The Trip

Pictures at the bottom :)

This trip was born because Kim's brother and now sister-in-law were getting married on a boat in Amsterdam! We, of course, had to be there, and it was going to be the first time that I got to meet the vast majority of Kim's extended family. While we were across the pond, we would be silly if we didn't get up to some more European adventures!
We figured Norway in Spring could be a great time, and staying out in the country with Eef again would be make for some awesome adventures and a relaxing vibe.
Even better, my mom and younger brother were leaving on a trip to Spain just as we were in the middle of our trip, so they both ended up joining us in Norway :)

Amsterdam

Amsterdam was such a wild time! We thought we'd have time to relax, try a bunch of different cafes, and read our books between hanging out with family and doing wedding things, but it turns out we barely had time for all the family and wedding things! Thankfully we were able to squeeze in some relaxation, but it was a bit of a tall order!
We were staying outside of the main city in a little room at Camping Zeeburg. We rented bikes to get around a little more independently, which turned out to be an even faster way to the city center than public transit! Even so, it took us ~22 minutes to get to the city center every day, then 22 minutes back in the evenings.
Clearly, we did a TON of biking! It was really fun to bike all over Amsterdam, the strong bike infrastructure was sooo cool, and it was a really fun challenge to navigate safely with both bikes and cars zipping around and people wandering aimlessly.
We were pretty jet lagged from the get-go, and honestly I don't think we ever really stopped being jet lagged. We were constantly staying out late, then sleeping in because we got in so late!

Highlights include:

• a 24/7 bookstore we both thought would be too good to be true, but it turns out it was real! This guy converted half his flat into a bookstore by putting up a curtain smack through the middle. We walked in at like 9pm, probably when he was cooking his dinner (we heard kitchen sounds), and browsed, pet his sweet cat, chatted some with him (he spoke decent Portuguese!), and bought a book!
• Witnessing a guy get arrested for smashing up the windows of a parked cop car DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE LOCAL STATION! He almost got away with it except, after smashing out the windows, he just sat down at a tram station 10 meters away and started reading some papers. Wild.
• Chilling with a cat for a good while in a late night coffee shop.
• Eating so much good food with Kim's family!
• Watching geese and ducks muck about in the marsh behind our room. There was even a nesting pair of ducks right there!
• Exploring the labyrinthine network of alleys and canals and finding so many fun little hidden gems.

And for the main event: the wedding!
It was a super beautiful, small wedding on a boat that cruised up and down the canals before, during, and after the ceremony. This was my first wedding with an open bar and I'm happy to announce that I did not over do it, but sad (on my own behalf) to announce no one else did either, so I didn't get to see any funny shenanigans. Probably a good thing though, at the end of the day.
Anyway, it was really fun getting all dressed up in my rented tux and chat with the other guests, watch the beautiful ceremony, and eat a really nice meal in the gathering evening while the boat went through some particularly lowkey canals. It was funny cruising past peoples houseboats lining the canals and occasionally waving back to them!

In a flash though, our time in Amsterdam drew to a close and we had to hoof our heavy bags to the airport. It worked out that we could take public transit through the city to have dinner with a good chunk of Kim's family close-ish to the airport, then head the rest of the way afterwards, where we crashed at an airport hotel (with some crazy airport hotel features like remote-control everything) before our flight to Norway early in the morning.

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Norway

Our time in Norway was the first time I had a rental while traveling like this!! It was incredibly liberating, but only while outside of Oslo. Having a car in a big city like that is just a pain, trying to park anywhere is the worsttttt. Luckily, we pretty much flew in, got the rental, picked up my mom and brother, then jetted out of the city for lunch and to go to Eef's house!
It was really nice not having to organize the whole bus trip out there and just go at our own pace, then be able to drive wherever we wanted while we were out there!

We had planned to have our first full day there be a rest day since we'd been going so hard in Amsterdam, but when Eef mentioned the possibility of rock climbing, the answer was an instant yes!!
We went to this really cool crag called Jarberget with some seriously quality sport climbing, some of it really long and quite hard! Vacation Andre really goes for it, and I pulled on some of the hardest climbs I've ever been on! I didn't get the send, but I had a ton of fun :)
Kim even did her first lead, seemingly at the drop of a hat! She belayed one of Eef's friends on a route, then when he finished, he just asked her if she wanted to lead this other route and she went for it. I had just finished up leading something and was lowering when I looked down and saw Kim on the sharp end just after starting her route! I took some cool photos of her on there.
She didn't get the send that first try (there was a pretty tricky part half way up), but she took her first lead fall and didn't die! She came back for a second try later that week when we came back to the same crag and got the send too!
My favorite routes there were Thai Boxing and Mr. Tricky. Eef's friend, Knut, belayed me on both of them. His photo climbing Thai Boxing is even in the guidebook! He's the best kind of climbing partner because he's full of stoke and cheer and won't let you make unworthy excuses for things. He is nice about noticing when you have real reasons for not wanting to do a route, though, so he strikes the balance perfectly.

We also hit a different crag super close to Eef's house that was really cool to climb at. When I was there for a winter trip about a year ago, I saw that face many times! The climbing there was such a delightful style. Slabby, thin, low angle climbing that really makes you focus on your footwork. I had a ton of fun climbing a bolted line on gear and never needed to clip any of the bolts! I thought I was going to have to at the top when I saw how featureless the rock was, but I was able to find some decent surprise gear.

We were hoping to do some sledding with the dogs, but unfortunately it just wasn't in the cards. We did manage to pull off a snowshoeing trip in the mountains while Eef and some of her friends went ski touring! It started out with all four of us (me, Kim, my mom Lea, and my brother RJ), but RJ quickly turned back because of his pretty recently post-op hip. My mom made it about half way to our goal peak, the first one rising up from a plateau, then Kim and I forged ahead and made it all the way!
I learned snowshoeing might be nice for ice climbing, but ski touring is definitely where it's at. We had to labouriously climb the whole peak, then walk all the way back down again! We saw so many people ski touring who also had to labouriously climb up their hills, but then they all got to just cruise on down on their skis. Luuucky.

The timing worked out really nicely to be around for my friends birthday! He's married to one of my best friends from High School and they both live in Oslo. His family owns a cabin not terribly far from where Eef lives, so Kim and I were able to head there after climbing to celebrate his birthday with their crew.

On our way out, we crashed at said Oslo friends flat after returning the rental. We got to spend some time with them in the city, then crashed hardddd after such a long day traveling and citying it up.
Then, early the next morning we all went our separate ways! Kim and I flew back to the states to resume our life in West Virginia and my mom and brother went to Spain for a week of Aikido.

Click the icon in the upper right to see descriptions of each image :)