Europe #2 for 2007 - a Re-Cap of Trip #1

We have just signed on for our second trip to Europe this year. We usually take this trip in early spring every year. Seeing as I will be a little big to lug around for travel that time of year with the baby, and well, being due in April/May could be an issue... we have promptly planned to travel ASAP! I swear, every time we plan this trip it is never a "plan"...it is more of a rush out! I guess it takes away the waiting and anticipation though. We will be heading out the Monday following the Thanksgiving holiday.

The last two times I have gone on this trip have been to Göteborg, Sweden combo'd with Barcelona, Spain. This time though, we are doing the second part in Italy, Rome. I'm sure the doctor is going to disagree.

The trip is an overseas delivery through the Volvo Factory in Sweden. We buy a 2008 Volvo XC70 to Göteborg (or "Gothenberg" how Americans pronounce it) and stay two nights, go to the Volvo Factory to check out the car, play around in town a bit and then head off to Rome for the remainder of the trip (3 days). [these top 3 photos were taken at the factory]

The first hotel is a Radisson SAS (Scandanavian Travel - European versions of the Radisson). This is one of the best hotels I have ever stayed in. The entire center (pictured here) is a massive atrium. The interior rooms have balconies overlooking the center here. The rooms are also very stylish and chick, all newly remodeled since our trip in 2005.

We also get the hotel breakfast service at the places we stay. I'm telling you, this is not some dingy stale food convention... they go ALL OUT to feed you at the breakfast buffet. It's a big deal! They have every kind of cereal, milk eggs, meats, fruits, sauteed mushrooms... you name it, anything you could ever ask for. More so, they include a kind of lunch fair in one area with breads, meats etc.... Breakfast here is really quite the event we look forward to. ;)

Our ultimate must for Sweden, is to visit our favorite little Kebab shop a couple of blocks away from the hotel. We get this dish that is simply a plate of french fries, stripe-steak on top with this amazing sauce that has a hint of spice to it. It's the magic sauce! The owner would not hand out the recipe but promptly offered to send us home with a carton of it. Unfortunately, we usually visit here first and well, it probably wouldn't keep or go through customs well. I think this is ALL we have ever eaten and will ever eat when we are in Sweden. We were going to try some high-class fancy place last time but decided we loved our little meal so much why spend the extra moolah.

Well I didn't really leave much room for Spain. Our trip this year was the best out of the two. Spain is really quite different than Sweden, but they are starting to catch up a little. The hotel is a 5 star, but is quite old fashion. The breakfast is good, but not AS great in variety as Sweden. Still good though! Spain has a lot more to do and we've scoured about every inch of Barcelona!

This year we kept pretty busy! We planned to go see Cirque du Soleil because they happened to be in town. It was a fiasco and a half, but we had finally made it to a show... got VIP [Tapis Rouge tent] treatment, and the most front row position you could get. Dead center, front row... didn't even share our seating row (about 10 seats) with anyone! The clown even came down and attacked John for throwing his paper airplane back wrong...haha. If you've ever seen one of these shows on TV or whatnot, you'd get it. Prior to the show we got to hang out in the VIP tent, also got complimentary gift bags with a CD, program, bios of show characters, our VIP necklace-tags... etc. The tent was quite plush and had cool status and masks used in the shows. Before the show we got an entire buffet of different tapas. It was a fun game not to get some weird Octopus or squid... too squishy! At intermission we got scrumptious dessert tapas. The show was amazing! See one if you haven't!!

This time we decided to do it, take the tour bus. It was actually pretty worth it. Last time we saw all we could by walking from the hotel (blocks and blocks of walking) and saw quite a bit since the hotel is centered in the middle of all some very cool structures Antoni Gaudi. If anyone could make a building interesting, it's him. Gaudi was very into mosaic which the city has continued to incorporate into their regular design. Park Guell is a massive representation of his mosaic work. Anyway... the tour buses were worth it. Very cool. Lastly, we actually went to a dance club. A kid at the ticket booth for the show recommended one that was as large as a city block and had 6 rooms (all with different music). It was quite insane and a lot of fun to see!

You have to understand that in Spain you do not go out until at least midnight. Their schedule is to get off work, hit the bar maybe have a drink and some tapas. No restaurant in their right mind is open at this hour, around 5pm. They actually close for 3 or so hours and re-open at the very earliest, 8pm. A regular time for dinner and it may be a little too early, is 10pm. The night we went out dancing, we'd taken a 2 hr. nap, got up and headed out for dinner around 10-10:30pm, made it down to the dance club around midnight and it wasn't even open yet! It was sort of in a desolate area so we walked to find a little bar to hang out at until 1am when it opened (closed at 5 am).

We did notice quite a few differences as I was saying from our 2005 trip to Barcelona. In 2005 we did not meet one single person that spoke English [everyone speaks great English in Sweden!]. The menu's were difficult (no English), etc. Mexico-Spanish did not work out well. The 2007 trip, we met quite a few younger people mainly that spoke fairly good English and restaurants we tried to read the menu at in 2005 (on the main tourist strip) had menu's with Spanish, English, Dutch, French and a couple more I think.

Oh yes, we also met a cool couple from Texas on our tour, Ren and Misty. We still keep in touch a bit. Ren also does Triathlons. We took them to the club the night after we had already gone.

So that was our trip. A lot of fun adventures. I'm looking forward to exploring Rome this time. We will have the laptop with us so instead of a huge post like this, we may try to post each day-ish to keep up (so that it's not dreadfully long). I just wanted to catch up on our previous trip. I am really looking forward to seeing the Sistine Chapel and other works by Michelangelo.