Sweden

Stockholm quickly became one of my favorite cities in the world. It's got the perfect mix of lively activity, clean air, and active citizens. People walk or bike nearly everywhere, and there are lots of cute shops, delicious restaurants, and fun sites. It's a bit less expensive than Norway, but can still be fairly pricey. The city spreads over about 14 islands and the buildings are as cute as can be. Despite being a fairly big city (around 2 million including the suburbs) the town has lots of green areas close by.

Spent the first day exploring with the wimmers and then drove up to their friend's house in Uppsala. Picked arman up from the airport the next day and then drove to their cabin on an island on the baltic sea. spent a wonderful midsummers eating strawberry cake, listening to traditional music, and watching kids play many traditional races. The kids were dressed to a t, and seemed to have been taken straight out of a polo/ralph lauren magazine. We also all danced around the maypole and sang songs....hands down it was one of the best holiday celebrations yet....everyone was smiling and laughing and having a blast. That night we had a traditional midsummer's meal, including herring and aquavit. The wimmers supplied us with wonderful french wines, so the meals were five course meals including the drinks;) champagne to start, a shot of aquavit, a glass of wine, a glass of belgium beer, followed by some brandy at the end. not too shabby;) Took a ride on the sailboat one day, as well as the little two-person sailboat. Went swimming in the freezing water (18c or thereabouts). also went fishing for herring...although I seemed to have brought the bad luck as we only caught about 6 and they claimed they usually grab a bucketful in under 30 min. went back to stockholm and explored the city more with arman. went to see the vasa ship, which sank 30 min into its maiden voyage due to being top heavy. an absolutely stunning ship though. so many detailed wood carvings and detailed work went into it.

Headed for two days over to vasa, finland to try to trace my grandma's family down. Didn't get too far as we think my great grandpa may have changed his name when coming to the states...we found a karl oskar nordberg who was born just 11 days earlier, but he had only sisters compared to my great grandpa's 7 brothers and only one sister. anyhoo, vasa was a rather dull town with common shops and not much to do. met an amazing bartender the first day at the hotel though, who brought us to vora, a geneological place that had lots of information. finland was quite different from norway and sweden as most people did not speak much english. they also tended to look much more russian. the swedes and norweigans have perfect english with hardly any accent, which they say they get from watching tv with subtitles. they are also the most beautiful people i have ever seen.

have been back in stockholm the last few days and have been enjoying the time strolling through the city, doing some shopping and snapping pictures. looking forward to being back in the states shortly!

Norway

Flew from Iran to Stockholm and then Oslo, which was an adventurous day. Topped it off by meeting my aunt and mom, who had managed to nearly lose a passport twice that day (all the while it was somewhere on the body). Finally we arrived in Oslo, after much hysteria. A nice Norweigan man offered to drive us to our hotel and he gave us a brief tour of Oslo on the way. It's a cute little city, much like Minneapolis. Laid back and quiet but very cute. Spent the next day wandering around the city-it is ridiculously expensive. The city bus cost $8 per person one way! We went out to dinner at a "nice, inexpensive" italian restaurant...one personal pizza, a pasta, and a caraf of wine later, and it cost us $100. Went to see a few viking ships, which were pretty cool. Spent the rest of the day walking around town and shopping. On the bus ride we saw a bunch of young norweigan school children who were as cute as could be...all blond hair and blue eyes which was quite a contrast to Iran;) The next day we took a train ride out and saw the beautiful norweigan countryside....rocky, very green with trees everywhere and in the middle of the country we past by a region with a few feet of snow everywhere and not a thing in sight. Got of in flam and took a very scenic little train through the valleys and by some amazing waterfalls. Then boarded a boat and rode through the fjords to our hotel...in the middle of nowhere on a fjord with stunning views.

The next day we went to see a glacier and enjoyed some more boating expeditions on the fjords. Talked to some kids working at the hotel and found out that they were mostly austrians, as Norweigans only work an average of 6 hours a day, and they expect too much pay. The Scandinavian countries serve amazing buffet breakfasts with a huge variety of food. Everything from fresh breads, cheese, meats, fruits, eggs, meat, fish, pancakes and sometimes even espresso. Quite a change from flat bread and feta cheese everyday for 3 months;) Next morning we nearly missed the boat to Bergen, a cute little town on the coast with lots of old style houses and fun little shops. It's quite a big city (for norway at least) and had a lot of character to it. Hands down, Norway is the most beautiful country (landscape wise) that I have seen. It's a beautifully rugged country, that reminds me of a more hilly northern minnesota, although mn pales in comparison. words and pictures just don't do it justice.

Isfahan and Kashan

Headed to Isfahan to visit haleh and kia and had a blast. It is one of the most beautiful cities in iran that i have seen thus far. the fresh air up at the base of the mountains where they lived was also well needed. spent a day touring the city and learned lots of amazing things. all the ancient buildings had some inciteful trick built into them. also saw a pigeon tower where thousands of years ago they collected pigeon dung for maneur...apparently england wants to copy this now. they killed the predators of the pigeons-rats and snakes by ingenious methods...snakes by pitchers filled with milk that they would get stuck in, and the rats by putting wet flour on the ground that would harden in their stomachs and kill them. also saw the shaking minarets which were impressive. sat out and enjoyed some of the lovely bridges also. saw an old armenian church still in use today which was absolutely beautiful...also saw the piece of hair on exhibit there where a guy wrote on it with diamond. had a memorable moment at the abbasi hotel cafe where i asked for the bill by asking for the "hissab surat."

kia, haleh and i then took the bus to kashan, in between isfahan and tehran. went out and saw the little mountain town of absineh which was somewhat similar to sirince in turkey. you could wander the streets and buy lots of local foods they made...the faludeh was amazing. we also went to see how they made rose water and about 30 other eraghs. had a cute little taxi driver who on the way, offered us tea, cookies, sugar cubes, nuts and fruit. i joked that he had the kebabs in the trunk;) also saw an underground tunnel/cave area where the worshippers of mitra built many, many years ago. walked around and saw some beautiful and huge housed in kashan. we saw one that was so big it was being turned into a hotel and was absolutely gorgeous, with a hamum inside.

all in all, it was a great getaway from the busy, crowded and polluted streets of tehran;)