Adventure in the Alps

For our vacation this year, Tracey and I decided to go on a more hike-oriented trip through the Alps. Hitching a ride on one of our My Way Alpine Tours, we packed our bags, left scorching Seattle, and started our adventure in even more scorching Salzburg! The itinerary roughly went East-to-West, and is likely best visualized […]

Exploring Eastern Europe: Slovakia

Slovakians are the country cousins of the industrial Czechs. Once mashed together into Czechoslovakia by the Soviets, these regions have once again split off into independent nations. We didn’t spend much time in Slovakia: only a few hours between Poland and Hungary in the Tatra Mountains. Despite our short time there, we did make some […]

The Angst of Touring

One of the perks for working where I do is that I can hop on any of our many tours for free, and my significant other can go as well for essentially very little cost. I figured it may be a good idea to see what our tours are all about since they’re a significant […]

Paris: Apparently they speak French there

After our lovely, if not inspiring, visit to Amsterdam, our next stop was to a city you may have heard of before: Paris. Due to the vagaries of train schedules, we would be spending three nights in the city, but only have two full days of exploring: we were scheduled to arrive very late the first day, […]

Copenhagen: Actually Quite Cool

Admittedly, Copenhagen was the city that I wasn’t expecting to spend much time in: I was advocating another day in Stockholm and just kind of briefly touching Copenhagen before heading off for home. Thankfully I was overruled. As previously mentioned, we took the train to Copenhagen and arrived at central station at 7:30am. On a […]

Interlude: The Train of Hate (Aftermath)

Copenhagen, Denmark. 07:00, after a restful 8 hours in a train. Everyone look happy, we’re here! I SAID LOOK HAPPY What they were really feeling. This is where I should mention I’m still amazingly full of energy and am practically jumping up and down out of joy. […]

Interlude: The Train of Hate

Continuing the trend of taking transportation+ accommodation trips, Brian and I took it upon ourselves to find and book the train from Stockholm->Copenhagen that was an overnight trip. Rick Steves claimed it existed, but we weren’t so sure. This train seemed to be some mystical creation that didn’t actually exist on any site. After fighting […]

Stockholm: Swedish Fortress of Awesome

I had high expectations for Stockholm. Despite being at most 1/8th Swedish, it was a country I always identified with due to our still having family roots back “home” and a strong agreement with their culture and politics. Clearly Stockholm is a utopia for all that is good and right in the world, and I […]

Interlude: “The Ferry”

When travelling “Hardtke Class”–which often resembles “Rick Steves Class”–we’re always looking for the best deals to save time and money. Part of this strategy is to book overnight travel arrangements so you pay for travel and accommodation combined, which is often cheaper. Following this strategy, we booked us a 4-person cabin on the Silja Serenade, […]

Helsinki: City of Ladders

Over a series of blog posts I will be chronicling my trip to Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. The Trip There It always amazes me the sheer incompetence and theater that TSA puts travelers through. No other country forces you through such baseless pat-downs, the weird requirement of taking off your shoes (yuck), and other nonsense that they use in […]