Category: Family

The end of our Europe tour was in London. Katy was only there for 1 night, then she was on to Spain for 4 weeks. The rest of us were there for a few days (Sam went to Oxford with his grandparents the day before we left). We did the quick tour. Tower of London, London Eye, Greenwich, Harrods, London Museum, etc.

We went to Budapest to learn about George’s history. The kids are old enough now to get something out of it an remember it. George showed up where he grew up, how he survived the holocaust, and the Russian occupation. We got to see where he actually lived after WW II. Where he was when the apartment building he was in exploded. We tried to reproduce some of the photos he had of his growing up. We didn’t do much touristy stuff because I figured that we could do that without George.

Stockholm was a let down after a week with the Wallins. It actually got dark in Stockholm. We just had the day there before heading to Budapest, so we figured we would look around a bit. We saw the Vasa. It was kind of creepy, a ship that didn’t make it more than about a mile before it sunk.

Five days in northern Sweden. It was great. We arrived at 11pm to bright sunlight. We were there for mid-summer. It never got dark, the sun did go down from about 1am until 2am. We ate moose and reindeer. Saw a reindeer. Stood around lots of fires (seems that everywhere we went there was a fire pit and supplied wood). It was great spending time with the Wallins. I think it would be neat to go back in the winter, but maybe for a very short time. We didn’t make it above the arctic circle, but we were close.

There was no snow in Tahoe, so we spent the time after Christmas nearer to home except for a trip for Elizabeth and the kids to visit Cal Poly SLO and UCSB. I met them at Disneyland. We met Samantha there and spent about a day and a half at the park. The first day was split between Disneyland and California Adventure. The Wonderful World of Color was really impressive. Disneyland is an interesting place. They spend a lot of time and money making it the happiest place on earth. We spent a day and a half waiting in lines for rides, but left not thinking that we spent that much time waiting in lines.
Katy had been lobbying to go to Disneyland for a while. She really wanted to get her picture taken with Ariel (Little Mermaid). She had this done years ago, but I guess the 16 year old really needed another picture. Sam had never been (or at least didn’t remember), so it was good that he got to go as well. Margaret didn’t remember a lot about it. A good time was had by all.