Henry's blog!

Sorry abut this being so late. I just didn’t have time.

So, the night we were taking a train to London, it was delayed. By a lot. It was supposed to take 4ish hours. Over 8 HOURS after when it was supposed to leave it finally arrived in London. And at the hostel where we stayed, there was only for beds. So yeah, fun day.

For the first full day, it was HOT. The morning was taken up by the British Museum. It was stupid crowded, so leaving early sounded like a good idea. Afterwards, cooling down involved some ice cream. Then it was the Natural History Museum.

The second full day in Britain was just some walking around. We saw Bletchley Park and overall just walked around. James saw platform 9 3/4, because he likes Harry Potter. Me and Charlie opted out.

The next day was Jame’s birthday, and also a National holiday in France. We dropped our bags off at the apartment, waited around. Afterwards we walked up to Montmarte, which lot’s off people saving seats for the fireworks.

The first full day at France started with Charlie going to a cooking class. Afterwards we took the train to Meet up with them to go to the Rodin Museum. Word of advice, Paris trains can get crowded. Not women’s march level, but still. After the Rodin museum, Mom and Dad checked out an opera, while I kept an eye on Charlie and James.

The second day was the Concierge Museum, followed by a boat tour.

The third day was the D’Orsay Museum, followed by Thor Love and Thunder, which was a good movie. The Fourth day, Mom, Dad, and James went on a super hot tour, Me and Charlie stayed behind.

As in the last post, all we did on the day we went to Galway was nothing other than resting.

The next day was a surprise surprise, walking tour! It was mainly the history of the different families who took control of Galway for a part of it’s history. One interesting story is that one of the families was called the Lynches. So, how this story goes, it might be wrong, but the father Lynch was a Magistrate, basically a judge, jury, and executioner. He had a son or one birth son and a adopted son, depending on your source. His birth son was about to be married and had a fiance. The adopted son was, ehem, fooling around with the fiance. The birth son found out and killed him. This was illegal, so the dad had to judge him. He judged him to be lynched. Part of the job was to have to carry out the sentence. So, yeah…

The next day was a boat/bus tour to some islands. It started with a bus ride to a ferry. The ferry was to an island with a castle on it. After that Island, the tour group went on a 2-hour ferry. The ferry was awful. It was raining and the waves were massive. After that boat, we finally made it the Cliffs of Moher. Unfortunately, this breaks my streak of having no pictures.

After the cliffs, it was back to the hostel and getting ready for Scotland.

The trip here was a sort of bad day. one, for about a month, no more planes, we will be using just boats and trains to get around for a bit. Also, you should have seen the massive crowd just waiting for the baggage claim to start. There was massive delays, but, coming from the crowds of people there, the workers were likely swamped by planes.

The next day, we went on yet another free walking tour. We got to see the basic run down of things to see in Dublin. We also got to see how awful those seagull #!%$^’s. While the group was crossing a bridge, a flock of seagulls started to fly by. They started pooping like crazy, and one managed to poop on Charlie’s jacket arm. At least it wasn’t the face. That would have been awful.

This was all before lunch, so it was fun walking around and seeing the abandoned hostel where Mom and Dad met for the first time. It was also fun going to the place where they ate that day.

The next day we visited the Dublinia Museum and the cathedral. The Museum and the cathedral were connected, so Mom, Dad, and James saw the cathedral. The Museum is mostly about the history of the Dublin area during the viking through middle ages mostly. No pictures of that, sorry. In the afternoon we checked out a children friendly museum nearby. I took a few pictures of interesting things in it.

The third day was a train to Galway, in which we did nothing but traveling to Galway. That’s the next post.

Sorry about this being late. So, um, I don’t really have much pictures about the short time two days we spent in Oslo. Also, the train we wen’t on wasn’t all that steep, it was a few hundred meters over the course of an hour. It wasn’t a rollercoaster.

After the train we dropped off our bags. This was Charlie’s birthday, but no one cared. We really didn’t do anything other than go to one of my Dad’s old friends for a barbecue. And yes, there was cake.

We also finished watching the Obi-wan series, so yeah!

The next day was a hot one, so the plan was to go to island and go swimming. The ferry line was extremely long, so we didn’t think it was worth it. So, the decision was made to go to a nearby park that had a beach. Though seriously, how do these people walk around barefoot on all of those small pebbles on the beach. Like, HOW?! At the end of the day, at around 9:30, we checked out the sculpture park close to our airbnb. Seriously, what was up with some of those statues.

We left for the republic of Ireland next, so see you later.

Sorry about misspelling the name last post. I didn’t really know how to pronounce it, so that was the reason for the misspelling.

And, um, leaving off from the last post, the flight to Tromso went well, other than an accident of James’s backpack, and is having to get it the next day. That was fun.

So anyways, we left on a car and reached out Airbnb at ten PM. We just ended up eating spaghetti that night. Oh, if you didn’t know, Tromso is really north, and as a result the sun never set. You can see the issue of this if you have a window. So, word of advice, if you’re going somewhere north, bring something to keep the sun out of your eyes.

The next day, we checked out the a museum and were able to see bearded seals. Sorry about not being able to post those videos. We didn’t really do anything else.

The next day we checked a geology and biology museum. No pictures, so sorry. Later in the afternoon, Charlie ran a 2 1/2 mile race. He did it in 24 minutes and 59 seconds. His goal was under 25 minutes. We left in the morning for our plane flight to Bergen to stay with my Mom’s cousin Jorg.

We dropped off our bags in his car and explored around Bergen. We then just went to his house and just relaxed. The next day, Bergen has a great natural museum. It had so much different specimens. We spent a lot of time there. The next day it was a old ruin/museum that from the middle ages. I had a headache, so I sat out.

The next day we took a ferry to see some Fjords and go to our home for the night. We just walked around and visited the midsummer celebration there and hiked to see a waterfall. That was yesterday. We are currently just are on a 5-hour train to Oslo after one hour on one of the steepest rail only trains in the world.

We left off for Estonia by an overnight ferry over the Baltic sea. It was easily the biggest boat I have ever been on, and it had a LOT. And I mean it had a freaking shopping mall and a (small) arcade, not mentioning the breakfast buffet.

After reaching Estonia we dropped off our bags and walked around. If you didn’t know, Estonia and Finland are extreme Ukraine supporters. An example of this is some signs we saw looking around.

Estonia is also extremely introverted. When the lockdown happened, people were prepared because most Estonians had work-at-home jobs. Estonia also has their voting online. Before you ask, the only reason why they are doning that is because Estonia is the El Numero Uno in cyber-security. Not in only in Europe, but the ENTIRE WORLD!

Also, both Estonia and Finland were under Russian control for some time. Their languages are both similar and equally confusing to learn. The capital of Finland, Helsinki, is within radio distance of the capital of Estonia. This was during the time of the soviet occupation. So, a funny thing that happened was a erotic movie was going to be streamed on the the Helsinki radio. All of the adults put kids to bed early. Later, after 9 months, the birth rate skyrocketed for some reason.

Okay, so now onto to our trip, we took a free tour, which is where I found out all of those little facts, like how a tourist walked up to the current minister of foreign affairs and asked him if he could smoke there. We saw all of the landmarks. Afterwards we checked out dinner and went back to the hostel.

The next day, we went to a group of towers and just looked around. Overall it was a chill day. The next day, we had to get up early to catch our ferry to Helsinki. We did a free tour around the city, and saw all sorts of cool stuff.

Then today, we are flying over to Tromzone, Norway. We went on a short hour lone flight to a layover. It’s currently 1 PM over here, but the the next flight is taking off in 5:30, so we have nothing to do until then.

Traveling to Sweden

We left for Sweden at roughly 4:30 PM. The plane didn’t really set off until 5:30. That wasn’t an issue, as this was a plane with the built in back screens. The flight to a layover to Germany was 8 hours. James was the only one to get any sleep on that flight, and even then for only an hour. We layed over there for 3 hours, then took a 3 hour flight to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. Me and Charlie just crashed almost immediately.

We then hiked over to our youth hostel:

Exploring Sweden

The next day we went the the Vasa Museum. We looked around and had fun. The Vasa is a ship who’s main body was almost perfectly intact from when it sank in the 17th century. It barely lasted 20 minutes before it sank. There was 13 recorded deaths, which could have been avoided if the ship was had even one more meter taller and one meter wider. Just that and it wouldn’t have sank when the FREAKING WIND pushed it over.

Afterwards, we went to the park nearby, and just explored. They had parks, a playground, and a zoo.

The next day is the where we took a ferry to one of the surrounding islands. We looked around the park located there. Then we took another ferry to an island 2 minutes away to check out the old military base nearby. We looked around there and went back to the hostel. Sorry, no photos.

The next day was the day we would leave, but we had some time until our overnight ferry to Estonia. So we went to the royal palace and looked around. They had gold leaf everywhere, so that was fun.

Afterwards, we went to the ferry and left for Estonia.

For all f you who do not know, I will be going on a trip around the world. My parents have been planning this for a long time. They have been saving up for this for eleven years. So that is the background behind all of this. When this happens I will be updating this constantly.

As of 7th grade for me, I will be traveling around the world, so I will post much more.