This month was dominated by our big trip of the summer – Europe to see family and friends! The first few days of the month were a whirlwind of camp and getting ready. We also marked the 250th anniversary of the founding of San Francisco and of the United States (I never realized SF was also 1776!) Building off our summer travel the last couple of years, we decided to try 20 days, not too long and not too short and so we could still have some time at home over the summer to enjoy San Francisco.
We started in London- the flight was fine, but we landed during one of their heatwaves! Tycho in particular melted a bit over the few days we were there… We managed a whirlwind of tourist adventures though per Tycho’s request: Natural History Museum, the Tate Modern (an unexpected success), the Science Museum, dinosaur afternoon tea, Indian food, the London Eye, Tower Bridge, watching the Argentina / Egypt game in a brewery that had an indoor slide, the hottest double decker bus, and boba and Pimm’s Cups while we watched Wimbledon on an outdoor screen at Battersea Power Station. Tycho was super excited to find Panini World Cup stickers in London and we kept doling them out to him whenever he just needed a break.
Then to Sweden! We had a quick overnight in Stockholm, getting off the airport train and walking into a light mist made it feel like coming home. We just all felt SO happy to be there and have Thai food and gelato and just relax. Then we took the morning ferry out to the archipelago to visit some of our SF neighbors! We loved experiencing the magic of the Swedish summer house tradition and we were grateful to our friends for so enthusiastically hosting us. It was 48 hours of straight fun but the highlight might have been staying up for the Norway/England game and the adults going for a midnight swim during halftime. (In hindsight traveling during the World Cup to a timezone much less conducive to watching the games was not ideal… but it provided such a lovely through-line to the whole summer. We can’t wait for the next one!) Nova discovered a love of jumping off rocks and docks into the water – she is so brave and would just laugh hysterically as she launched herself into the water over and over again. It was hard to say bye to the island and our friends!
We then headed to Norrköping to see Malin, Jimmy, Sam and Sigrid. Nova has been looking forward to seeing Sigrid again ever since they visited us last summer and after a boat to a bus to a subway to a super fast train, we were at Norrköping station! We had so much fun just messing around together for a few days. Tycho was very excited to climb a whole bunch of stairs up a mountain despite the heat (sorry, everyone….) and go to the library to check out some books. We went for walks, ate a lot of ice cream, hung out in not one but two lakes- between Ekholmen and Norrköping, we had an epic Swedish summer :)
Stay tuned for part 2!
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