Cold, rainy, windy but loving it

Another very nice breakfast buffet in the hotel this morning.
We took these pictures in the morning before breakfast.  They were scenes all right outside our hotel.

Today we drove back in the direction from which we had come because we wanted to go to Kristiansund, which is where we were supposed to have gone yesterday, but the flight cancellation just kind of messed our schedule up a little bit.  So, we crossed again with the big ferry and this time the weather was much colder, rainier and windier.  But the ferry has nice warm rooms inside so we again got out of the car, but this time we didn't hang around outside at all.
Once off the ferry, we took a road that headed more to the west so that we could drive closer to the North Sea.  It was a really nice drive with some absolutely outstanding views.  Again, it was quite cold and windy and it rained periodically.

We are now taking a road called the Atlantic Ocean Road.  To me it was a beautiful road, and showed Norway at its roughest.  In these pictures, we climbed a hill in really really cold and windy weather but it was worth it to get the pictures.

Then we stopped at a little place that we thought was open, but it was closed.  We looked around a little before it started pouring rain.

It was still pouring rain when we reached this little cafe where we stopped to have hot chocolate.  Oh, that hot chocolate tasted SO good in this weather.  This was about the coldest spot so far, with the rain and the wind whipping.  But we walked around in it anyway, so we could get some pictures of the bridge we had just crossed.

Tonight we are in Kristiansund.  It is a perfect postcard image of Norway.  And way too cold to do any hanging around outside.  This is a picture out the window of our hotel room.

We drove around looking for a restaurant and found a perfect seafood restaurant along one of the harbors. 

We peeked at the harbor before going into the restaurant.

We've just been served our food and we found it to be delicious! We all had excellent food there - even tried some whale meat!!

Great breakfast in the hotel this morning.  We sure wish we were able to eat tons of food because that breakfast buffet was one of the best.  The only breakfast buffet that rivals this one was the breakfast buffet we had a couple of years ago at the Hilton Hotel Slussen in Stockholm.
Last night, Guillermo and I ordered fish cakes from the hotel's restaurant and boy were they delicious.  They had smaller versions of those fish cakes in the breakfast buffet so I was able to enjoy them again in the morning.
Guillermo, John and Bill went to the airport in the morning to check about John's suitcase.  It wasn't available so they asked for it to be held when it did come in and John will just pick it up when we come back through Trondheim.  While they did that, I walked across the bridge that we could see from our hotel room and took a couple of pictures.

This is the name of the town where we stayed.  Some of us felt it was a very fitting name when we arrived here yesterday.

The view from the bridge - the water was like a mirror.

After checking out, we did a little shopping in the small mall that was across from the hotel.   John bought a few items of clothing, we all picked up a few things from the grocery store and I also bought a new umbrella!
Our drive to Alesund was simply spectacular.  Norway is ANOTHER beautiful country!!!
The mountains lined up along the water were exactly how I pictured Norway.  We had coolish, cloudy weather with periods of light rain and we also had to take two ferries.

Here comes the first ferry we caught.

Here our car is in a line to catch the next ferry, so I got out and sat on the rocks to take these pictures.

That's our ferry arriving in the distance.

These pictures were taken from the ferry.

It was almost dark when we got to Alesund so we did not get to see too much of it.  Maybe we'll get a chance tomorrow.
Since it was already dark, we just walked around a few streets looking for a restaurant, didn't find one, so we ate at the hotel's restaurant.  The portions were minimal but the food was good.

Ha-Ha, the fun of traveling!

So, we are stuck in the Stockholm airport.  There are no pictures from this day.  Too hectic.
Got here nice and early taking the Arlanda Express from the train station in Stockholm.  Found our gate, got some food to eat and were sitting around without a care in the world waiting for our flight to Trondheim, Norway, when our friend Connie came up to us and said, "Our flights been CANCELLED!!!"
Plenty of scrambling around after that and waiting in long lines to get another flight to Trondheim.  With the new flights, (each one of us couples on a different flight), there was no way we would all arrive early enough to go with our original plan of renting a car in Trondheim and driving to another town called Kristiansund - where our hotel reservation is for this night.  So, more scrambling around to cancel the hotel in Kristiansund and make new reservations in Trondheim.  New plane reservations from Stockholm to Oslo to Trondheim.  Yippee!  The airline gave us a food voucher for our troubles - which BARELY covers a small hamburger.  Oh well.  It will have to do as it's better than nothing.
We'll see how this being half a day behind now is going to affect this trip!
Update to our day:
So, we got two small hamburgers, fries and a coke with our vouchers - plus an ice cream because we wouldn't get any money back if we didn't use the whole thing.  It was a decent lunch, if not a healthy one.  Then it was time to get on our plane.  Our flight went fine.  One thing we learned about SAS airlines today.  They unload passengers through both the front and the back.  On the first flight, we were waiting for the guy in the aisle to start heading to the back because that end was finishing first.  He just stood there and looked at us with a wry smile.  But when he noticed we wanted to go out, he moved aside like, well, suit yourself.  I saw why later.  Those who go out the front get to go down a covered hall from the plane to the concourse.  Those who go out the back have to climb down stairs from the plane, then climb BACK up stairs to get to the same little hallway that the people from the front had just gone out of.  I saw the guy who let us go around him inside the plane, way ahead of us, walking inside, looking down at us with a look like, guess you all know why I wouldn't go....
A casualty of our stop in Oslo - I lost my umbrella.  In the grand scheme of things, that's nothing really, but it upsets me to think that I didn't remember it, wherever it was that I left it.
It was dark by the time we got to Trondheim.  We got off the plane, got our stuff,  picked up our rental van and then headed to our hotel - which is extremely nice.  A little pricier than we would have liked, but all we could get with these last minute change of plans.  So, the evening ended with us being able to relax in a very nice place.
John and Angie's plane didn't arrive until 10:40 that evening and when they finally arrived, it was without John's suitcase.  So, there go our plans for the next day.  Supposedly they will deliver it tomorrow by 1pm - and we had wanted to take off relatively early.  Oh well, nothing that can be done except wait.  Lots of waiting lately......

Europe again...

On September 15th, we went back to Europe.  We are going to stay in Spain again, this time for 3 months.  We are traveling, though, for the first two weeks with friends of ours - visiting Sweden and Norway.  So, we are in Stockholm right now.  Tomorrow we leave for Norway.  The weather has been absolutely fabulous.
September 15th - our day of travel
We had to leave VERY early from home to get to the airport early for our 8am flight to Houston.  Flight to Houston was good.  After a short layover, we flew on to Newark, New Jersey.  It was neat flying into Newark because we could see the skyline of Manhattan, the tower that replaced the twin towers and we saw the Statue of Liberty.
We steeled ourselves as we got off the plane for the horribly long trek we knew was coming to get to our next gate for the flight to Stockholm.  Imagine our absolute shock when we arrived at Gate C75 and our next flight was out of Gate C74.  It was almost too good to be true.  We even questioned the agent, "Is this really right?!?!?!?"  He laughed and said yes it is.
It was at this point that we met John and Angie, who arrived from their flight at a different terminal so THEY did have a long trek to this gate.  They got to the gate with hardly any time to spare.  We were surprised at how small and crowded the plane was to cross the ocean.  3 seats on either side and very narrow.  But the flight was good, the food was decent, and that's half the battle.
September 16th
Tired but happy, we arrived in Stockholm's airport.  We got on a Flygbus for the hour drive to downtown Stockholm's Central Station and from there we caught a taxi to our hotel.
It was with total dismay that we found that the hotel doesn't have a reception and the code we were given to open the door to the hotel would not work.  We are very very tired and just not ready for this kind of hassle.  Eventually someone opened the outside door so we slipped in with them.  Someone who was getting on the elevator told us that is how it works at this hotel - guest's access codes don't work until the check -in time of 4pm.  We just felt sick about the whole situation.  We knew our room number so we go to the floor our rooms are on, but there is another access door there and again, the code won't work.  We have visions of spending 6 hours sprawled out on the floor and stairs trying to get a little rest and none of us were happy at all at that prospect.
Then, a little later, we run into the same people on the 5th floor that we ran into earlier down below.  They said we were welcome to use the bathroom in their room, which we gladly accepted.  So, that got us into the hallway where the rooms are.  When we left their room, we thought we'd let Guillermo and John into the hallway and then we'd camp out at the end of the hallway - which was preferable to sleeping by the elevator and stairs.  But when we got back to the door to let them in, Guillermo said someone who works at that hotel had miraculously come by the 5th floor and he had given them a new access code to one of the rooms.  Our room.  So, the code did work and we all entered that room as if we had won the lottery.  We put our luggage aside and unfolded the two fold-out couches.  John and Angie crashed on those and we crashed on our beds and stayed in those spots for the next 6 hours!!
That evening we had dinner at The Flying Dog restaurant and went to bed early!
September 17th
Today we took a Hop-on Hop-off bus around the city, had lunch in Gamla Stan - where someone grabbed Bill's backpack off the back of his chair and RAN!   We were just eating peacefully when all of a sudden Bill and Connie jumped up from the table and started running out of the restaurant.  I thought they had seen someone fall or something.  Guillermo ran after them and as Bill was shouting Stop!  Thief!, that alerted some guys who then tackled the guy to the ground.  They held him there until the police arrived.  So, fortunately, Bill did not lose his backpack.  Of course, after that we were all a little more diligent about how we placed our items while eating.  Later we did the Hop-on Hop-off boat, too.

September 18th
We went to Djurgarden and while the other couples visited the Vasa Museum, Guillermo and I walked back across the bridge, looked at the boats and then had a nice snack in a cafe along the river.  The weather was so nice and we just enjoyed sitting there with our coffee, hot chococlate and dessert.

View from the bridge that goes from Strandvagen to Djurgarden - this is one of our favorite spots in Stockholm.

We just love strolling down and looking at all the boats.

Enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery at the cafe along the river.

  Then we walked through the park along the lake to the Biology Museum.  That was a very interesting museum and we are glad we visited it.

Beautiful flowers in Djurgarden across from the Biology Museum

This is how it is in the Biology Museum.  Nice 360 degree painting panorama with birds and animals placed in their habitats.  Then, with a paper, it's like going on a treasure hunt trying to find each animal and bird in each window section.

Then it was time to meet the others at Skansen.  This picture is from an old farmhouse in Skansen.  Just wanted to show how the swings were for babies back then.

Nice windmills in Skansen

Some more pictures from our visit to Tucson

Pictures Fernando took in Tucson

Scotty was so excited and happy to meet his aunt and uncle!

Will you one of these days take me to look for monkeys, Uncle Fernando?

Being able to get these next two pictures was the best.

I know some pictures were taken with Jason in them, when we all went out to eat at El Charro.  But I don't know what happened to them......

We've just been quite busy getting our house ready for Miguel!  We moved out of our room about 3 days ago and fixed it all up for him and his wife Eva.  Now we're just trying to fix up the rest of the house a little bit.  Of course, now that someone else is coming to stay in our house, we are having a few issues with the house.  The carpet in our room has bunched up in two places.  And it looks like it's starting to do that also in our closet.  The water/ice dispenser on our refrigerator makes a jack-hammer type noise when you press the lever for ice or water.  We got that checked out and it would cost too much to get that fixed right now.  And our dishwasher works, but it looks like we're going to have to get a new one when we get back.

Other than that, what's been going on is that today is Fernando's 3rd day of teaching at the University of Calgary.  He started on Monday - and it snowed that day!!!  September 8th!!!  Pretty much, since that weekend, it's been cold and snowy up there.  Fernando says he has been SO busy with his classes and he's looking forward to finally getting internet in his apartment on Friday!
This is a picture Fernando sent us from Calgary.  Keeping in mind that it is early September.

And last but not least, little Scotty is just growing by leaps and bounds.  Yesterday we received two pictures of him crawling out of his room and then another picture of him sitting down at the end of the hallway.  In that picture, he just seems so amazed by what he just did and is in awe of the possibilities that lie before him!

And he's off!!!

And here's a glimpse in what Scotty did this past weekend!