Norway

I am significantly behind in blog posting- but here is the thing that I am motivated to write about right now because it is fresh in my mind: Norway!

So as I said previously, Katy and I decided to throw a cruise into this RTW itinerary, and I'm so glad we did! My two friends from home, Emily and Kelli, met us on the ship (literally, about an hour and a half before we sailed out of Dover)- and the four of us had a phenomenal time.

I don't have time to write in full, but hopefully I can highlight the week with the pictures and captions below :)

Dinner the first night

Our first day off the ship we were in Oslo, Norway! Oddly enough, Katy and I actually have two friends currently living in Norway (one from Oslo, one from Sweden) that we knew from previous travels, so the four of us met up with BOTH of them and wandered around Oslo for a bit.

Vigeland Sculpture Park:

Angry Boy, the most famous statue in the park

Skagan!

Our friend Dennis, who we know from trekking in Nepal (this past April)

And our friend Elise, who we know from Peru last year

After the six of us had lunch, we ditched the two locals and headed out on more touristy ventures.....like the Viking Ship museum!  As far as museums go, this one was actually pretty interesting and was laid out really well.

And then back to the ship for some Taboo:

Em gets really into it.......

And some dinner!

Performing some sort of magic trick

My favorite part of the whole cruise.....sunset each night was at 1030 or later...and if you went outside around 1 or 2 am, it was still light out :)

View of the sunset during the end of dinner :)

1:30 am- no joke

And on to Kristiansand!

Biggest church in Norway

We did a boat trip around the coastline

And now my favorite day in Norway: Stavanger, where we did a breathtaking hike up to the top of Pulpit Rock. The ascent only took about an hour and a half, but we had to take a bus and a ferry to get there and back, so the whole thing ended up taking all day---in fact, it took so long that we almost missed our ship! (The all aboard time was 430 and we were still on the ferry back to the port at 435. Needless to say, I am sure the locals were entertained by 4 Americans sprinting through town to the cruise port.)  Luckily, we hopped on board at a timely 445 (woooops) and they pulled up the gangplank immediately behind us :)

Ferrying across

The hike took us through a wooded area before we hit a super rocky area on the side of a giant cliff :) 

And that, my friends, is Pulpit Rock! Not for those who are scared of heights....

Thats us four if you can't tell :)

After we got back on board, we did some scenic cruising through the Fjords:

This picture is quite late at night as well....still light out!

And more sunsets.....

And our final Norweigan city, Ulvik! We did a whole lot of nothing in this town- but the scenery was absolutely beautiful:

Kel with our waiter

I have so much more to share with you all and hopefully will soon! We are currently in Scotland (and this might take the cake of most beautiful place I have ever been......), and prior to the cruise we spent a great week with our friend Brandon in England....more details on all of that later!