I’ve had trouble finding time to blog this week because I’ve been potty training Harper. On the plane ride home on Monday I promised Harper that I left all of the diapers in England, and true to my word we jettisoned the diapers as soon as we got home. When I tried this a few months ago, I put her in underwear and she thought it was perfectly fine to pee in them, so this time we are going naked. Buck naked. Apparently it’s no fun to pee on the floor (and yourself) when you’re naked, so she’s done pretty well making it to the potty. I think she is part camel because she will hold it for five or six HOURS before she explodes. I’m also a little confused about how to potty train someone who takes a 3 or 4 hour nap every day. I put her in pull-ups for nap time, and she’s starting to realize that she can just hold it until nap time. I think this is going to be a longer process than originally anticipated…

Anyway, on to Copenhagen! After spending a week in London we hopped on a plane and flew to Copenhagen, Denmark to meet up with Ya Ya, Pop Pop and Uncle Kevin. Pop Pop is teaching in Copenhagen this summer and has an adorable little apartment with enough, well not quite enough, room for all of us. Uncle Kevin was kind enough to sleep in the living room to make room for us. The first night we were there we attempted to all sleep in the same room (squeezing two pack n plays on either side of our bed). Harper proved to us again why we don’t do this by enthusiastically waking her brother up every time we tried to put her to sleep. After that she bunked with Ya Ya and Pop Pop and did just fine, although Pop Pop complained that she was “cutting in on his action.” Gross.

Copenhagen is a much bigger city than I imagined it to be and was shockingly different than both D.C. and London. The first day we were there it was warm and sunny, but the rest of the week was cold. Very cold. And windy. On top of that, the city is pretty dirty and apparently it’s perfectly okay to graffiti anything, including trains! The Danes love rules, such as only 4 people in a taxi at any time (and babies count as people) and absolutely no jaywalking even if there isn’t a car for miles. Perhaps the most shocking thing for us was how expensive the city was. The prices were unimaginable! We went out for pizza on our first night there and they were $30 each. For an individual pizza. Add in drinks and that’s almost a $200 pizza dinner for the 5 adults! I took a photo of a shoe stand selling Crocs (real ones) for $65 each. The place is seriously expensive people.

Despite the cold weather, funny rules and sticker shock, we came to enjoy Copenhagen during our week there. The “Old City” is beautiful and is what I pictured Scandinavia to look like. Nyhaven, this colorful little area on the water, is adorable and Harper spent about an hour eating a hot dog and watching boats. One of our favorite things were the hot dogs. I do NOT like hot dogs in general, but holy cow these things were good! They have hot dog stands all over the city that sell these huge hot dogs stuffed into pieces of French bread. They are amazing and I will never again say that hot dogs are yucky after eating those!

 

We spent one day at Tivoli Gardens, which is one of the oldest amusement parks in the world. Walt Disney apparently visited Tivoli 5 or 6 times before deciding to build Disneyland in California. When you walk through Tivoli you can see traces of Disney World/Disneyland everywhere. It’s obvious that Walt Disney used it as his inspiration. Despite the Danes’ love for rules, there are very few rules at Tivoli. So few, in fact, that Harper and Roman were able to ride almost everything. Harper loved the roller coasters and Roman was all smiles on the airplane rides. I still can’t believe they let us take him on those!

 
Other outings during the week included a trip to Roskilde to visit the Viking museum (featuring the original Viking ships found on the bottom of the sea), a visit to Rosenborg Castle, lots of sightseeing walks around the city, and a day trip to Malmo, Sweden. (Fam at Viking Museum):

 
We LOVED Malmo and got lucky that the day we were there was (1) Swedish high school graduation and (2) the beginning of a weekend international street festival. Apparently Swedish graduation is famous all over the world, but this was the first we had heard of it. Very literally heard, actually, because when we got off the train you could hear it for miles. The students all don sailors caps and march through the streets blowing whistles and fog horns while drinking champagne straight from the bottle. After about 4 hours of marching around like this, they all pile into huge trucks (like dump trucks) that they have decorated and pimped out with giant sound systems, and someone drives them all in a circle while they dance, drink more, and scream a lot. It was amazing and I’m so glad that we got to witness it! Harper thought it was a parade, of course. Here’s a shot of one of the trucks:
 
Harper got some new kicks in Sweden and tried to get some for her duck, too:

Our week in Scandinavia was definitely more difficult than our week in London for several reasons. One, the weather made it harder to take the kids outside so they were cooped up a lot. Also being with other people made it hard to stick to kid-friendly activities. Harper had a hard time keeping a good attitude about things since she wasn’t getting as much play time. We learned that if we’re going to travel with family, it’s better to stick to our own agenda (or lack of agenda) and just try to meet up for meals rather than drag the kids along to adult things. We still had a great time and it was fun to share the memories with grandparents (and Uncle!)

After Copenhagen we had one more day at Windsor to relax before getting on the plane to come home. Our flight home was at 11 AM England time, so we didn’t expect them to sleep the entire flight. We got SO lucky and the stewardess moved the two guys next to us to Business Class, so we had a whopping 5 seats (in the bulkhead row) to ourselves. That move made me a British Airways customer for life! The kids each took a decent 3-hour nap in their car seats and were awake for the rest of the flight. They did pretty well considering how long the flight is, but we had to take a few walks up and down the aisles to burn off some energy.

Leaving was really hard for us because we had such an amazing time, but I will say it is so nice to be home and back in a normal routine. The kids are sleeping and napping great in their own beds and are back to having great attitudes!