on the road: Iceland, Copenhagen & Sweden

For my big, visit-a-new-country-every-year trip, I off and went to Scandinavia and visited THREE new countries with my dear friend Lisa.  I've been wanting to see that part of the world for a while and it turns out Lisa has some family in Sweden and also wanted to travel there, so it was perfection.  We had a couple whirlwind days in Iceland and Copenhagen respectively, and then traveled to Sweden for a week for midsummer, the first few days in Stockholm and the rest out in the country.  It never got dark - never.  A lot of beautiful sights, warm people and unforgettable memories.  Here are some photos.

Iceland

 (church on top of the hill in Reykjavik)

 (horseback riding through a volcano field)

 (Þingvellir National Park - home of the world's largest glacial lake and where North America and Europe meet)

(Lupin field)

 (beautiful falls)

(blue lagoon)

(sunset - at 11:56pm, and then the sun comes right back up)

 (goodnight and goodbye, Reykjavik)

Copenhagen

 (Tivoli Garden in Copenhagen)

 (down by the waterfront)

 (Little Mermaid statue)

Sweden

 (Gamla Stan, the old part of Stockholm)

 (Drottningholm Palace, the summer palace for Swedish royalty)

 (any place I go, I always want to visit the food market)

 (The Vasa Museum)

 (Cathedral out in Uppsala)

 (old viking stone)

 (the house we stayed at for midsummer in Leksand - yeah)

 (making midsummer crowns with Lisa's cousin)

 (I wore mine all day)

 (traditional midsummer feast - lots of pickled fish, vegetables, cheese and flatbread)

 (during midsummer, you sing and drink snaps)

 (another midsummer party, in a barn, no less!)

 (midsummer processional)

 (raising of the maypole.  It's the largest midsummer maypole rising, and it's massive - it took over an hour and several men to raise it!)

 (dancing around the maypole)

 (gathering flowers for the neighborhood maypole)

 (our amazing hosts)

 (dala horse museum, which this region and Sweden are famous for)

 (Anders Zorn's home)

(Carl Larrson's home)