.  I do remember that my parents, my sister and I went to a laundromat that first afternoon while Corky and Mara went for a walk.  

So I'm just going to dump the pics here and caption.

We bought "Hop on/Hop off" tickets for the day, which allowed us to

use either the canals or the bus to get around the city.  The passes were good

for all day, so we could go wherever we wanted at any time.  Mara wanted to 

wear her sailor outfit that I'd bought her in Norway, and she looked SO CUTE.  So

we went to the flea market.  We had no cash so we just looked, and Corky used his 

last few euros to let Mara ride that little carousel which she loved.  It was pretty fun!

This is later that same day, we were on the canals, heading for

Vondelpark again to let Mara play at a playground.  As we were going

along, Mara saw a playground along the canal side, and asked to go play

there.  So we hopped off at the next stop and took her to that park.  It had

a zip line!! I didn't get any picture of it but that's because I took a video which

I unfortunately can't put here easily.  But she loved it!  We all tried it, even me! :)

The BEST creamy tomato soup I've ever had!!

This swan family was swimming around in the canal when Corky

and I walked to the Red Light District in the afternoon.  They were 

super cute! I'd never seen baby swans before and they were adorable.

Funny story about dinner that night.  So my mom and sister were somewhere else, and it was just Corky, Mara, my dad and me.  Mara remembered having that giant pancake the first time we were in Amsterdam and had been asking for one for days.  So we set out to find a pancake for her for dinner.  Well, that proved very difficult!  So we ended up in the fanciest restaurant in the Rembrandt Square area... and she had dessert crepes with ice cream and chocolate sauce for dinner!  Absolutely no regrets.  Haha.

It was the week of Pride festival in Amsterdam, and that night (Friday night), Rembrandt Square was alive!  After Mara was bathed and put to bed, my mom came to sit with her so Corky and I could go out and explore the nightlife.  I didn't want to stay out too long because a) I was really tired and b) I didn't want my mom to have to sit with Mara for ages.  So I walked with him to the edge of the Red Light District and then went back.  Corky went all the way to Dam Square to check the party out and then came back.  

The next day we fought our way through the millions of ridiculous lines at Schiphol Airport.  Like, really, THREE different passport checks?  Crazy.  Anyway, we made it in plenty of time for our flight to JFK.

This was a nice and short post! Whew! Coming soon, the 5th and final part of this trip.. NYC!  See ya soon.

Trip of a Lifetime Part 3 - Oslo, Norway (Vol. 4)

Will this be the post where I finally finish documenting Oslo??? Let's find out, shall we?

I'm like 99.9% sure this was our last day in Oslo.  At least, I don't have any more pictures from Oslo after this, so unless I managed to take no pictures on our actual last day, then this would have been it.  So this would have been August 2nd.  

After our usual breakfast in the "water restaurant" as Mara refers to it still...

...Corky, Mara and I met up with my mom and went to visit the Oslo cathedral.  This was a place Corky had wanted to visit.  I wasn't really sure why at the time, as I've never known him to express an interest in churches.  However, when we arrived there, I could see why he wanted to come!  

First, we were greeted by this sight:

I had to laugh, as I've never seen pigeons stand

on a slanted ledge like this before.  They looked funny

standing all crookedly.  Silly birds.

And then we walked in (past a sign that said "Silence please," which made me sweat a little, knowing that my 2 year old is not terribly adept at being quiet.  To be fair, though, she did great for the most part).

That balcony looking thing up there on the left is where

the Royal family sits when they attend church here.

There were tons of these stained glass windows.  I

would've taken pictures of more, but it's hard to focus 

on that when you have a kid to chase around.

At one point, Mara was sitting on one of the pews looking cute.  I took this photo:

And then right after I took it, this woman approached Mara.  I'm not sure where the woman was from because she wasn't speaking English but because we had to be so quiet in the cathedral, I couldn't really hear what language she was speaking (I think she may have been German or Swiss).  She beckoned Mara over and handed her a coin to put in the box attached to the candelabra where you can light a candle for a loved one who has passed away.  Mara dropped the coin in, the woman helped her choose a candle and showed her how to light it.  I stood nervously by as my 2 year old lit a candle and placed it in the candle holder.

Photo credit: My mom.

After we left the cathedral, we went and got some souvenirs.  I bought baby boy a little stuffed animal moose and Mara an I *heart* Norway purse, which she loved and carried around for the rest of the day.  

My mom returned to the hotel to rest or something, but Corky and I were good to keep going.  So we walked over to the opera house, which Corky and Mara had summited once but I never had.  It is steep!  So up we went, with Mara in the stroller.  The sun was coming out and the views were great from up there!

Funny little side note: that thing in the water is this sculpture/statue

made of glass.  I'm not sure what it's supposed to be, but Mara

decided that it's Elsa's Ice Palace. Lol!

(Oh, while finding the pics from this day I just found another one that I forgot to share from the previous day.  I'll insert it here: 

This pic was taken while I was at a bakery with my dad the day before.  My parents and my sister had come to this bakery on some previous day and my sister had been raving about their kanebolle, basically a cinnamon roll, and I really wanted to try one.  So I had one for lunch.  Anyone who has been reading my blog for long knows that this was insane and monumental.  And yes, it was delicious.)

Anyway, back to the day of the opera house.  Later that afternoon, we met up with my dad while my mom and sister were off at some museum.  Down by the train station there was a ferris wheel and a carousel.  My parents and sister had taken Mara there on the evening that they hung out with her so that Corky and I could go to dinner, and Mara had been asking to go back.  It was windy and COLD, not that that seemed to bother Mara at all....

Perhaps one of the funniest memories from this part of the trip was this tiger statue.  Mara was smitten with it and climbed on its tail, and then Corky decided he was going to climb onto its back.  So he did, and asked me to take a photo.  As I was walking to the front of the tiger, these people started posing for a picture in front of the tiger... with Corky on top of it!  I laughed so hard about the idea of him inadvertently photobombing these people.  Imagine, years from now, them going through their photo album and their great-great-grandkids or whoever being like, "Who the heck is that??"  Hilarious!!

That evening, despite my sister not feeling the greatest, we went to an Asian restaurant on the pier.  Mara played on the playground one last time and we got ice cream (without chocolate dust) from the kiosk.  Even though it wasn't exactly warm out (maybe 60F), the ice cream melted fast and by the time we reached the place where the pier meets the land, it had melted all over Mara.  Again, not that she minded.

The sun finally came out as we were walking back to the hotel, just in time to show us the beauty of Oslo in the summertime on our last night.

These last three photos were taken as we walked

through the Akershus Fortress on our way back to 

the hotel.  It was a beautiful (albeit chilly) evening to walk.

This one is from the overlook point.

Whew!!!!! We made it through Oslo!!!! Coming soon, Part 4 - Amsterdam (take 2).

Trip of a Lifetime Part 3 - Oslo, Norway (Vol. 3)

Okay so this section of the trip is taking way more posts than I expected.  Will I get through the rest of it today?? Who knows! Let's just see.  I guess I was more of a shutterbug than I thought. Lol.

So, later on the same day that we went to the playground and saw the handpan player, my mom wanted to go to Frogner park to visit the Vigeland sculpture park.  So we hopped on the tram for the first time and off we went.  

Gustav Vigeland was apparently a pretty troubled guy but was a phenomenal sculptor, and this park is the largest sculpture park by a single artist in the world.  All of the statues are naked (I believe) and to be honest it was a little bit unsettling.  The grounds were pretty, though, and the sculptures were very... anatomically accurate.  I'm just going to dump all the photos here and caption them (warning: there are quite a few!)

When you first enter the park, it is pretty tame.  Lots of grass, trees flowers and a fountain or two.  The next thing you encounter is a bridge lined with sculptures... of naked people.  Many of the sculptures feature adults and babies together in various positions.  Some are just adults and some are just children.  It's along this bridge that one of the most famous statues is situated.  There is a pic of it coming a little later.

There are several tiers of stairs and landings leading up toward this monolith of humans.  I'll get to that in a minute.

At the top, just before the monolith (which you can see in the background) there is a ring of statues.  Corky asked to pose for a photo with this one, for whatever reason.

Corky camouflaged in front of the monolith.  I found the monolith VERY creepy.  It's just a huge pile of people.. men, women, children... all of whom appear to be dead!  I didn't really like it, although I was awed by the size of it and the amount of work that must've gone into it.

The view looking back toward the bridge from the top where the monolith is.

Mara loved all the open space and ran and jumped to her heart's content!  Soon after this 

photo was taken, she tripped and fell into a puddle.  She was fine, just wet! Lol.

Once you go past the monolith plateau area, there are stairs leading downward and then you come to this.  A large set of stairs leading back up to... whatever that statue is at the top.  It's a circle of people.  Mara insisted on walking up the stairs by herself and I took this photo.

The view from the top looking back at the monolith.

That's Corky walking down with the stroller on the right and Mara and me going down the stairs hand in hand in the center.  We counted the stairs - there were 41!

My dad and I took a selfie in front of the monolith.

This is the famous statue on the bridge.  It's a little boy having a tantrum.  My mom thought we needed a pic in front of it for two reasons.  First, because Mara can tend to resemble that baby sometimes when she's having a tantrum and secondly because the baby is a boy and we are having a boy.  I was less than pleased when I saw the picture because his genitals are right above my head! Anyway, at the gift shop, Mara chose a bib for baby brother with a photo of this statue on it.  She chose a pink one for him and I didn't have the heart to say no because I thought it was just so sweet that she thought of her baby brother!  So now he has a pink bib. Lol! Whatever.

After we left the sculpture park, we walked further into the Frogner area in search of dinner. My sister was craving Italian and the lady at the gift shop had told us there was an Italian restaurant about a 5 minute walk up the street from the park.  We never did find it though and it started pouring so we ended up at an Indian restaurant.  Mara devoured a plateful of rice and naan bread and then Corky took her back to the hotel to get ready for bed as she was starting to crash.  The rest of us took our time and headed back a little later.

Now, I have no idea what day this happened.  It might have been the next day... I just can't remember.  But anyway, my parents offered to take Mara for the evening so Corky and I could go on a dinner date.  It was chilly and windy so I layered my own jacket underneath one of Corky's hoodies to go out.  I run cold anyway and in pregnancy it's no different.  However, before we went, I had to take a belly pic.

22 weeks!

Layering up to brave the Oslo wind.

We went to Lektern, a restaurant situated ON a ship at the pier.  I got a salad with quinoa, tomato, avocado, chicken, corn and lettuce.  It was the best food I'd had since arriving in Norway!

My handsome dinner date.

The view from our table.

This is actually the same boat I took a photo of the day we went

to Bygdøy, I think, just from a different angle.

After dinner we got ice cream.  I don't know if this is an all-of-Europe

thing or just Norway but they put cocoa powder on ice cream!  I didn't

know what it was and called it "chocolate dust" until the guy corrected

me, LOL! Banana ice cream with chocolate dust. Mmm! 

All right... one last post should cover the rest of Oslo easily.  Dang I have so many pictures!! Hang tight for Volume 4 (hopefully the last one for Norway!) coming soon... maybe tomorrow. Haha. Xo.