07: Vacation ! ! !

One thing that's super awesome about Sweden is that we get a minimum of 5 weeks of vacation! Yeah, that's right, 5 weeks. This vacation time is treated as extremely holy and not to be infringed upon by anything. For example, when I was in Lund my boss came up to me on a Friday and said "So, I'm starting my vacation tomorrow, and I'll be gone for 3 1/2 weeks. Have fun!" In the end I spun my wheels and couldn't get anything done on my research until he got back.

At my current company, they try to get everyone to take 3 weeks of vacation at the same time to keep things running smoother during the rest of the summer. Courtney and I had been talking for months about what we wanted to do but I had a potential project hanging over my head that had a deadline right in the middle of the expected vacation time. Finally, we learned that we didn't get the job, and then I was free to start planning.

Our plans centered around a shitty-shitty airline: Ryanair. An airline who boasts a 40% landing success rate. An airline whose planes are assembled from balsa wood and scotch tape. But more importantly, they are an airline where you can get a one way ticket for 1 kronor without fees, and something around $15 with fees. So with just a few weeks left until vacation, we haphazardly planned out our route. This is what we came up with.
I can't promise that it makes a lot of sense, but in the end it allowed us to go see some places we had always wanted to see, plus we had a chance to stay with friends in Glasgow, Bergen, and London.

Another theme you might find popping up is rain. For whatever reason we decided to swap the unpredictable Swedish summer for some of the wettest places in Europe. So with that said, the following are my posts from the trip.

Enjoy!


Post #1: Glasgow - Day 1: Glasgow and Stirling Castle
Post #2: Glasgow - Day 2: Whisky tasting and hanging with Tom
Post #3: Edinburgh: Seeing the town, hiking a small mountain, and making God angry.
Post #4: Hiking in Norway: Preikestolen: Hanging our feet off a sheer 600 meter cliff
Post #5: Hiking in Norway: Kjeragbolten: Jumping around on a rock perched perilously between two cliffsides
Post #6: Stavanger and Bergen: Bumming around the 4th and 2nd largest cities in Norway!
Post #7: Dublin: Guinness, Guinness and more Guinness (and other stuff too)
Post #8: London Day 1: London Castles, London Bridges, and American Celebrities (Note: Not us, although we are pretty awesome)!
Post #9: London Day 2: What? V For Vendetta, Harry Potter and Dinosaurs in 1 Post!!!