Just a few photos from our last day in New York!

Read more »

Photos from our third day. Just one day left!

Read more »

Finally back again and ready to blog about the rest of our New York trip!

Here are some photos from our second day.

Read more »

We’re back home from New York!

We’re at my parents’ house over Christmas and I only had time to upload photos from day one before we left again, so the rest will be coming after Christmas.

When I went through the photos I realised Henrik had taken all of them, so he wasn’t in a single photo himself. I didn’t bring a camera of my own since he has this new fancy one that’s a hundred times better anyway, and I didn’t think of borrowing it. I feel kind of bad about that!

Anyway, we had a great time even though my feet hurt like crazy from all the walking. Here are the photos from the night we arrived, and our first full day in New York.

Read more »

On the last day we went to Disneyland Paris. We’ve been there once before in 2006. It was the first Disney park we visited so I thought it might be fun to revisit one more time.

I didn’t have very high expectations, but I was still pretty disappointed. It’s a beautiful park (though not as well maintained as the US parks) with the undoubtedly best looking castle of any Disney park, and the best themed Tomorrowland (called Discoveryland). They even have a “live” dragon! Another highlight was the loading area of Pirates of the Caribbean which was beautiful, although you could see the ceiling clearly.

However, the mood at Disneyland Paris is so vastly different from the American parks that I adore. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what it is, but it feels like there’s a general un-enthusiasm in both guests and employees.

I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing but people just seem ruder. I was stepped on and bumped into so many times in the queues without any apologies.

I think the best ride was definitely Big Thunder Mountain, which is somewhat different but still very similar to the Disneyland and Disney World versions. Space Mountain was both good and bad. It felt faster and more “extreme” than the Disneyland version which I love (the Disney World version is really boring in comparison), but the seats were terrible in that you continuously bumped your head into the headrest so hard that we both came out with headaches and decided not to go again. The music was also very faint and boring compared to the Disneyland version.

I’d say if you’re a Disney park enthusiast it’s definitely worth going once to check out the theming and the differences from the other parks, but otherwise I can’t say I recommend it. I do remember it as being more enjoyable the first time I visited, but I don’t know if that’s selective memory, if it actually has become worse, or if my visits to the US parks have set my standards too high.

If you want to see more photos from our trip check out Henrik’s flickr. He was the photographer for pretty much all the photos except the ones he’s in.

Read more »

We went to Paris mostly to visit Disneyland, but we thought that since we’re in Paris anyway we should put in another day for some shopping and nothing in particular. We quickly realised though, that without anything special planned, we don’t really like Paris, and ended up spending most of the day reading and watching tv in our hotel room.

We did go to Ladurée for a few macarons and to top up our Ladurée tea stash. I find the macarons more fun than actually delicious, but Ladurée makes the best teas I’ve had. I recommend Marie Antoinette (my favourite), Melange Ladurée and their Earl Grey.

Read more »

We spent our third day in Brighton, which I liked a lot. Beautiful town and nice shops, and the Pavilion was amazing. Brighton in many ways felt like a British mini San Francisco.

Read more »

The next day we went for an even longer walk, to the ocean and back. Both of our walks were amazing and Alfriston and its surroundings was great. It was very cool to actually see that stereotypically picturesque English countryside that you see on tv shows. Definitely one of my favourite vacation spots so far. The only downside was that since it’s a tiny village there weren’t a lot of food options, and you could only get groceries at the village store which closed early.

Read more »

We came back from our vacation the day before yesterday and I’ve just finished sorting through the photos from our first evening and day in Alfriston, a small village in East Sussex.

Read more »