A Beautiful End - Waterfalls and Fjords in Norway

It’s been a while since our last blog. That’s because since mid June we haven’t really stopped and we’re vagabonds once again. We are without a permanent residence until our house is finished mid September. This blog is the calm before the chaos. Dave’s mom came to Lucca to take us on one last trip, a Disney Cruise to Norway. This was special because the girls got to learn a little bit about where their ancestors came from. Dorothy is 1/4 Norwegian, making Dave 1/8th, and the girls 1/16th. What does that make me? A girl who loves a lot of Norwegians!!!

From Lucca we made a quick stop in Billund, Denmark at Legoland! We even stayed in a Lego Friends room which was very cleverly themed. The park is not too unlike it’s San Diego companion (if you’ve made it there), having rides suited for our kids ages, a lot of lego creations to admire, and tons of lego to play with!

From Billund, we flew to Copenhagen where we met up with the Disney Magic. We were all excited to get on the ship to explore and see all our favorite characters, but even more than that, everyone was looking forward to a little bit of independence after a year of 24/7 togetherness. On the ship they have a fantastic lineup of kids spaces and activities as well as adult entertainment. We are so thankful to Grandma for her generosity! Coming from AirBNB’s, train schedules, and city map reading, it was such a treat to sit back and not worry about the details!

The ship made six ports of call along the Norwegian Fjords: Stavanger, Alesund, Geiranger, Molde, Olden, and Bergen.

In Stavanger we took a 3 hour boat tour of the Lyse Fjord, stopping along the way to catch some drinking water off a waterfall using a bucket, and tasting delicious waffles with jam and cream.

In Alesund we visited a village where a large crowd of locals dressed in traditional costumes helped us learn how to dance, make lefse (flatbread), play simple games, and build boats. It was a very sweet experience where we were even visited by Elsa, Anna, Hans, and Sven (it is a Disney trip after all)!

Geiranger was the most breathtaking for me. It is a town with a huge waterfall flowing right through the center. We spent the morning visiting a family farm, then Dave and I enjoyed a nice afternoon walk through town and stopped in a cafe where I devoured a moist piece of carrot cake. Cruising out of this fjord was one waterfall after another. We had the perfect vantage point from the front of the ship to view the Seven Sisters - seven waterfalls on one cliff! Baby Anna was even there to photobomb us!

In Molde, the five of us took a morning hike down the Varden mountainside, and in Olden we grabbed the last helicopter ride to get a bird’s eye view of the Briksdal Glacier.

Bergen was our last port. We had nothing planned here but to explore. We did a bit of shopping and then took the Fløibanen Funicular to the Fløyen mountain where we found a really cool playground. In true European style, it challenged the kids to be courageous and forced them to use new muscle groups. It was awesome! Once back in town, we even found a tight rope to play on (very tricky) and decided that we need to find one to put in our new yard!

After nine days of fun, we were all sad to get off the ship, but anticipating what the next few days would bring… lots of hugs and smiles from people we love back in the US. First, a quick stop in Lucca to pack up! Stay tuned!

Room with a View

For long time readers of this blog, this picture should look vaguely familiar. This is Porta San Gervasio, aka our home. Well, technically we don't live in the tower, but we are attached to it. If you look carefully at the top floor of the yellow building attached to the right tower of the gate and find the left most window that is facing perpendicular to the photo (I'll give you a moment to interpret that)....that's our apartment. Or more specifically, that's the window of our kitchen.

When we moved in we thought it was cool that we had a place attached to this amazing historic structure. As it turned out, the street that runs along in front of the gate is a rather important street and tends to be a place where lots of things happen.

Here's a view out that window on a normal day. You can see a tower off to right of this shot. If you have really good eyes, you can see Arya and my buddy Jeff walking along the street mid-picture. Also notice in the bottom left of this shot you can see a little area right where the river goes under street. There's a fountain there where we filled up our water bottles several times a week (the tap water is fine, but the fountain water is better!)

During the year, we would often be surprised by hearing noise out that window. Here a few of the things we saw out the window this year.

A marching band (you can see the fountain now on the right)!

Floods of cosplayers during the Comics and Games festival. This picture doesn't even begin to do justice the number and types of characters we saw.

A wedding celebration! That family was there for about 10 minutes. They did a dance in the street, sang some songs, and took pictures.

A motorcycle club. More came later but I forgot to get another picture.

The Lucca marathon! This race and the half-marathon later in the year ran by both sides of the apartment.

Nighttime church celebration. I wasn't able to figure out for sure what the procession was, but it appeared to be a whole congregation with candles singing and chanting as they walked.

And those are just the things we caught in pictures. All year long we have been treated to sights and sounds in our little corner of town.

• A street piano player who came probably 50% of the weekends we were around and played the same 6 songs over and over...and over........and over. 
• Holiday projections on the wall of the tower for the Christmas season. 
• Countless lost tourists who reached this part of town and realized they weren't where they thought they were and pulled out their maps (many of whom I would offer to help when I was at the fountain earning me the nickname "The Ambassador" from my loving family). 
• Lots of antics of local school kids who would hangout near the fountain waiting for buses or friends or parents.

Let's just say we have had plenty to watch. More importantly than entertaining us however, I think getting to witness all these gave us a bit more of a connection to this town. We got to witness the real people who live their lives here. In our own voyeuristic way, we got to be honorary Lucchese.