I have this friend. We’ll call him Smorgan. I have known this friend for a long, long time. Over the course of our friendship I learned, Paris is not Smorgan’s thing. I am not sure it was because of him (but I think I will blame it on him regardless) but for a long time I never really felt a strong pull to visit Paris. It took Kara telling me for years how much I would love it and so I decided when this trip was first conceived that Paris had to be on the itinerary. I had to know for myself folks.

And the verdict?: Paris is definitely my thing.

We arrived mid-day on a Thursday. Kara’s super cool friend Zannah (and now my super cool friend Zannah) lives in Paris and was kind enough to let us crash in her 200 square foot apartment. It was surprisingly cozy. Zannah was very kind to let us crash her beautiful life for a few days and to take us around town and feed us amazing food and speak French to people so we didn’t have to.

I am not really sure where to begin so I think I will start with the most visible symbol of Paris: the Eiffel Tower. I wasn’t planning to be awed by the Tower. I assumed it would be one of those things that is smaller in person and less exciting and grandiose than the movies make it out to be. Well, I stand corrected.

I fell in love with the Tower. I have no idea how it manages to be so seductive but it is. I was entranced from the start. We saw it during the day and then later all lit up at night.

We saw other important monuments like the Arc de Triomphe:

Notre Dame:

Sometimes self-portraits with 3 people are hard.

And the fruit stand from the movie Amelie:

Speaking of Montmartre, we spent a beautiful afternoon walking around its picturesque streets. Literally everywhere I looked was charming. I loved Sacre Coeur:

Mainly, I think, because the view from it looks like this:

Beautiful.

We also saw Paris on a boat ride down the Seine:

On the boat I loved to sit and look at views like this:

You should have seen the cameras go crazy on the boat when the Eiffel Tower came into view. People just love that tower. You would think though that they didn’t know you could take pictures up close. Kind of like this next shot in which Kara reminds me of the classic movie: “An American Tail“?

I call this picture, “Fievel goes to Paris”

Fievel goes to Paris after discovering there are in fact cats in America and the streets aren’t made with cheese after all. He should have known France has way better cheese anyway.

Next up: Versailles

]]> http://girlwhoknits.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/the-big-trip-paris-part-un/feed/ girlwhoknits http://girlwhoknits.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/coopers-mittens/ http://girlwhoknits.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/coopers-mittens/#comments Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:09:09 +0000 girlwhoknits http://girlwhoknits.wordpress.com/?p=232

I think everyone I know is pregnant. Or just gave birth. It is one of those years I guess. I was at an event recently where I realized that 5 people at the table were pregnant. 5! Not to mention my fertile friends elsewhere. I really don’t know what happened in 2007 but I think it was a big year for a lot of couples.

Well, I can’t possibly knit for every baby I know but I thought I would do my best and see what I could get done. First up, Cooper. I thought he should have some mittens. But when I finished these mittens I thought maybe I should have some too. In fact, I had dreams of more and more mittens. Baby knits kill me. They are just so little and, well, cute.

These mittens are brilliant because you can use leftover sock yarn–I used Koigu left over from my gauntlets. I love the greens, cream, and peach colors in this yarn. I think the colors are perfect for a little boy.

Baby knits are among my favorites due to the heightened level of cuteness and the relatively fast execution. When I am finished with a baby knit I kind of want to keep it and maybe decorate my house with it. Is that strange?

Project Stats

Pattern: Baby Mittens

Source: Malin Knits

Size: 3-9 months (perfect in time for winter)

Yarn: Koigu PPPM

Needles: US 2 double points

Notes: I made no changes. These mittens are perfect just the way they are.

Our last stop in Scandinavia was Copenhagen, Denmark. We arrived mid-day after an overnight train and a morning of walking in Malmo. Then throw in the non-stop traveling we had done since we arrived in Scandinavia a mere 5 days before. In short, we were beat. When we checked into our hostel, Kara and I both had the idea to take a quick nap. A power nap if you will.

Well, 15 minutes turned into 3 hours and we found ourselves with all of the afternoon gone. I would have felt bad for the time we missed if it weren’t for the fact that it was one of the most blissful naps of my life–we needed the sleep. So we had a night and a full day left to explore the city. I had gotten some amazing recommendations from a local blog reader, Jennie (Thanks Jennie!) and so we were armed with some ideas on what to do. That first night, we decided that what we most needed was some fun. So fun was what we had.

Tivoli Gardens is a famous amusement park in Copenhagen and I believe it is the oldest existing amusement park in the world. Kara and I weren’t sure what to expect but after just a few minutes of walking around the park we were pleasantly surprised. I have been to several amusement parks in my day and outside of Disneyland I feel like most are carbon copies of each other. Tivoli Gardens is no copy. It is beautiful in that wild fantastical way that only amusement parks can pull off. I loved the lanterns and the lights and the themed buildings and alley ways.

This is a dragon that follows the length of a walkway.

Kara and I didn’t come to the Tivoli for the rides but we decided to buy a few tickets and choose a couple rides to go on. The first was a thrill ride that felt like it lasted maybe 30 seconds but had some fun loops and was suitably scary. The second ride we choose was my personal favorite.

Oh yeah, that’s right. A Hans Christian Anderson ride. It had wooden mechanical characters acting out scenes from his stories as we sat in a moving pod with really bad speakers. I loved every second. Hans is a favorite son of Denmark and we felt is was only appropriate that we paid tribute to him while in his homeland.

We spent several hours walking around the Tivoli, enjoying our rides, eating fair food–including the best churros I have ever had, people watching, and enjoying it still being light outside at 10:30pm. We loved the Tivoli.

The next day was our one full day in Copenhagen and we wanted to get the most of it. The tone of the day was set when while walking across a city square Kara was spanked with a newspaper by a Danish hippie. This was going to be a good day.

One of the first things we did was take a boat tour of the city:

This is Nyhavn harbor and if I remember correctly I think our friend Hans Christian Anderson might have lived in one of these houses for a time–or some famous Danish person did. Either way, it is a pretty cool harbor area with lots of activity and people around.

On the water we saw views of the city:

A cool spiral thingy on a roof:

And much more. It was about an hour tour and a great way to start off the day. After the boat ride we continued our walk of the city. We knew we had to see the famous Little Mermaid statue which was erected, yet again, to honor favorite son, Hans Christian Anderson.

It is smaller than I thought, but pretty I think. I like the way her fins/feet look. While we were on the boat, our tour guide told us that the statue has been beheaded a couple times and that the first time it was treated like a murder investigation by the police. I like a city who honors it’s art.

After the Little Mermaid statue we walked over to Rosenburg Castle and the gardens that border it.

This is not the main castle anymore but it was fun to tour and we also got to see the crown jewels which are housed in the basement. It is too bad I am not a royal, I really think I could rock some serious crown jewels.

Besides being bordered by an actual moat (see above) the castle also has some beautiful grounds to walk around. It was there we found the coolest tree ever:

I don’t have any idea what was done to this tree to make it look this way but I love it. It was also at this park that we enjoyed one of my favorite treats of the trip.

Magnum bars.

I had the Mayan Mystica (I think it was called) which was advertised on posters everywhere we went by a very Mayan looking Eva Longoria. It was delicious.

Also, being in Denmark and all, we did manage to eat a danish or two.

I am not really sure what I am trying to do in this picture. It looks like a cross between taking a bite and kissing the danish while quizzically and inexplicably raising my eyebrows in fear? understanding? Very confusing, but the danish was delish.

Copenhagen is also home to some beautiful shopping.

I ended up buying some awesome shoes with cut out polka dots in them. You know, to remember Copenhagen by. All in all, we had a really great day and could have spent much more time exploring the city. But, with a super early flight out the next day we decided to head back to our hostel and get in a few good hours of sleep

I am not sure if you can tell in these pictures but a week of hostel living, train travel, spotty sleep, and cold weather was starting to take a toll on us. I believe both of us felt like we were ready to be done. I was a little nervous because we had one city left, a city I was really excited about and that I had never been to before and I worried that I would be too wiped in order to fully enjoy it–that it wouldn’t get the attention or the energy it deserved.

Up next: Revived by Paris

I saw an early copy of the new Interweave book Inspired to Knit several months ago. Ever since, I have been dying to own it, talk about it, and knit from it. Now that the book is released I can finally share how I feel about it with you all.

Now, while the book is lovely and has many gorgeous patterns I want to knit, there is one particular pattern I have become a bit obsessive over. The Victorian Lace Blouse. It makes me want to cry it is so beautiful.

photo courtesy of Interweave Press, copyright 2008

I will have to make some adjustments–must be longer and I am pondering the neckline.  But come on folks, beautiful right?

We took one final overnight train from Stockholm to Malmo, Sweden. We could have just stayed on the train for a half hour longer and arrived in Copenhagen (our next major stop) but we really couldn’t leave Sweden without stepping foot in the hometown of our great greats. We arrived in Malmo at around 6:30 in the morning. So really really early. Our decided upon objective was to walk around and see what we could of the city. My unspoken objective was find any trace of our ancestors. Thanks to sturdy feet and an active imagination, I was able to achieve both objectives.

Since it was so early in the morning, the only thing we really could do for the first few hours was to walk–everywhere. We walked through Gamla Staden which is the old town of Malmo.

Kara is standing in Lilla Torg square which is at the center of Malmo’s charming old town. It was in this square that my relatives most likely strolled and shopped and proposed marriage in. It is also in this square that Kara and I were mistaken for actual Swedes. We hated having to speak English and ruin the moment, but it was pleasing to not be automatically labeled as Americans.

We then went for a huge long walk through a beautiful park downtown. This park was vast and green and really pleasant to walk through.

I love rows of trees.

I bet they were planted by my great great great something or other.

Speaking of my ancestors, I am pretty sure this is one of them.

Resemblance?

Am I taking this ancestor thing too far? Yeah, I don’t think so either. So anyway, we also walked through a graveyard. Because, graveyards are interesting. They are also places where dead people are buried. Dead people are more often then not very, very old. You see where I am going with this?

It could have been a relative–you never know. Kara and I did think this grave was beautiful either way.

We then found our way to this castle but were, sadly, too early for a tour. So, all we know about this place is that they call it a castle.

We walked and we walked and finally we walked for long enough that stores started to open. This got us very excited. Stores opening meant we could go in and order one of these.

Oh the cinnamon roll. Did you know they are thought to have been invented in Sweden? We had several of these while in the country–from the good to the very very good. Our Malmo cinnamon roll was my favorite of all. By now this should not surprise you–I mean really, chances are very good one of my unknown Swedish cousins made it.

Before we left town Kara and I spent a good hour in a great arts and craft boutique that sold beautiful handicrafts from Malmo artists. We each ended up buying a pretty tea cup to remind us of our morning in Malmo. Afterward we couldn’t pass up lunch at this fine establishment:

“Probably the best steakhouse in town…”

You know, it probably was. Sadly I wasn’t able to stay long enough to find out for sure. We left Malmo roughly 6 hours after we arrived. I know we can’t say we really saw all Malmo has to offer but I am glad we stopped all the same. Honestly, somewhere out there I hope my great great grandfather knows Kara and I were there, in his hometown, playing homage to the heritage he gave us. At the very least, I think my grandpa will be happy we did.

This is for you grandpa.

Next up: Copenhagen

Ah. Sweden. For those that don’t know, I am descended from strong Swedish stock. Sure, I have some other nationalities rolling through my veins but due primarily to my very Swedish last name, I have always associated my heritage mostly as Swedish. So from the first minute our train passed the Swedish border it started to feel like home.

Kara and I were admittedly kind of excited to leave behind the cold and hungry times we had in Norway. The forecast was looking up and we were excited to explore a new city. Stockholm. Oh Stockholm. First off, it is beautiful. I love the water and so a city made up of many little islands is particularly exciting for me.

Street view of Stockholm

If you go to Stockholm, I guarantee you will spend a lot of time in the city’s old town: Gamla Stan. You want to see why?

The old town area feels like a step back in history. It is clean and charming and full of beautiful buildings and interesting street corners.

In this picture you can see how colorful the buildings are:

We loved Gamla Stan. It is it’s own little island located in the center of the city. You can walk to it from several bridges connecting the other islands making up Stockholm. Aside from all the picturesque views, Gamla Stan also houses the royal palace. We tried to tour the palace but when we were there the main area was closed to visitors so we just watched the changing of the guards instead. (You can see our little homemade video here.)

A few things you can gather from this video: 1. My blood sugar must have been very low considering the violent shaking of my hands. 2. We are very patriotic. and 3. My hair. I know–it is wild and I look like a orphan living in the time of Annie. I just wanted you to know that I know that you know. Okay, moving on.

Kara and I stayed in hostels while in Scandinavia. I only mention this because while in Stockholm we heard about a boat hostel. So we thought, we are here one night, why not give it a go?

Kara proudly posed outside of our tiny home for the night. Our room was on the bottom floor of the boat and gave us a tiny view out to the street.

It was a nice novelty to sleep on the ocean in a room smaller than my closet but in the end I really preferred this view:

Gamla Stan at dusk.

We did do more than hang out around old town. Although would you blame us if we didn’t? One of the things we did was eat. Oh, we ate in Sweden. Kara was determined the whole trip to eat a hot dog from a street vendor and finally we found our first one in Stockholm. It is safe to say that Chorizo dog was the single most blissful hot dog I have ever tasted in my life. We had two more the next day.

Soooo. good.

We went to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is this really enormous ship that sunk on its maiden voyage in 1628. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that the ship was recovered from the ocean. Due to the unique quality of the water in the area, the ship survived without too much deterioration.

I would for sure recommend going to see this ship if you go to Stockholm. What I thought was most interesting was the detail of all the carvings on the ship. It is amazing how much artistry went into a military ship of the time.

The other interesting fact is that when the ship sailed, it would have been painted in crazy colorful hues. Seriously, our guide told us that every inch would have been painted. Here are some examples:

Can you imagine? Anyway, interesting stuff.

One of the complications of our visit was that the ferries and many boats were on strike. We managed to find one boat that was running and thus went on the only trip we could. We visited one of the islands in the archipelago.

Us on the boat.

We spent 2 hours on Fjaderholmarna which is a very small island that houses a few shops, artist’s workshops, and some places to eat food–but no hot dog stands, we looked. It is a very short walk around the island but it is a beautiful one.

I never quite got comfortable on this island due to the wild birds that made it clear they didn’t like me once I started taking pictures of them. I don’t like wild birds very much. Kara was much braver than I:

No way would I ever get close to that hole in the tree. Super creepy.

Our last few hours in Stockholm were spent looking for a souvenir. Now, I am not a big cheesy touristy souvenir person. But I had in my head that I wanted a great jacket that said Sweden on it (or something). You know, because I am SO Swedish. We went into pretty much every shop we could find but sadly, I could find nothing that I could bring myself to purchase. There is really no point to me telling you this except to warn you that the souvenir situation is dire. Stockholm can’t be perfect I guess…but it is pretty close.

Next time: A morning spent in our ancestor’s hometown.

So I know, I have been writing a lot about my trip. Something you might not know about me is when I am telling a story, I have a hard time cutting it short. I love details. They add background and depth to a story. This blog serves many purposes and one of them is for me to record my memories and stories. So I am going to record the only way I know how and the way I will most enjoy reading later. Most likely I have about 5 more posts to fully cover the trip. So for those who are wondering where the knitting has gone, don’t worry, it will be back.

This morning I finally caught up on all my blog reading. I had something like 1000 unread blog posts when I got back from my vacation and I didn’t want to miss out on anything so I just read when I could. In the last couple weeks I have seen a lot of these fun “answer questions and create a mosaic” mosaics. This morning I got a yen to do my own. So here goes:

How to make a mosaic:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions (and my answers):
1. What is your first name? Erin
2. What is your favorite food? Peanut Butter
3. What high school did you go to? Punahou
4. What is your favorite color? Green
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Eric Bana
6. Favorite drink? Chocolate Milk
7. Dream vacation? Egypt
8. Favorite dessert? Ice Cream
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Mom
10. What do you love most in life? Family
11. One Word to describe you. Dreamer
12. Your flickr name. girlwhoknits

Photo Credits:

1. Erin tells a secret, 2. Peanut butter on a spoon, 3. Punahou Carnival, 4. Green apple, 5. Eric Bana, 6. Chocolate Milk, HiLo Milk, 7. (0395) Giza Plateau Egypt, 8. Chocolate Ice Cream, 9. karate kid meets flying mom - _MG_3046.JPG, 10. The Calvo Family - Holidays, 11. day. dreamer., 12. Young_Knitter_Asleep

This will be a short post which is appropriate considering the short time we spent in Bergen. We arrived in Bergen around 8pm after a long day touring Norway’s fjords. We were leaving Bergen three hours later on a night train back to Oslo. So three hours is all we had to enjoy beautiful Bergen. For the record, Kara and I would both agree that 3 hours was not enough. We could have easily spent a couple days there. But when you are on a time schedule, sometimes you just have to make do.

The best word I can use to describe Bergen is charming. Everything about it oozed charm. We spent all of the night walking around the city and hoping to find a cheap and yummy hot dog stand in the road. We we very hungry but kept getting distracted by buildings:

and statues:

gazebos:

and mountain views:

My hands down favorite place to hang out in Bergen was the harbor. This is a waterfront area with a really active social scene. Lots of restaurants, people strolling, and activity was going on. I liked its energy. Oh, and it is beautiful:

We never did get our hot dog (that came later in the trip and it was SO worth the wait.) Someday I will come back to Bergen and when I do I will give it the time and attention it deserves. But for this trip, I was glad at the very least I got to spend this time there. Don’t you worry Bergen, I will be back. (preferably when you are warm and sunny)

Next: We arrive in the homeland.

When we first talked about our itinerary in Norway, Kara mentioned that we needed to see the fjords. I quickly agreed, probably saying something like “of course”. I think we may have talked about it a couple of times before I finally fessed up and admitted that I didn’t know what a fjord is. Wikipedia defines a fjord as “a long, narrow inlet with steep sides, created in a valley carved by glacial activity.”

But even after that explanation, I am not sure I fully understood what a fjord is until I saw this:

But let’s back up shall we? Our day began at 8:11am when our train from Oslo departed on it’s way to Myrdal. Then at Myrdal we switched to a different, more scenic train to take us to Flam.

Kara with the train.

Sometimes I am very artistic.

Flam (or at least what we saw of Flam) is a beautiful outpost catering to fjord sightseers. From there you buy tickets to go on various boat cruises and you maybe shop the thousands of souvenirs. We had about 50 minutes before our boat cruise began so we ended up looking at a lot of Norwegian sweaters and hats. When we grew tired of browsing those, we went outside and took some pictures with the trolls.

I have this picture of me at Epcot Center years ago, crouching down next to a troll–when we saw these guys it dawned on me, I have been to Norway before. Granted, it was Disney’s version of Norway but still. I even now remember that there is a fjord ride there. So I am not as unaware as I thought–just forgetful.

While we were in Flam, it began to rain. We were a little worried this would disturb our boat cruise but turns out, nothing really could. We boarded the boat to Gudvangen and pretty much the whole time we are seeing views like this:

And this:

Can you imagine living right there? Amazing.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Kara:

There were a bunch of other people on the boat but the weather made it so many people stayed inside a lot of the cruise. This enabled the more hard core of us to not be as crowded when looking at the views.

There was however, this one couple. It didn’t matter how hard it was raining or how many people surrounded them, they would not leave their post by the flag pole. Seriously, they never left. Nor would they really talk to each other. Or express emotion of any kind. We know, we watched them. Normally I wouldn’t care but I really did want them to move. Finally, after about an hour and a half at their post, they inexplicably moved. I seized the moment and finally got the picture I had been wanting:

A very patriotic fjord.

We loved the fjords. Kara even made up a new adjective: fjord-y. Honestly, we could have spent all day on that boat were it not for the cold. I feel in the interest of full disclosure we should show you what we really looked like while on the boat. First Kara:

And me:

In case you knitters can’t tell, I am rockin’ my gauntlets on this trip.

So yes, we were cold, but honestly I don’t remember this day as being miserable. There was no way it could have been. Besides, the weather just gave me an excuse to buy my favorite Norway souvenir:

Awww, yeah! Norway socks.

After the cruise we took a bus from Gudvangen to Voss. From Voss we boarded a train to Bergen. This whole series of trips we went on is what people refer to as “Norway in a Nutshell”. Trust me, this is something you really don’t want to miss. (I was going to say something like, “this is a nut you are going to want to crack” or something cheesy like that but it was too hard to pretend to say it seriously.  But really, go see the fjords.  Trust me.)

Next up: Bergen

Kara, Dad, and Me in Hong Kong

“Remember who you are”

That is what my Dad would always say to us when we left the house.  I am not sure I always had a specific answer for “who” I was but I knew I was meant to watch myself–to always honor my family and to hold tight to my personal integrity.  Years later I still hear his voice when I leave for my day. Because of him and my strong mother at his side, I now very clearly know who I am.

I love my Dad.