Flam bound

Ok I am almost done with my Europe postings (2 months later), but I am over it...

So this stretch of this trip I have to say was the most beautiful! We left Oslo by train and headed to a down called Myrdal. When we arrived we were greeted by snow! It was freezing cold! But it was so beautiful. This train stop was in the valley of two giant mountains and the snow/rain made everything green and misty which was really mystical. I can understand how Norway became the land of trolls. This is totally somewhere they would live. Anyway we waited for the second train that would take us from Myrdal to Flam. When the train finally came it was so cool! It was a really old train with old luggage compartments. It was the prettiest train I had ever seen. As we made our way down the hill to Flam we passed beautiful waterfalls and mountains and so many amazing sites. Such as this one...

Anyway so after the awesome train ride we finally made it to Flam. Flam is a town literally in the middle of two Fjords. This was the prettiest place! Everything was so clean and green and seriously it was magical. This photo does not do it justice. It was amazing to say the least.

Megan and I stayed in this really cool cabin for the night, made our own homemade pasta and soup and just had a great time walking around town and enjoying the serenity of this place. This was the first leg of the "Norway in a Nutshell" and I am so glad we decided to spend the night.

 "Music is the universal language of mankind".

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

"Music translates into everything else".

-Parker Radcliffe

 "Music fills the infinite between two souls".

-Rabindranath Tagore

I have always loved music. I believe it has a healing power stronger than anything else. Music to me touches my soul in places nothing else can. I wanted to share my playlist as of today. Hope you enjoy!

Florence & The Machine- Between Two Lungs

Sondre Lerche- To Be Surprised

The New Pornographers- Challengers

The Knife- Heartbeats

Mates of State- Get Better

The National- Slow Show

Feist- Past in Present

Alexi Murdoch- Orange Sky

Tegan and Sara- The Con

Stars- I Died So I Can Haunt You

The XX- Heart Skipped a Beat

Enjoy!

GAME DAY!!!!

Today is one of my favorite days of the whole year... yeah you guessed it... the first game of the season! Ever since I was about 4 years old I have been a huge Ute football fan. There is just something about this time of the year. Everyone around town bleeds red and there is so much Utah pride! One of my favorite things in the whole world is sitting on a cool saturday night, under the lights of the stadium, analyzing the Ute's next move with good ol' Buzz. Good luck tonight Utah, I know you will make me proud.

       GO UTES!!!!

Oslo, Norway

Ok so I am in class, bored as ever, so I decided now would be a good time to update my blog because I don't have much time between school and work to spend time of cyber space. Oh how I miss cyber space. 

Anyway so back to Europe! After the fun couple of days in Estonia me and megan hopped a place to Oslo, Norway. I was so excited to see Oslo because it is the capital of Norway and it was also the first stop of our "Norway in a Nutshell" trip. So we arrived and walked to our hostel. We were exhausted and decided to spend a quiet night in the hostel, taking showers and facebook-ing. Haha the next day we did a little sight seeing, walked around town and then had the opportunity to go to church with our friend John Johansen and his family. (His parents are on a mission in Oslo). They were nice enough to pick us up on the side of the road and take us to church. It was so fun to see church in Norway. This particular week the youth had gotten back from EFY and most spoke about their experience in sacrament. It was such a fun thing to hear how even in Norway the youth can have such a fun experience at EFY. I have a soft spot for EFY cause I went all 4 years and I was a counselor last summer... haha major dork. I love it. Anyway after church the Johansen's invited us to dinner (appropriate since it was July 4th to spend it with a bunch of americans). The food was SO good. We had gotten pretty sick of fast food and cheap meals, so we feasted to say the least. After dinner Helena, a local Norwegian, took us on a walk to the dock by the Johansen's house. It was SO beautiful. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. It was completely peaceful and helped me relax a little bit before our big adventure the next few days. After our walk we said our thank you's and goodbye's to the Johansens and headed to Vigeland, the famous sculpture park. This is a huge park in the middle of town full of statues. It was pretty cool! After we walked home and went to bed early. It was overall a really great time in Oslo!

Ry Guy

I know I am a day late but I wanted to publicly wish my little brother a happy birthday! He is the most amazing sibling anyone could ask for, I don't know how he is so incredible, it would be hard being so great. But Ryan I love you to death. I am so excited that you are now 17 years old! I love watching you blossom into an amazing young man. I am excited to watch you grow even more in the upcoming years. I hope you had a great day, and thanks for always being there for me. I love you!!!

Tallinn, Estonia

Ok so back to the trip, haha this is taking me seriously a year to catch this blog up to date on the vacation but I am trying ok! Anyway after sweden we took off to estonia. I didn't have huge expectations for Tallinn but I was excited to see the place. Tallinn has a huge russian influence in everything from the food, the buildings, the lifestyle and the people. We stayed in the center of the "Old Town" in a hostel full of guys. Haha I swear the boys that ran the hostel were modern day lost boys (from peter pan). They were all in their early 20's and lived such a simple life. They worked to stay in the hostel and they partied hard every night. It was such a good time! We ended up going out with them and watching a world cup game, eating great food and dancing until the early morning. Even though we shared a room with an old hairy man and a couple from france (kind of weird) and their was no air conditioning hah it was so much fun! We went to the beach the second day we were there and that was amazing as well. This is one place I cannot wait to get back to!

View from the top of a church. Old Town Tallinn

The beach! 

Flip cup with the lost boys. I played with water haha

After Tallinn we were at the airport checking into our flight. After having a nice chat with the cute estonian checking us into our flight we headed to the gate. When we boarded the plane we realized that the nice, cute estonian boy had upgraded us to first class! It was such a nice surprise and I hope someday I can find that boy and thank him. This is me and megan enjoying the small soda's and dessert.