We slept like a couple of dead bodies, but thoroughly enjoyed the shower in the morning. Looking out of our room we could see the Tanger railway station all lit up. We hustled out of there, and after checking out we walked right across the street to the station. 

As I walked towards Tanger station I called up a song on my phone and played just a little bit of it, “Four Winds” by the band Tangier. I have liked the song since high school and remembered wondering what it would be like to visit Tangier someday. Now the city is spelled differently but here I was listening to Tangier in Tanger. It was a goofy thing to do but I like to think that my high school-aged self would have been impressed.

We entered the modern station and found our way to the high speed rail platform. We went to the boarding gate but when they saw our tickets they directed us to the first class boarding gate on the other side. Here there was a lounge with free coffee and bottled water for the premium passengers. The first class tickets were not much more expensive than the second class ones, so I thought it was totally worth it. We didn’t stay long in the lounge however, we had to walk down to the end of the train and get on the first class car. Our carriage was nearly empty, with just a handful of passengers. We ate some snacks for breakfast while the train pulled out of the station, heading along the coastline southwest towards Rabat and Casablanca. 

The passenger sitting across from us suddenly had a sneezing fit while working on his laptop – after ten sneezes I was worried that there was going to be a medical stop for the train. But apparently it was normal for this guy. He kept working as normal despite spraying his sneezes through the cabin. Another passenger did his prayers in the center section between cars – laying his prayer mat across the entranceway facing Mecca. 

It wouldn’t have been Morocco if there hadn’t been a delay – our high speed train stopped suddenly for about 15 minutes with an explanation only in Arabic. The train was stopped in front of a construction zone and the workers were watching us with some curiosity so it must be a little rare. Once the train restarted it wasn’t far to Casablanca, where we started this trip a week ago.

Today we were going off script a little bit. At the start of this whole trip the original plan was to arrive in Morocco at Casablanca airport (check), take the train from the airport to Casa Voyageurs station (check), then take a taxi to see the Hassan mosque. Aida had advised that we’d have very little time to do the mosque and also get to her place at a reasonable hour (she was right – even though we skipped the mosque we got to her place late), so we decided to catch the mosque on our way back through Casablanca. 

So we gave up our pre-purchased express tickets to Marrakech and instead went and grabbed a taxi to see the mosque. We negotiated with a taxi driver to take us to the mosque, and he wanted to show us around all over the city. He said that he could wait for us with our suitcase to take us back to the station, but in the end we thought it better not to be separated from our luggage as there were plenty of taxis around. It was the right call as we found out later.

The pretty banged up taxi got us to the mosque via some undercity tunnels, and seeing the mosque in its position on the coast was really impressive. Even though it was a cloudy day it was a beautiful sight. The driver let us off, we paid him 100 MAD, and he drove off (a little unhappily). 

It turned out that we needed tickets to enter the grounds around the mosque. I didn’t really want to go inside, but only to get close enough to see the tile work on the exterior. But we still needed tickets. Inside the ticket office it was a total madhouse. Chaotic lines, broken ticket machines, nobody knew what line leads to where, group tours standing around inside waiting for their guide to buy tickets. As we got closer one staff member tried to make it easier by announcing that this line is for cash and that line is for credit, instantly mixing up the two existing lines into a free-for-all. 

To make a long story short it took a long time to get our tickets, and I was glad that we weren’t rushed thinking about our taxi driver outside waiting for us (and raising his prices). We left our suitcase with a ticket guy who kept talking with other visitors while holding our suitcase – at one point leaving our bag behind – so I had to go back and guide him over to the suitcase storage area.

But finally we could take our time and enjoy seeing the mosque, which was just as impressive up close. We also had a chance to look out across the ocean – what a great location. I walked around taking pictures of tiles, while Kuniko patiently indulged my interest. Around one side of the mosque they had set up some gates and rope – behind that was perhaps my favorite tile design yet – I managed a picture of it but I couldn’t get very close.

I’m glad we made the stop here – it was costing us a bit of time and money, but totally worth it in the end. We picked up our suitcase (we just grabbed it – no staff available to return it to us) and then negotiated with a taxi driver to take us back to the station. He charged 20 MAD more than the guy who brought us here, and his car was unbelievably more crappy than the previous one. The passenger seat had the headrest torn off and I saw that the odometer had 933,000 km on it. That can’t be right, can it?

Back at the station we had to figure out the best way to get to Marrakech. There were a lot of trains running – and the ticket machine’s next available tickets on first class had us waiting two and half hours. There was an earlier train but first class was sold out – we waiting in line to confirm that second class tickets were reserved seats. The staff said they were, so we took the earlier train out – it was a good decision.

The train arrived (only a few minutes late) and there were mostly women in our second class compartment. The later next to me was speaking to her friend in English quietly, but got embarrassed about saying something and left to explain it in privacy. 

The ride to Marrakech was on a regular train – the high speed line hasn’t been extended that far yet. The scenery was empty desert most of the way, with just a few farms. I was sad to see so much trash spread out everywhere, but there were also scenes of beauty with mountains in the distance or the occasional cliffs overhead. Mostly I read my book, and Kuniko and I shared snacks, water and cough drops across the aisle to each other. 

After two and a half hours we arrived in Marrakech, at another very modern station. We walked through the station and found our hotel, practically across the street. Our hotel was very clean and modern, but actually sort of Islamic-modern. The hallways and corridors had a sort of empty feeling – we were trying to put our finger on it but couldn’t. But our room was very comfortable – and it looked out over a big swimming pool in the center of the hotel. On the ceiling was a sticker that pointed to the direction of Mecca so we could pray pointed in the right direction – nice. There was also a towel warmer/drying rack which came in handy for a little hotel bathroom laundry session.

We struck out to check out the town, and started with a wine shop that Kuniko had found online. It looked much better on Google maps, but I was definitely interested in trying more Moroccan wines. Maybe somewhere else…

The area we were walking through really reminded us of Bangkok – the way the buildings were constructed and the chaotic mess of the sidewalks and streets. From the wine shop we walked to our target restaurant, called Azalai Urban Souk. The atmosphere was cozy and a little stylish, they spoke English and were super-friendly, and they were serving food even at 4 pm which can be weird time to eat for most. I liked the chill vibes in this restaurant, and their food was really good. We had a starter of smoked eggplant with mango and goat cheese and crispy chickpeas. We also had a beef tajine – the staff burned the lid off the tajine and then poured the cooked meat and gravy through the burned portion, together with cous cous it was so good. Also we had lentil risotto with coconut cream – delicious! With two freshly blended juices it turned out to be a great meal. 

After our meal we went shopping, hitting several markets (including Carrefour) to look for some snacks that we can bring back to Japan for our students and friends. Surprisingly we found quite a bit of stuff – so I think we will do our actual shopping tomorrow during our last day in Morrocco.

Back to the hotel we had a cocktail and some wine at the pool bar. We were still full from our meal but snacked on some tasty (but super-salty) olives while we sipped our booze. I tried the white version of Medallion wine, but I was less impressed than I was with the red that we had last night in Tanger. 

Hard to believe we were all the way in the north of the country this morning, and here we were in Marrakech sipping drinks by the pool. We headed to bed sort of early, to play Balatro and get some sleep.

We were up super early at 6 am, in a pretty good mood because this was our last stay of the trip in a riad, and we were leaving Fes. 

Riads were very beautiful but a little bit too traditional (and chilly) for our tastes long term. And looking back at our stay in Fes it seemed to me that we didn’t need to spend two nights there, but the alternative was to spend Christmas Day on a bus traveling up the country – which was to be our fate today. 

So we took one final shower in the very wet bathroom. Our toilet paper ran out so I had to run downstairs – only two cooks were working in the dark hotel, but one of them could understand “toilet paper” and gave us a package of four to bring back to our room.  Toilet paper was surprisingly sparse – one little cardboard core had just a few spins of paper around it, meaning it took just two or three visits to kill a roll. Since we were riding a bus into the unknown today I popped a spare roll of TP into my backpack.

We lugged our suitcase down the dark, historic stairs – Kuniko hit the lights for me as we descended. Nobody was down there, still dark, and we heard our taxi driver buzzing the outside door. I let him in and then managed to find a cook to hand over our room key. She gave us two bags of snacks for our breakfast to go – and remarkably their contents were almost exactly the same as what we bought at Carrefour yesterday. 

Our taxi driver took us smoothly to the bus station, and it was a very easy system to use. Two staff were standing around greeting visitors and explaining how to buy tickets for our luggage, and pointing out where to wait. One of the staff was really into Japanese, and we heard him practicing his Japanese with some passengers enthusiastically. 

We waited next to quite a few other passengers in a comfortable waiting room not unlike an airport boarding gate. The bus was five minutes late in leaving, which to me felt like a minor miracle after waiting for delayed trains so many times. The bus itself was fairly modern and comfortable. We had assigned seats and so we settled in for the drive out of Fes and to the north for Chefchaouen – the Blue City. 

The road out of town had several major accidents causing traffic problems and slowing us down at first, but the driver was not afraid to step on the gas later, passing other cars aggressively. We didn’t feel like we were unsafe, but I was surprised at some of the passing locations. We made up time quickly.

North of Fes we hit open country, with beautiful views of the mountains to the northeast, some occasional lakes tucked away, and farmers using donkeys to work the land. The road was not an expressway, so we had to stop at various points for roadblocks, police inspections, and chickens running across the road. Passengers on our bus were quiet and patient – perfect for a long ride.

A couple hours out of Fes we stopped for a 15 minute break at a little cafe, and then the driver fired up the bus, did a headcount, and left promptly. 

At one point we passed crowds of school kids who were arriving or leaving school – walking on the side of the road, squatting in a circle talking to each other, in fields with scattered trash everywhere. Occasionally we passed what I thought were wild donkeys – just munching away along the side of the road. There were also many citrus groves – citrus trees were a big deal in Morocco – and oranges rolled around on the ground underneath them. But most of all what I remember from this first leg of the trip was that we saw lots of people standing around doing nothing much. Just watching things go by.

We made a very short stop at a small town to pick up some more passengers – the bus area was surrounded by food stands cooking skewers of meat. Passengers from our bus who got off to try to take a smoke break were quickly herded back onto the bus – no chance to look around.

And then after a short while we turned the corner and saw the dramatic sight of Chefchaouen on the hillside. I hadn’t realized the city so high up – and as we got closer we could see the frequent use of blue paint. Even on the outskirts of town near the bus station there were blue buildings sprinkled around.

The bus station was at the base of the city, with all the tourist attractions up at the top. First we found a place to store our luggage – a very kind man in the office wrote out a receipt by hand. Then we went to find a taxi but despite a bunch of empty taxis around we had to wait for a “petit taxi”. That had us standing around for like ten minutes waiting – we were aware that our bus out of town was leaving in less than three hours and we’d hate to get stuck here tonight.

Eventually a taxi arrived and we got in back, and as we were leaving the driver saw a lady he knew and gave her a ride in the passenger seat up front along with us. She got a free ride, but we had to pay. The driver dropped us off and then we made our way through the bluer part of the blue city. 

We started with lunch – we’d hate to be waiting for our food later if time was tight. I’m glad we did – it took a while to get served. We went to the Clock Cafe, a place famous for its camel burgers, but they also had some other tasty dishes. We went up the narrow staircase to the rooftop and had some nice views of the city from up there. There were plenty of people up there already, and I enjoyed people watching while we waited for our lunch.

The food was good! We enjoyed a couple of juices, an appetizer sampler with various veggie based and fried foods – a roasted eggplant mash-up, and very garlicky coleslaw.  Of course we had the famous camel burger. The camel meat was quite good – sort of a combo of lamb and beef. After lunch we left – there was no tag to bring to the cashier to pay but somehow they knew which tag we were by sight. Mysterious!

From there we went off to explore and take pictures of the Blue City. There weren’t too many Instagrammers around and so it was easy to take it all in. The blue made for some nice photos but also a different vibe. It reminded me a little of Santorini. There were many cats walking around, some friendly and some not, and even a dog or two lounging. Lots of tourist shops, but that was to be expected. After a while the blue doors and buildings started looking the same, and that was our cue to wander on down the road to our bus stop. 

Since we had plenty of time we walked, and together with our GPS and a few helpful locals we found the bus station quickly. It makes a big difference that we were walking downhill the whole time. We thought we should use the bus stop restroom as we didn’t know how long we’d be on the next bus leg. The bathroom was not a nice one – and I had to pay some coin to a guy who was managing the facility. Kuniko was brave enough to use the women’s toilet – not the nicest one we’ve ever visited.

So we grabbed our suitcase and took it outside, but forgot that we needed to buy a luggage ticket. We waited in line at the window until a guy was available – they were serving other bus route passengers first – and then we could get the ticket. This bus stop was much less organized than the one in Fes.

So here we were waiting for our bus – it was a little unnerving because we couldn’t read the bus indicators and other bus companies were coming and going. I had this nightmare that our bus would come and go but we didn’t get on because the color was different from our company’s buses. 

While we waited we watched a stray dog shit in the middle of the bus yard and then play with an empty plastic bottle. We waited in the shade and inspected each arriving bus carefully – but ours ended up being about 30 minutes late. 

Once we got on we made swift progress out of town, climbing up some big mountains, and even spending some time on what seemed to be an expressway under construction. At the top of the mountains there were stunning views across a long valley to even taller mountains on the other side, some capped with snow. This leg had a lot more greenery – trees and even forests with more agriculture on the hillsides.

Some of the construction of the expressway slowed us down further, but finally we arrived at a transfer stop in Tetouan on time. Tetouan was not on my radar before the trip but it looked like an interesting city. There were caves hidden away underneath city parks, and a long riverside promenade that looked like it would be fun to walk down. Here we picked up a few more passengers and then headed through exceptionally heavy traffic to Tanger. 

We had arranged with our hotel to have a driver pick us up at the bus station, he ended up having to wait an hour or so after the delay of our bus. I guessed that maybe as a Moroccan he was used to it, but we felt bad for keeping him there so long. He drove us to our hotel, the Hilton Tangier City Center, which I name here to indicate that we were definitely not staying in a traditional place this time.

Kuniko was happy – this is civilization! Huge room, modern heating, beautiful view of the city! It was good to be in a place that was clean and warm with modern facilities. Since we were running late we decided to just have dinner in the hotel restaurant on the top floor of the hotel. The sign mentioned a dress code in the front but in the end it just meant no swimsuits or robes.

We started with a glass of two Moroccan wines – both reds. Kuniko had one called Eclipse (OK) and I had one called Medallion from Meknes (quite good). We snacked on olives while we waited. Behind us some Americans came in and sat down, and the guy was just non-stop talking loudly while they ate. They had ordered pizza and pasta, and five minutes after their food arrived they left, saying they were tired. We clearly heard the American guy asking about the high price of the bill, and refusing the staff’s offer to box up their food for later. 

We avoided the pizza and each ordered a lamb tajine – in two different styles. Mine was steamed and served with a small bowl of cumin powder, while Kuniko’s was roasted with some lamb bones. Both were good, but I thought mine was undersalted. We were hungry after our long bus ride, and together with the nice wine it was an excellent meal.

We went back down to our room to get our jackets, and then went outside to look around a little bit. We’ll be leaving Tangier early on the high speed train tomorrow, so it was our only chance to get a (very abbreviated) feel for the city. It was very cold – we walked to the beach from our hotel which was not far. We passed quite a few beggars or people selling small items, mostly from the sub-Sahara. At the beach kids were riding vehicles (coin operated?) and the wind was blowing strong and cold from the ocean.

I wasn’t sure if it was possible by I looked out across the ocean far to the northeast – but there was no sign of Gibraltar. Mentally I put it down on my list of places I’d like to see someday. Someday I hope to write that I was on the other side of the pillars of Hercules.

We walked back towards our hotel, stopped in at a shopping center to look at souvenirs, but eventually I just got bushed from the long day and we went back to the room.

It was great to sleep in a huge bed in a warm room – I was still fighting a cold and this hotel stay was a turning point that really helped me start to feel better.

We woke up on Christmas morning in Fes, having slept pretty well in the slightly warmer room. Our bathroom and its shower was a little hard to figure out, and by the end of my shower there was water everywhere. Luckily the design of the floor was such that the water stayed in the tiny bathroom, but we needed to use our towel to create a safe surface to walk for the time being. 

Downstairs they were setting up breakfast, and we had some fresh squeezed juice in a big room decorated in traditional Moroccan style. There was a plate of mini-tajines that contained olive oil, honey, olives, jams, and spicy sauces to slather over our flatbreads and rolls. Also the owner(?) cooked up some eggs with cheese which was a nice warm way to start the day. 

So we were eager to explore other parts of Fes besides the old town, and so we scoped out on google maps the location of the royal palace, a historic gate, and a Carrefour – all in the same area. Let’s go!

It was about a 20 minute walk to the area of the royal palace. As we went we got some attention from the locals – kids sometimes shouted out to us and old dudes stared, but for the most part it was an easy trip. Near the palace was a gathering of a Japanese tour group, checking out the palace gates and doors that were beautifully decorated. We took some pictures there, and then walked along the big open square away from the palace. But after we had traveled a bit some guards started whistling at us, and waving us back – apparently it was a “no go” zone. I saw that one guard looked sheepish because we must have walked right past him and he failed to stop us. At least we didn’t get shot.

We saw the historic gate and then started down a road towards the shopping center with a Carrefour. We could see it, so we walked down a road that was under construction – but as it turned out it was pretty torn up and a risky crossing. In fact, crosswalks were hard to come by, and we didn’t like our chances so we walked back up the way we came and had to approach from a different direction. We kept passing squads of three soldiers – they nodded at us coolly as we passed.

Despite being next to the shopping center it still wasn’t clear whether there was access or even if it was open. Finally we followed some day laborers who were walking through the debris of the road and found the entrance. I guess most people arrive by car.

Inside the shopping center there were security guards pointing the way and it seemed like most stores were still closed. We took the chance to use the toilet but Kuniko returned with reports of no toilet paper or toilet seat. Eventually we found the Carrefour on the bottom floor – wide open and ready for business. Kuniko was super-happy: Civilization! Credit cards! Let’s go nuts!

Then we did some shopping for the next day’s long bus ride, getting snacks, throat lozenges, and bottled water. This Carrefour had an interesting spice section – looking like a spice market you’d see on the streets. Staff were stocking shelves but they didn’t seem to mind blocking customers from the products – customer service was different here.

From there we walked back, braving the busy streets but taking some photos of the buildings, tiles and a family of storks that were living in the fortifications of the palace. It was really nice to walk around in the wide streets after the maze of the old town.

But after dropping off our stuff back in our room it was back to the maze to do some more sightseeing and get some lunch. Plenty more “helpful” advice, questions about where we were from, and all the while trying to follow the map on my phone while doing threat assessments. Of course we were safe the whole time – but avoiding the attentions of the touts and “guides” was a little stressful.

One interesting spot was a large mosque that was actually built into the old town, and only open to Muslims. We walked around the sides and at one point we accidentally entered an area that was restricted – but nobody freaked out and some genuinely helpful people gave us directions back to the regular area. From one spot we could peek inside and take some pictures of the beautiful tile work. 

Our next sightseeing destination was a tannery – the sights of the pools of dyes where leather is treated are pretty interesting. As we approached some locals sitting around asked us if we were looking for the tannery, and when we said yes they sent along a young kid who would guide us there – “no money” they assured us. Of course this rang alarm bells for me but I decided to just go ahead and go with the flow, and I’m glad we did. He got us right to the tannery entrance, and then passed us off to a guide who handed us handfuls of fresh mint sprigs, which was to cover up the smell. The smell wasn’t all that bad really, but I’m guessing in the summer it is worse.

With our sprigs in hand he walked us along the ramparts above the tannery. They had a few exhibits, he talked about how leather was made there, and let us take our time checking things out. 

As we left he steered us to a store, and then when we didn’t want to buy anything asked for a tip directly, and I was happy to give him some money as he had certainly earned it. 

Afterwards we followed our map to find our lunch target, but when we finally arrived after all the windy streets it turned out to still be closed – we’d have to wait 30 minutes among the street vendors, or find someplace else. I had a backup destination so we went off to find it. We got lost several times, at one point coming out onto a dead end with two little kids as surprised as we were to find someone else. The older boy said, “closed!” in English, and asked us what we wanted – a guide in training. Eventually we found our way to the place I was looking for, called Riad Fes. The sign said that the rooftop terrace wasn’t open, but once went inside the staff said that they could open it for us. There was a voucher system – we had to prepay for two vouchers that would be used against our lunch bill – I guess in a bid to keep out folks who didn’t buy anything. 

Once we bought the vouchers a female staff member was assigned to lead us to the rooftop. She led us up two flights of stairs, and then disappeared – we wandered through a different area, and then finally found the rooftop. It was a luxurious spot with a dramatic view – it was set up for the upper crust – and it was empty except for us. We were still holding clumps of mint from the tannery and looking a little harried, but it turned out to be a good stop for us.

We had some local wine, some champagne, Casablanca beer, 3 mini-burgers, and a colorful veggie bowl with various sauces to dip into. The server was very kind and patient and would could finally sit down after so much walking through narrow alleys.

We lounged for quite a while, relaxing and trying to find our own hotel from the view that we had. This was a really nice break. 

After our lunch we went back to our hotel to clean up and get a little rest. I was cold and still coughing, so I tucked into the bed and slept for two solid hours, leaving Kuniko to play Balatro. When I woke up I was surprised that I had slept so much – I guess I needed it. I felt like I was at a tipping point – we could just stay where we were, warm in bed, and rest up for the big travel day tomorrow, or we could go back out into the medina one last time to get some more food – which would actually be our Christmas dinner. In the end we made the right choice, and headed back out.

We went to the same restaurant that we had attempted to visit earlier for lunch – Fondouk Bazaar. Once more through the maze, but for this trip we were walking at night and so it was a different vibe. I liked the feeling, and I could tell that we were getting better at navigating the streets of Fes. When we arrived at the restaurant the manager said that while we could come in and sit down, the staff were on a 20 minute break so we’d have to wait. But we were here and so we said sure and took a table. 

Rather than the rooftop we took a corner table, and had some hot drinks. I had a honey ginger infusion, and Kuniko had hot thyme lemonade. They were extremely effective for my cold.

For dinner we had orange chicken (nice texture, not too sweet by very orangey) and another version of the kefta with egg – this one was better than the previous night’s version. I thought the food here was really good if not completely traditional. Once we got up to pay the bill we saw a super happy cat stretched out on a chair in the lobby – there were so many cats in Morocco!

On the way back to our hotel we stopped to buy some Orangina to keep my vitamin C up. At the hotel desk we talked with (maybe) the manager who arranged a taxi for us the next morning, promised to make up some breakfast in a sack to go, and gave a bad review to the restaurant that we had just visited. 

In our room with spotty WiFi we attempted a Christmas phone call with Ray, Bonnie, Nancy, Lynn and Kinsey in Arizona, and although they came through clearly I think our side wasn’t easy for them to understand. Not too long after that we went (back) to bed to get ready for the long travel day tomorrow. 

I slept very well in the comfortable bed, but Kuniko said she tossed and turned during the night. It might be a sign that she finally has gotten enough sleep. Good news!

After the comfortable bed and very modern shower we went downstairs to get some breakfast. There was a dining room with some guests, but we didn’t see any staff, so we just picked a table and started grazing through the food. There were some interesting breads/pancakes, harissa (yum), tomatoes, jams and plenty of hot coffee. There were some other delicious foods too, but it was a little hard to identify them as they were unlabeled.  

Eventually a staff member came by and offered to cook us some eggs – yes, please! Around us the other guests were whispering like we were eating in a library. Where was that whispering last night while I was trying to sleep? Just kidding – it was a very peaceful breakfast, though.

We went back to our room and packed up our stuff, and then we went to take the elevator downstairs. It was a tiny elevator so Kuniko used the stairs while I and the suitcase waited patiently for the elevator to come up. Despite pressing the button it never showed up, so after a few minutes I gave up and carried the suitcase down the narrow and slightly dangerous steps. But in the end we checked out, and everything was fine. The bill was a little pricey, but I was very satisfied with the stay – very comfortable.

Thanks to our walk last night we knew the best way to get to the station, and there were far fewer people on the streets this early in the morning. At the station we showed our electronic tickets to a police officer who let us beyond the gates. We went down some long staircases, and started waiting on the platform. It was cold down there, and overall the temperature so far was a little colder than I expected. Luckily we had plenty of layers beneath our jackets.

The train ended up being delayed. Announcements were in Arabic and French so we couldn’t figure out much, but eventually the train arrived about 15 minutes late. Apparently late trains are pretty common around here – something difficult to get used to after coming from very punctual Japan. While the train pulled in we noticed that our carriage was at the end – so we did a mad dash to get there before the train left again. We made it in time though, and found our compartment. Two people were already on board, one of them sleeping, and I put our suitcase up above us and settled in for the ride.

As we left Rabat the train ran mainly through dark tunnels under the city, and eventually emerged into a foggy countryside. Soon the fog started burning off, and the train was moving pretty fast for a regular train – it wasn’t high speed rail fast but it felt like maybe they were trying to catch up with the original schedule.

It took a couple of hours to get to Fes, through mostly desert and empty spaces. We sometimes saw a village in the distance, the occasional donkey and plenty of scattered junk/trash. Near the end of the ride a guy sat next to me, and suddenly introduced himself (Mohammed) and asked where we were from. When he heard Japan he showed me lots of pictures of a family member living in Japan. He offered his services as a tour guide while we were in Fes, and I politely declined. He stuck with us for a while though, but luckily he gave up once we got off the train and walked through Fes station.

Kuniko and I had made the decision to set up a driver to pick us up and take us to our hotel which was beyond walking distance from the train station. It was nice to find the driver and go right to his car, rather than thread the needle of all the suspiciously friendly taxi drivers that lined the street outside the station. I had heard that taxi drivers tended to disable the meter and quote outrageous sums, and that they had worked together to kick out any ridesharing companies like Uber and Bolt. That made it the Wild West for taxi rides, and it was nice to pay a little money and bypass the (potential) stress.

The driver wasn’t too far to the medina, where the car suddenly stopped and met staff from our hotel. The staff took our suitcase and started walking down a narrow alley, so we followed him and luckily could read the name of our riad on the back of his uniform. Our riad was called Le Grand Calazaar, and I think it would have been hard for us to find on our own. We were able to check in immediately, and the staff prepared for us a welcome drink of hot mint tea with some cookies. We sipped the tea in a grand room – the hotel was beautifully decorated in tile and artistic touches. It was much more traditional than the previous riad and I took quite a few photos during our stay.

Our room was again on the top floor so there were a lot of steps to get up there. Luckily the staff lugged our suitcase up the steps. Our room was beautifully decorated in a traditional style, smaller than our previous room, and really cold. I had read previously that Morocco winters could be tough inside the riads – this room was almost icy. We closed the windows for starters, and then went out onto the sunny rooftop to enjoy views of the city and the mountains in the distance. It was a great place to warm up, but we were thinking ahead to how cold everything was going to be later once the sun went down.

So from there we decided to go take a look around the Fes medina. Our riad was within the old town area, but not in the center. This allowed us to dip into the busy area when we wanted but also come back to the relative quiet in the area around our place. The medina was more touristy, livelier, and narrow than our previous experience in Rabat. There were shops lining every street, pretty aggressive vendors competing for our attention, and of course plenty of cats roaming the narrow streets. Some vendors were grilling skewers that smelled fantastic, and shops were filled with colorful goods to catch the eye of people walking by.

Every now and then young men with meticulously sculpted hairstyles would offer advice (for free?) on which direction we should go. They would walk with us, asking us where we were from, and giving us information that we didn’t ask for, making a simple wander turn into a slightly stressful walk. As soon as you escaped one guy there would be another one waiting at the next block. 

Using the GPS on our phone was essential – you truly could get lost in a matter of moments. Sometimes the narrow walls interfered and had us make wrong turns – then the “guides” would insist that we should have trusted them rather than the map. Eventually we decided to head back to the hotel and get some rest before going out again for dinner. We found our way there, but our room was still super cold, so we sat on the roof at a table and tried to warm up. 

I was starting to develop a cold, which felt unfair since I had just gotten over a cold before we left for this trip. Expecting that my antibodies from the previous cold would still be in effect – but this was a completely different bug. I thought it might be a good idea to get some rest, so I tucked myself into our bed with plenty of layers, and tried to stay warm. It was just after I got in bed that I noticed above the door to our room – is that a… that’s an air conditioner! Hallelujah … it saved our lives. We promptly set it to 32 degrees C and waited eagerly for it to kick on. It took a while but it started running, although we didn’t feel any appreciable change for another hour or so.

For dinner we went back out, and found a place that looked good online. It was called Dar Khabya – a tiny place specializing in traditional Moroccan food. I liked the colorful decor, and the overly-talkative owner guided us through the overly-complex menu system, but in the end we could order just what we wanted. We started with mint lemonades, then a plate full of olives, harira soup (with a few pieces of candied fried dough), and a lamb kefta and egg tajine. The food was great – the hot food especially hit the spot. 

The owner was busy trying to line up more customers, touting his food and TripAdvisor rating to potential customers. A Canadian couple negotiated for a reservation for six people later on, and watching that provided our dinner entertainment. The owner was also a little curt with his kitchen staff (a young woman) – hopefully they weren’t married…

Back to the hotel to try to rest and enjoyed the leftover Turkish Airlines chocolate and snacks that we didn’t eat on the plane. It was a nice moment to sit up there as the sun crept down, looking over the city and the taste of chocolate on our tongue. I took some photos of the evening horizon as the cold started to set in, but by the time we returned to our room the heater was kicking in. I’m glad that I’m not the one paying the electric bill this time. We went to bed early to help fight off me cold – can’t believe that tomorrow is Christmas Day.

We slept hard until around 8:30 am, and then slowly checked out our surroundings. Having come in late at night we couldn’t appreciate the beautiful views across the valley – grassy knolls, olive trees and herb gardens. I noticed some horses across the way, and far in the distance some green mountains. We both enjoyed the first shower in nearly 48 hours – it really hit the spot.

When we came downstairs it appeared that we were the only ones up, except for some noise in the kitchen. The house was big and we padded around in our socks, enjoying views from different sides. There was a big infinity pool in the back next to the big glass windows that enclosed the large space where we had dinner the night before. There was a homemade drying rack filled with various herbs, and plenty of comfortable furniture to lounge on. 

I made a short expedition to the kitchen and found Aida’s partner who cooked most of the food the previous evening and was working on our upcoming breakfast. There was a big language block here – she mostly spoke Amazigh (a Moroccan form of Berber) but she could understand a little French. I typed out some thank yous in Google translate, and somehow I think we got the message across. 

Soon people started to get up, and we had a good conversation with Kiana. She was happy to speak English with us, and told us all about her recommended places and foods. I asked her to write down everyone’s name from the party, and she was kind enough to give us the information that we should have absorbed the night before. We got a Jenga game going with Adam, and together they taught me how to say “It’s your turn” in French. 

Aida served a really big breakfast – there were several kinds of pancakes (some sweet and some savory) with some homemade herbed butter and a garlic yogurt sauce, roasted tomatoes with yogurt and cinnamon, some really delicious mint tea (this set out mint tea standard way too high at the beginning of the trip), eggs with spices and coriander seeds cooked in the Turkish style.

It was nice to talk with people again, this time with a clearer head. Nassim especially had some great impressions of Japan and we talked with her quite a bit. She mentioned that she would also be in Lisbon for new years and said she might be able to score an invitation to a party with the UK ambassador. This sounded like something we’d have to upgrade our travel wardrobe for, but as it turned out we didn’t hear from her again while we were in Portugal so no worries.

We walked around the outside of La Finca, enjoying the beautiful views, meeting their donkey (Sam) and avoiding the occasionally growling dogs who didn’t really get along with each other so well. 

Finally it was time to hit the road – Aida gave us a wonderful going away present of some honeys and herbs from Morocco which was very kind, and we said goodbye to everyone. It was a whirlwind visit, but we were trying to stay out of their hair – they are a busy group!

Othman was nice enough to drive us back into town with Nassim and Kiana. We passed two accidents on the way back – driving in Morocco looks pretty chaotic. I’m glad I wasn’t behind the wheel. He drove us along the seaside, pointing out the sights, including good surfing spots, and the newly built Four Seasons resort. He got us right to the edge of the medina (old town) and let us off and said goodbye.

That was the last we saw of Aida and Othman, but I’m sure they have a great future together. They were so kind to host us and I hope we’ll see them again, either in Morocco or here in Japan.

So now for the rest of the trip we were going to be on our own, which is how we usually travel. It felt good to be set free in a new country. We walked through the chilly narrow streets to find our riad (traditional type bed/breakfast) called Dar Shaan, recommended to us by Aida. We just dropped off our bags because it was still early, and then went off to look around a bit. 

We started with the Kasbah, on the northeast edge of Rabat. Near the entrance a talkative guy tried to steer us in a particular direction, asking where we are from, which in our experience means that they are trying to steer you into some form of payment somehow. So we kind of brushed him off and went the direction we wanted. This turned out to be pretty common for the rest of Morocco and we were always brushing off overly friendly people. I know that by doing this we are running the risk of missing out on an actual friendly encounter, but I just like doing things on our own.

Through the Kasbah there were many shops selling traditional and touristy goods, plenty of cats everywhere (which reminded us of Istanbul), and some pretty doors ornamented with tiles. We enjoyed views of the ocean for a while, then walked back down into the medina to check out the shops and food situation. The streets were narrow but lined with many shops, and above some beautiful wooden slats providing shade seemed like a good idea for summer. My phone had a sudden malfunction and so I had to futz with it a bit – turns out that it did an accessibility zoom and I had to restart the phone to get it back to normal.

The square with lots of food stands seemed a little dirty to me with an off smell from somewhere, so we decided to skip buying fried fish from the vendors here. The shopkeepers around didn’t really put on a lot of pressure and were fine just letting us walk by – this was one of the good points of the medina in Rabat. 

By this time we could check in at our hotel, so we went back and got our room. On the third floor, we accessed it by a super narrow elevator. The doors were a little scary as there was nothing stopping you from touching the outside walls as they went by. But the room was quite nice, and being on the top floor we had easy access to the patio overlooking the city. The staff served us a welcome drink – we chose Moroccan wine, a white and a red – and we munched on olives while sipping wine and enjoying the view. Now it felt like we were on vacation.

We did a little research into what restaurant to check out first. I had found one place that seemed like it served traditional food more for locals than tourists, so we set our sights on that place for dinner. It was a bit of a walk from our hotel, but that gave us a great chance to see more of Rabat. Also, as it happened we could pre-walk our route to the train station for the next day, so it was a win-win. 

Passing through the old town and out the other side we could see that it wasn’t really that touristy. Many people were walking around but mostly local people rather than tour groups, and of course so many cats – everywhere.

We walked through a slightly more modern area, with more westernized buildings, and busy traffic circles. There were shoe shiners, construction workers, and a surprising amount of soldiers (with rifles), but it didn’t seem like there was any tension around them. Eventually we passed Rabat Ville station and marked it in our memories for tomorrow, and then finally our target restaurant, facing a light rail line with very modern train cars. 

Outside the restaurant there was a bouncer, definitely a bad sign, but we went in anyway, and there was a really weird vibe. More of a bar than a restaurant, the room was dark and some live music was playing in the corner. All the patrons were old guys, drinking beers served in buckets. A cleaning lady looked up at us but turned her head away, and nobody approached us to see what we wanted. I was guessing that Google was out of date on this one. With everyone still watching us curiously we ducked out.

An emergency Google session led us to another restaurant nearby. This one was pretty touristy but we were getting hungry and thought it was best just to sit down and eat. We got a table outside and it was a good place to watch people walk by – and it was interesting that those people watched us just as much as we watched them. One lady even said “Bon appetit!” as she walked by.

Our waiter gave us menus and said that he didn’t speak English but asked if we spoke Spanish. I responded in Spanish and thought we’d be OK, but I guess my response wasn’t very clear because a new waiter came next and handled everything in English. We drank some juices (no booze on the menu) and Kuniko’s avocado “juice” was a big hit – it was blended with milk and so creamy… wow!

We had some couscous and pfasa. The pfasa seemed similar to what we ate at Aida’s place, but according to locals it was a different dish. The food was good – not as spicy as I expected, but tasty. There certainly was a lot of food there – we probably could have split one dish and been OK, but it is good to try various things.

We finished with some mint tea and paid the bill – a little pricey (180 MAD) but we were happy to fill our bellies. Walking back to our hotel the streets seemed a little busier now, and this time we saw more stray dogs to go with all the stray cats. The street now had lot of food stands open, but most of them were pizza, burgers, fried snacks and so we didn’t feel like we would have wanted to go there anyway. 

Back at the hotel we were pretty tired and went to bed super early, still trying to get equalized with the exhaustion and jet lag. The neighbors came to their room a bit loudly, but we couldn’t really complain as we were in bed by 6:30 pm. We were eager to get on a train and see more of the country tomorrow.

As usual our longer trips begin with a very busy schedule wrapping up work before the trip. I had our departure day off, so I could put the finishing touches on our packing, straighten up the house and turn everything off, and then take a leisurely ride by train and bus to the airport.

Kuniko, however, was super busy and had to work even on our day of departure. After work she rushed to the airport using an express train from her job in Osaka. By the time she arrived a pretty good line had formed at the Turkish Airlines counters, and so we waited patiently for things to start to move. 

Turkish had only two counters available, and they had some confusing signage above. One said “Online Check-in” and the other said “Bag Drop”. I had checked in online already and I just wanted to drop our bags – which line should we use? I asked the staff and she pointed us towards the longer of the two lines.

But as we approached the front of the line, Kuniko suddenly felt faint, and as I struggled to hold her up she completely passed out. I guided her slowly to the floor and told her to keep breathing – after about ten seconds she came to. She was still shaky so we got out of line, I got her some water, and we went off to the restrooms to try to freshen up. As I waited outside the women’s restroom for Kuniko, I realized that I had no good way to check on her. The longer it took the more I worried, but eventually I shouted her name from the entrance and she was fine. 

There was a time when we were wondering whether to go on with the trip or to head back and just focus on resting, but ultimately Kuniko said she wanted to do it.

Once Kuniko was feeling a little better we went back to the line and had to wait from the end – it took a long time to get back to the front, but check in was easy and we rushed through security and immigration in time to make our flight. Kuniko bought me some curry bread for dinner, and then we boarded our plane – on our way. I was hoping that what brought Kuniko down was just exhaustion – and spending the next 13 hours on the airplane in the dark seemed like the best way to deal with it.

I guess we were both tired out – we slept through most of the flight. Before sleeping I saw the time remaining clock at 13 hours, and the next time I woke up it said 3 hours. That was a new record for me – and in economy class, too! The only down side was the guy in the seat behind me poking his toes into the back of my elbow now and then – gross… Kuniko got some rest and was feeling much better, and so it seemed like it was the right thing to go through with the trip.

So soon enough we were back in Istanbul airport with lots of time to kill. We had been here a few months ago for our summer trip, and we were wary of the 36 euro prosecco. We did have a couple of coffees at a cafe with a cheese sandwich that really hit the spot – even though it was pretty greasy. We also discovered the airport “NapZone”, and so we got even more rest while stretched out in a very comfortable recliner – nice!

Believe it or not we got hungry again, and went to a sports bar for Turkish kofte, a great cheeseburger, a Turkish sparkling wine (expensive but really good) and an Efes beer (or two).  While enjoying the food we were talking and Kuniko said that our next country will be the sixtieth country that we’ve visited. Wow!

We headed off to the gate, got our boarding passes (which had been changed due to a plane switch). Waiting by the boarding gate a guy across from us was snoring so loud – his family looked embarrassed but didn’t wake him up. It was so loud as to make you worry for his medical condition. 

On the plane we sat next to a nice guy with his family, and ate a dry chicken dish. We did get a bag of Turkish snacks, which came in handy later – I just threw them in my backpack. Kuniko slept through most of the five hour flight to Casablanca – it was a lot of sleep to catch up on. Out the window I could see the southern coast of Europe but unfortunately couldn’t see the rock of Gibraltar – too cloudy or too far away. 

Once we landed at Casablanca we had two events in the tunnel coming off the plane. First, a guy next to me suddenly vomited against the window, and second, there was a group of policemen checking passports at the end of the tunnel. Not sure if these two events were related, but it took a while to get through the tunnel and off to immigration. We picked a long line in immigration and got our first taste of the slow and steady delays that come with a developing country. While we waited the immigration staff frequently looked up from their work to glare at people in line, they sometimes got up and helped other people cut in front of us, and generally worked very, very slowly.

Near us a group of Chinese people came in and were acting really weird – they tried to cut into the front but were sent back to the end of that line. Our line was so slow that we watched the Chinese guys make it all the way the front of their line again – it was another hour before we got through with our passports stamped.

We had a long wait for our suitcase – another hour watching the carousel – until we finally left the airport. We caught a train from the airport – we had considered a taxi to save time but it seemed from the internet that it would take about the same amount of time for a much higher price. So we waited about 20 minutes for a train, and we were off to Casablanca’s main station (Casa Voyageurs) from the airport. Finally! Our train was really old, and it made its way slowly to the station, so by the time we arrived we had missed the next express train to Rabat where we were hoping to spend the night. We instead walked around the station killing time until our train would arrive. The station itself was quite modern and beautiful – all the train stations we saw in Morocco were very nice. The trains weren’t modern but at least the stations were cool.

Originally our plan was to take a taxi from Casa Voyageurs to see the Hassan mosque, but from our messaging with Aida and her husband Othman it seemed like it would be better to come directly to their place and save the mosque for later. So we caught the next train to Rabat, but we had to change trains at Casa Port via another slow train. Casa Port had lots of people changing trains – some running across the tracks – and the port must have been nearby as there were flocks of seagulls swirling overhead.

The next train was a little bit faster, and in first class we sat alone until a family of four came in and sat right near us. The kids were super noisy, the parents let them scream and yell, and it seemed like the air conditioner was stuck on the maximum setting so we were really cold. It was turning into a real ordeal – poor Kuniko pulled her hood over her head and just sort of checked out. 

Finally a staff member noticed the cooler was not set correctly and fixed it. The conductor was sitting behind us as we traveled, playing with his smartphone. When he checked our tickets Kuniko had accidentally shown the old ticket, but the conductor didn’t seem to care at all.

Meanwhile I was messaging Othman who was waiting at Rabat station to pick us up. Our train was running about 45 minutes late, and he was nice enough to wait around for us. Finally we arrived, and he took us to his car and got us on the road to La Finca, Aida’s facility/home in the countryside. It took another 45 minutes or so to get there by car, through the darkness and down country roads. Othman was really nice to answer our questions and chat with us – he owns a restaurant, does computer programming, and also helps Aida with La Finca. 

We drove past the king’s residence complete with soldiers out front, and then past a big area of BBQ stations built out of truck trailers – that seemed like a place I’d like to try out. Then we went down a dirt road and finally arrived at La Finca.

Othman used a remote control to open a gate, some dogs came out from inside barking (and sometimes growling at each other), and then we could finally get our stuff inside. We kicked off our shoes at the door and had a chance to greet Aida, and meet some of her friends that were also there for dinner. Luckily they are used to eating late, but we felt bad for making everyone sit around while we tried to manage the Moroccan train system.

There was a big group there – we met Shashi and Nastya who gave us lots of information on places we should go and foods we should try. Also there was Aida’s friend Nassim with her daughter Kiana, who spoke English with us and made us feel welcome. Nassim was really into Japan after her stay there, and she was also friends with Pico Iyer which was pretty surprising. Also there was Zineb (Aida’s cousin) and Imane (Aida’s friend) and their kids: Adam, Yanis, and Ilyan. Mostly they spoke French, so we didn’t get a chance to talk much. 

Aida welcomed us with dates and milk as a Moroccan traditional greeting, and then gathered us all into a circle to welcome everyone together, and in a very kind gesture she spoke in English to help us out. She also made a big announcement that caught everyone by surprise, and so it was an even more special evening. Afterwards they served a real feast – Moroccan flatbreads cut into paper thin strips (like kottu roti) and served with lentils and a big roast chicken on top. There was also nettle soup, cucumbers with sesame oil (to give a refreshing Asian splash). She also served a really nice salad that was so light that I felt like I could eat it endlessly. 

Everyone was talking and eating around a long table inside the very big house, and we struggled a little to follow all the languages being spoken. Still, everyone made us feel welcome and chatted with us, even though at this point we were totally shattered from the long travel day. 

Dessert was an excellent lemon cake, I had lots of great wine, and after some cookies came out on a plate it was time to call it a night, at least for us. We begged off to bed, Aida gave us a big bottle of water for hydration, and we retired upstairs to our room. It was a huge place and each group had their own bedroom and bathroom – so spacious. 

We pretty much just conked right out – one of our longest travel days ever. If the party went on downstairs without us, we were both completely unaware. What a day!

We tried to sleep in as long as possible as it was our last day of our trip, a long travel day. We enjoyed the hotel breakfast once again, and watched a Japanese family of four managing their two little kids with skill. The dad gave the kids a boiled egg for them to peel while mom got her food – the eggs kept them busy and quiet.

After breakfast we went up to our room to chill out and try to use every last minute before the check-out time of noon. We were surfing the web and playing video games and I realized that the hotel WiFi was broken – it was switching on and off – so in this way I burned through most of the remaining data on my eSIM without realizing. Bummer! 

We had a do not disturb sign on our door but despite that someone knocked, and when I answered the door two housekeepers looked shocked and apologetic. Maybe a mix-up, but maybe they just wanted to get a jump on cleaning. Either way, they were early and we were still entitled to stay. I was just trying to be horizontal for as long as I could.

Finally we checked out and stored our suitcase in the hotel’s locked storage room while we went for lunch. We had a target restaurant that looked good, but when we got to the area it seemed hard to find. Eventually we realized it was downstairs inside a shopping center, and it looked super busy. So we went back outside and looked around.

Every time we travel in Europe we see kebab places – and we love kebabs, but it always feels like a wasted chance when we could eat the local food of wherever we are. But since we tried and failed, it seemed like a good time to get a kebab. There was a busy kebab place nearby that had an automatic kebab meat slicer running – high tech! I had a kebab wrap, which Kuniko had a falafel wrap and they were both excellent. We drank lingonberry soda with them, and it was a big, messy meal but very delicious.

Back at our hotel we went to pick up our bag from the storage room. I joked with the staff by asking if we could take any one we wanted, and he joked back that he recommended the bigger suitcases for more loot. But seriously, we could have taken anything and they wouldn’t know whose was whose. Weird system.

From there we got back on the Arlanda Express (using the savings trick we learned coming in) and we were able to do early check-in at the airport. The kiosk was a little weird and wouldn’t print out my boarding passes, but at the desk everything was fine. 

We went through security and on to a bar for drinks and to recharge our devices. We had a great corner seat at a big mainly empty place, so we killed a couple hours using our phones, reading, playing games, and drinking beers. 

Closer to our departure we stopped at a really stylish bar/restaurant for sparkling wine, and had one of the best meals of the trip – a big open-faced shrimp sandwich. It was so good! Much higher quality than typical airport food.

We caught a three hour flight from Stockholm to Istanbul, and had a little time to kill in the airport as we awaited our connecting flight. We knew better to drink Prosecco here, and we weren’t super hungry after the snacks on the plane. So we just chilled out by the gate until the line started moving to board. 

We sat next to a high school aged Japanese girl, part of some kind of group of other school kids scattered throughout the cabin. She kept to herself during the flight, and Kuniko and I could do some serious sleeping. Once again we were able to sleep through about eight of the eleven hours on the plane before arriving in Osaka. 

We got lucky with immigration, our suitcase and customs so that we caught the next bus to Kobe, and then from there we took a train to Nishi Akashi and a taxi back to our home, as is our tradition. All our souvenirs survived the trip, and we had a cold bottle of champagne waiting for us in the fridge. 

It was another great summer trip for us. We really like the vibe in Europe and exploring new countries there is a great way to escape the summer in Japan. But as we look to the future there are only a few more countries left unexplored in Europe, and as we get older we might want to look around some other places, too. We might change things up next year – who knows?

We slept a solid 9 hours, maybe the days and days of walking around are starting to catch up with us! 

Our hotel breakfast was one of the better ones of this trip, with a good layout that is designed to handle a lot of people. We enjoyed eating our eggs, fruits and yogurt at a relaxing pace, along with some unusual juices that really hit the spot. 

We started that day by heading on foot across town to the Vasa museum. As we crossed town we had a lot more chances to see all the beautiful buildings, especially on the waterfront. The air was cool and the weather was beautiful – hard to imagine what kind of humid hell people were going through back in Japan. 

There were not so many people at the museum as we arrived just at the opening time, and we used online tickets to enter. The Vasa museum centrally displays the 64 gun warship that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. It was salvaged and restored, and the museum is beautifully designed to give you a feel for life on the ship, and see all the details that went into building it. Just looking through had me thinking of Master & Commander. 

Once we finished with the museum we walked around the area to take pictures, especially of the compelling buildings. There were plenty of trees and it was a very natural setting. 

From there we set out in another direction and found ourselves at the Ostermalm’s Food Hall, which was our kind of place. Full of local ingredients, meat, fish and vegetables, this was a gourmet heaven. Luckily we arrived with full bellies otherwise we’d have maxed out our credit cards.

In a department store nearby we browsed through all the candies looking for souvenirs for our students back in Japan. There were endless varieties of Swedish black salted licorice (an acquired taste) but also some more palatable options so we stocked up there. I was surprised to see so many candies from other Scandinavian countries – not so many local to Sweden. 

We dropped off our souvenirs back at our hotel and then went to lunch at Bistro Bestick. It was quite close and promised traditional Swedish food. The staff were curious about Kuniko, and surprised that I spoke Japanese. At first they spoke to me in Swedish so I guess I blended in. 

We started with bubbles and then had a great lunch: Reindeer meatballs, and some cured salmon in sauce with potatoes, egg and salmon roe. It was a great meal, and we were really getting our meatball cravings satisfied. 

Off we went to see the Parliament House, and there were more tourists out on the streets by now. We walked through the grounds of the Parliament House and back behind to the Royal Palace, half of which was under renovations. Nearby was a culture festival with live music, and we saw many food trucks lined up. I noticed that all their menus and signs were only in Swedish, so meant for locals, not us. There was a fair amount of security guards walking around the area, too.

At Kuniko’s request we visited the Nobel Prize museum, and it was worth the stop. The exhibits showed a background of the winners, and sometimes some personal memorabilia indicating the Eureka! moment that helped them make the connections that earned them the prize. Some were pretty odd – a jar of a favorite kind of peanut butter, for example. Overhead there was an automated track system with little runners that carried a banner for each of the Nobel prize winners. Each one had a chance in rotation to go around the room introducing the winner. It was unique and fun to watch.

Finally we walked back to the hotel for a little rest and to do some journaling. Mostly we hung out in the hotel bar to await the cleaning of our room, and we played shuffleboard a few times, too. Eventually our room was cleaned so we went up for a short nap to build up energy for the evening.

For dinner we walked to Knut Upplandsgatan, and sat outside the restaurant in the beautiful weather. Some great dishes here, including Plate from the North: a sampler of moose sausage, vasterbotten cheese, smoked deer heart (yum!), reindeer steak, prosciutto cured with pine needles (excellent!). Also crayfish tails on dark rye with radishes and shoestring potatoes. We were also served spiced bread and butter mixed with whey. 

When we first arrived one person set us up at the table, and while we talked another guy suddenly came up with a notebook and said hello, and I thought that it was somebody looking to conduct a survey. But it turned out that it was our waiter, and he had been just a bit tentative (perhaps wondering what language to open with). Later he said that their sous chef is from Japan, but unfortunately we didn’t get to meet them. With dinner we had a nice South African Cabernet Sauvignon – we ought to go visit there sometime!

After dinner we got some lingonberry caramels that were excellent – unfortunately we couldn’t find them in stores anywhere. But we did more walking around to explore new areas. We did a little more shopping at an upscale supermarket, and Kuniko bought salmiak tablets for her coworker. We walked to a nearby church (Gustaf Vasa), and then saw a metro station and on a lark bought tickets. There was no machine, but a very nice lady sold us tickets from a window, and I was struck again about how nice everyone was to us on this trip. 

As we approached the gate to the station with our tickets a bunch of police were marching a young woman away, don’t know what was going on there. 

We traveled from that station, Odenplan, to old town Gamala Stan. The train ride was smooth and in a modern design, but not really that special. But at least we had a chance to ride a train in every country on this trip. 

We walked around old town again, this time there were fewer tourists as the tours were finished and it was dinner hour. Slowly we worked our way back towards the central area, but sat on the waterfront a bit. A young family were fishing for their dinner – the wife and husband both had poles while a little kid played nearby, crying quite loudly. Another fisherman thought he had something, but he only pulled up seaweed. 

We went to Radisson Blu’s bar for a final cocktail, with the bartender winking (a little excessively) to each customer before making the drinks. Kuniko had a tropical twist which was tasty but the egg white merengue was a little too sweet. My drink was a ginger/basil/cucumber refresher that was very nicely made. 

Finally we went back to our room and crashed out, the end of an active day of sightseeing and eating.

Since we knew the breakfast at our hotel was busy early on, we made sure to arrive just a few minutes before 6 am. There were plenty of people eager to start eating. The way the buffet was laid out was that there were plenty of approaches to the food – it was an open style, and some people just started going up to get started. One staff member was yelling to stop because it wasn’t ready yet, but other people saw the first people grabbing food and thought it was time. Seems like they need to organize a little better.

Our breakfast was just as good as the previous day. Next to us a young Japanese couple took an inventive approach – they each filled their plate with different things and then set up a tiny buffet at their own table – sharing what they had and making sandwiches. It was a cute idea but we tend to fill our own plates. I think we’ll keep our strategy.

Around us the tables filled up quickly and there weren’t enough to go around, so we wrapped up our meal quickly and went upstairs to free up space. It was raining pretty consistently outside, so we spent time after breakfast lounging in the room, packing and organizing, and then we checked out. Some previous research found that the light rail station that we wanted was just on the other side of the regular train station, and there we used a kiosk to buy tickets. The tickets were sent by SMS to Kuniko’s phone, but they were not appearing. Strangely when we changed the phone number to mine, they arrived. But in the end nobody checked anyway, so no worries. 

The light rail ride was about 45 minutes to the airport. The windows fogged up due to the rainy weather, so we couldn’t see a whole lot of scenery. At the announcement of each stop they played a little jingle of music that was different for each stop. Inside the tunnel a long LED strip was placed in cascading shapes so that it worked like an animation as the train moved by. These little touches made the ride go by more quickly for us.

At Bergen airport we had a seamless experience.  We checked in via kiosk, put our suitcase onto the automated luggage drop off system and said goodbye to it. We went through security into a large common area, and commented on the lack of duty free shops – they are usually ubiquitous when we travel. Then we went off towards our gate, and then we saw that our gate was through a one way door, once we went through there then we were in the international area of departures and yes, of course they had duty free shops. We made a stop at a sports bar for two glasses of sparkling wine and an order of French fries (great combo). 

We waited at the gate for boarding, and I got into the leftover rose candy from Bulgaria. The white sugar powder from the outside had leaked a bit in my bag, and suddenly I looked like some kind of rose candy cocaine freak – white powder everywhere.

We boarded the plane, and this flight had us sitting separately for the one hour flight. This was thanks to our travel site, Kiwi.com, which tries to charge extra for seats next to each other. But it could have been due to Norwegian Air Shuttle – this was our second time flying them and again I was not impressed with their service. 

The plane had a lot of Spanish people who tended to speak with very loud voices, but it was good practice for my Spanish listening skills. Across the aisle from me I saw a single Japanese woman reading her Japanese guidebook for Stockholm, maybe her husband was sitting elsewhere in the plane.

Once we arrived I was surprised to see how aggressively everyone pushed forward to got out as soon as possible. When it was our turn I nodded to the Japanese woman and said, “Please, go ahead” in Japanese. Her eyes got big but she seemed appreciative. Kuniko I met outside the gate and then got our suitcase fairly quickly. The next step was train tickets on the high speed Arlanda Express to the city center. We had just started the process to buy two single tickets when a lady ran up and said, “Stop!” in English. She showed us that there is a discount ticket for groups of 2 or more, and so we saved some money. That’s great but why not change the system so that it is more intuitive? Why pay a staff to stand there all day and point out the savings?

It was a 20 minute ride on the very comfortable high speed train, very similar to the ride into Oslo a few days ago. I’d have to give the Oslo train better marks as it seemed newer and I preferred the more modern design. 

Kuniko had booked a hotel right next to the central train station. The lobby was nice, a bar in the corner – good sign. They also had two long shuffleboard tables (which are always fun), and hidden somewhere in the back was an “ice bar” – a bar constructed completely of ice that requires polar wear to enter and drink. We never did get in to try it but my first impression was that it was too gimmicky to be really enjoyable. 

We had a very comfortable hotel room, but we wasted little time in dropping off our bags and heading out to explore the city. We crossed the bridge to the south and found the Riddarholmen Church, then turned around and saw the rest of Galla Stan island – and couldn’t believe that there were so many beautiful buildings. We walked from building to building, snapping pictures and just in awe of the whole thing. The old town area is compact, mainly on cobblestones, and makes for an easy walking adventure.

Of course there were tourists as we had gotten a late start arriving in the city, but the narrow old town streets kind of separated the crowds and it didn’t seem so bad. We stopped for drinks at a random cafe, and the waiter who took our order looked like a teenager. I had a local beer to start, and on a lark ordered a pear cider since we had such a nice apple cider back in Bergen.  But this was a sweetened drink that reminded me a lot of Zima. Ugh. 

For dinner that night we stayed in the old town and ate at Slingerbultin. We had made reservations online, and a cool-looking manager inside rocking an 80s heavy metal mullet took our order. He was having a great time laughing with everyone and seemed like the freest spirit I’d seen this trip. Behind us a big group of Japanese tourists took a table, and Kuniko and I were joking about the “motto motto, Takemoto” jingle from Japanese TV, and how that group would have their minds blown if I said it loud enough for them to hear.

Our appetizer was a beet and goat cheese tartin, and our entrees were a plate of Swedish meatballs, and cod with a mussel sauce. The dishes were excellent (especially the beet/goat cheese tartin) and we had some red wine by the glass with our meal. The staff who was pouring chatted with us a little bit and we were struck by how everyone seemed so genuinely friendly here. After leaving there was a long line waiting to get inside, so I was glad we had made the reservation. 

We headed back to the central area near the train station and continued to walk around. We explored an underground shopping area that reminded us of Whity back in Osaka, and we did some shopping at the local market for yogurt, Keks chocolate for tasting, and then finally crashed out in our room for the night. 

Even though we were pretty tired the previous night we found ourselves getting up at 6 am, so we headed down at this early hour to get some breakfast. Surprisingly, the buffet was almost full.

Breakfast was good, with lots of fish of very high quality. With so many people sometimes we had to line up for some foods, and the buses lined up outside explained the source of all the guests. Because of the location right near the train station and the wide streets out front, our hotel was popular with tour groups.

After a quick stop back in our room we went out and hit the road early. The original idea of staying a day in Bergen was to allow another chance at a fjord cruise if necessary. I didn’t know if it would be rainy, or if the cruise that we took yesterday would be enough to satisfy, but as it turned out we were happy to just spend time relaxing in Bergen before moving on to our next country.

We walked through town, making a minor wrong turn but eventually finding our way to the waterfront. The big attraction there is the UNESCO awarded Bryggen – a row of historic waterfront buildings that have been preserved. Similar (but slightly less colorful) to the Nyhavn canal buildings in Copenhagen, these buildings had a variety of shops (some less than traditional) and overlooked the ships coming and going in the harbor. We walked through a fish market, similar to what we had seen in Helsinki – set up mainly for tourists and not yet open. Inside the harbor many ships were docked, one named “Eric Bloodaxe”, and others much larger that were built to push around cruise ships. We circled around the waterfront and behind to see St. Mary’s Church, and then sat on a bench to rest. From the bench I ordered online tickets for the funicular that runs to the mountains above Bergen, and then we walked several blocks down some old streets that were under construction. 

When we got to the funicular entrance it was completely hidden inside the building, and built in to the mountain so as not to disturb the view of the mountainside. When we arrived there was no line, so we got right on the modern funicular car. About halfway up the car emerged and then you could enjoy views of the city through the clear glass windows on the top of the vehicle. 

Once at the top we could enjoy panoramic views of the city, the ocean, and dark rain clouds far on the horizon. There were a few other things at the top – a bunch of goats lounging around, a pod that elevates into the trees (available for overnight rentals!) and a troll forest. Trolls are a part of the local folklore, and they had made some cute/grotesque statues of trolls and hidden them here and there in the woods. 

It was a popular destination – we recognized the Japanese family that had sat around us on the train the previous evening – and as we were wrapping up there were a lot of people arriving. We grabbed a ride down the hill, and found a rather long line waiting to go up the hill. Our timing had been perfect.

And speaking of perfect timing, we started to seek out a place to have some sparkling wine, and ducked into the fish market just as the rain started coming down. We talked to a waiter in an attached restaurant, and he was happy to sit us at a table in the glass enclosed back patio. Through the glass ceiling and windows we watched people running for cover and getting wet while we sipped our bubbles and stayed dry.

While Kuniko had a Prosecco, I took a chance to try a local cider, that was dry and quite flavorful. My good experience with this cider caused some problems for me later in Sweden, however. Along with the bubbles we decided to order a sampler plate of various caviar, called “Caviar Symphony”. I asked our very friendly waiter if one plate would be enough for two people, and he just smiled and said we could always order another one if it came to that. 

The caviar was one of my highlights of the trip. It had four kinds of fish eggs – black and red varieties of lumpfish eggs, trout and salmon eggs. There was also some crème fraiche, red onions, some bread and also some dill. It was perfect with the bubbles in with the rain falling around us.

We spent a while there as the place was empty and nobody was in a hurry with the rain outside. We watched a Korean family try to take a table at the next restaurant while bringing along McDonald’s bags full of food – they soon got kicked out but came back later without the food. A staff member of our restaurant talked with us a while about her experiences living in Norway – she came from Argentina, and was working in different countries in Europe. 

After a second round of bubbles the rain seemed to be tapering off, so we decided to go ahead and move on. As we left the fish market we took a closer look at the seafood on ice – they had everything you’d expect: big king crabs, shrimp and lobster, even smoked whale. We saw a lot of whale on the menus in Norway, which is the only country besides Japan that does commercial whaling.

Nearby we went through to supermarket to see what kinds of things they sold, and then walked around a shopping center (the entrance was hard to find!) and stopped in Flying Tiger, and also walked through Normal!, which is a similar sort of store, more like a drug store that we had first seen in Oslo. In the shopping center we made a bathroom stop, and somebody was just walking out when I grabbed the door and went in. Kuniko had to pay to enter her bathroom – and it turned out that I illegally used the toilet in Norway. I should have tapped my credit card (like Kuniko did) to pay to use the restroom, so I accidentally saved a little money through ignorance. 

We walked back to our hotel in a light rain to take a break there – and we both were enjoying staying in a town that makes it so easy to walk around. Similar to Japan, it is easy to get around without a car and we didn’t even need to use the light rail system in Bergen until we left for the airport.

We had expected our room to be cleaned by the time we returned but found a tag hanging near the door that said that they clean the rooms every three days. Unfortunately we had already thrown our wet towels into the bottom of the shower and we were out of soap in the dispenser by the sink, so we called the operator and they brought those items for us. 

In the late afternoon we went back out into town to look around some more. One thing we noticed right away was that there were roving groups of young people, maybe college age, wearing odd clothes and participating in various activities. Some were running impromptu races, others playing games or trying to limbo under a pole. Later we heard from our waiter that it was a sort of college social club activity day, but it was surprising how many people were out and about.

Thanks to online reservations we were able to get into the restaurant that had been packed the previous evening. We had dinner at Pingvinen, and it was really good. We started with a crab and fish salad, served with flatbread crackers slathered in butter. For main courses we had a big slice of fish pie, and also a bowl of plukkfish, which contained fish and potatoes mixed with a handful of heavily roasted meat chunks on top, and pickled onions on the side. This was one of our favorite meals of the trip, and we wanted to take a shot at cooking them at some point. 

After dinner we walked around a little more and then headed back to our hotel. Since there was a bar out front we hoped to have a cocktail, but despite a huge amount of booze bottles on the shelf they had only a few choices. The staff looked pretty busy and stressed. Eventually I had a Moscow Mule, and Kuniko ordered a Porn Star Martini. The bartended heard Kuniko say “Oishii!” and he said that he is a big fan of anime. Finally we decided to go up and head to bed. It was still light out when we went upstairs at 10 pm.

I’ve always wanted to see fjords in Norway, and seeing as we’d have such a short time in the country it was natural to check out “Norway in a Nutshell” – a tour package sold online that allows you to traverse the country from one side to the other, mostly by train, but also including a cruise through one of the UNESCO fjords. 

There is no rule preventing someone from checking out the itinerary of the trip and booking the tickets themselves, so that’s what I did in advance (and saved quite a bit of money, too). Today was the day of the trip, and we needed to get an early start.

One thing we did that was a big help was pay a porter service to pick up our suitcase from our hotel in Oslo and deliver it to our hotel in Bergen at the end of our route. Since we had only one suitcase it was reasonable, and it really made our trip easier. Of course we could have dragged a suitcase along – there was plenty of storage for luggage on all the transportation we used – but not having to worry about it was worth the extra money.

So we had to catch a 6:30 am train and we stopped at the markets that we had reconned yesterday, and then went to the platform. The train was already waiting, with a huge group of big senior citizen Americans shuffling towards their train car. We managed to get in front of the slow moving crowd and then got on to our train car. We entered from the opposite side as our seats so we had to swim upstream a little, but at last we arrived at our seats. They were facing what seemed to be the wrong direction – most other passengers were facing the other way – but when it left we were facing the direction of travel so lucky us. 

There were a lot of Japanese and Americans on board sitting around us. In front of us was a 4-set of seats facing each other with a table between them. In one pair of seats a couple of older Americans were sitting, who turned out to both be widowed and traveling together after recently starting a relationship. Across from them were a younger couple, an American soldier based in Japan with his Japanese girlfriend who spoke British English but worked for the military as a nurse. 

The older guy in the widow couple was quick to strike up a conversation, and thanks to his ceaseless questions I was able to ascertain the previous information about them. I started to feel bad for the younger couple who were forced to answer all the questions, and so glad that our tickets ended up being one row away. 

We enjoyed our breakfast while watching the scenery outside of Oslo, the change from city to rural happening very quickly. There was a lot of open space stretching out to the mountains, and the landscape reminded me a lot of the game Valheim that I had played so much of last year. It felt like I had been here before.

Some houses had immaculately trimmed lawns in the backyard, looking like something out the American 1950’s suburbs. Mostly the train followed the river, and offered some pretty dramatic scenery. Looking around the train car most people were either sleeping, using their phone, or answering personal questions. They were missing out on some beautiful views. About halfway through near the town of Bromma I saw a house that was absolutely haunted. Surrounded by nothing but forest, I couldn’t imagine approaching that place at night. Spooky!

One odd moment was when the sun started rising, burning bright light across the train car and glaring in people’s eyes. I had my sunglasses ready as I was enjoying the view, but the window shade on my window was also the window shade for the group in front of us, and they wanted to drop the shade – I wasn’t happy to give up my view so I told them so. We sort of compromised by pulling it down a bit, but I knew that once the shade went down it would be up to me to convince them to put it back up. 

The train climbed up the mountains and eventually reached the small town of Myrdal. It was here that we got off and waited for our connecting train. There was snow up on the mountain tops, a dramatic view of the Flåm valley, and people were getting excited for the next stage. When the Flam train came, we got a nice seat as people were aggressively jockeying for position. The train then descended into the valley, passing through tunnels now and then. The video screen above displayed video images of the valley around us as we passed through the tunnel – good idea!

There were dramatic views everywhere – spectacular waterfalls that fell from the tops of mountains, and striking river scenes below. Someone would gasp, “Oooh!” and then people would jump up and try to take pictures with their phones, then an “Aahh!” from the other side and they’d jump up again and snap away. Because of the light, the glass and the reflections I didn’t take many photos – but instead tried to soak it into my memory. 

At one point the train stopped next to a particularly large waterfall, and let people out to take pictures close up. Kuniko got out and took some photos and I stayed to hold our seats. There was a lot of water moving through the falls, and mist was rising quite high in the air. 

The train suddenly played some new-age dramatic music from the speakers both inside and outside the train, and you could tell they really wanted it to be a moment to remember. Kuniko did a pretty good impression of the music the rest of the trip and had us laughing each time. 

The next stop was the terminal station at Flam, and the beginning of the next stage of our trip. Flam sits on one end of the fjord network we were planning on cruising through. But it also receives cruise ships, and to see a huge cruise ship towering next to the tiny town was pretty impressive. These fjords must be deep to allow something of that size to cruise in. 

Thanks to that cruise ship there were a ton of tourists in Flam. There were food trucks, a brewpub, a cafe, and another restaurant, along with some tourist shops and a convenience store. That was about it for Flam, but it was our lunch break so we went to the brewpub first to try some of their beer. I lined up to get some food downstairs, but upon arrival they said that food was only upstairs, so I settled for a tasting flight of their beers. I ordered a 7-up for Kuniko but got an orange Fanta instead. 

The beers were pretty standard, except for their Aegir IPA which was exceptional. After sipping here we went to get some food at another restaurant, and while ordering a customer in front of us tried to take our drinks for some reason. The food was pretty good, though – we had fish soup, roasted lamb with vegetables, and I had another Aegir IPA.

 I was liking the beer so much that we went back to the brewpub to buy a T-shirt. The staff was busy pouring so it was tricky to get someone to come over, but eventually we did. She asked us what size shirt and Kuniko said “X” – but the lady understood and gave me the extra large shirt.

It was time to get ready for the fjord cruise, so we went to the ship and the line was huge! There were multiple tour groups, and we listened to a Japanese tour guide explaining things behind us. Once we boarded we walked around – the ship had a cafe, and a multilevel design that allowed for plenty of rails on all sides so that everyone could get an unobstructed view. We managed to get a good spot up front, and once the boat left the cool air was blowing in our faces as we headed up the fjord – it was a fantastic feeling.

Looking down into that deep still water it was easy to imagine my phone dropping in there never to be seen again, taking all our vacation photos with it, so I was mainly using my other camera that has a strap. Because of our position we were often asked to take photos of people, which is always fun. 

A big family of Indian people were really enjoying themselves. The teenage kids less so, with lots of complaints and drama. But you could tell the parents were happy to be doing a big family trip.

After passing beautiful waterfall after beautiful waterfall, even the dramatic natural beauty wasn’t enough to keep us out in the sun, so we went inside for some sparkling wine and to rest for the last 30 minutes or so of the cruise. We got off the cruiser in Gudvangen – as I walked off the ramp onto terra firma I made a goofy face at Kuniko and she snapped a great picture of it. 

The next stage was taking a bus to the Voss train station, and there were plenty of buses waiting for us. We bought a ticket on the bus from a large driver who was wearing really cool sunglasses. We told her so, and she looked happy to hear it. We rode the bus for just 15 minutes or so and then the driver announced a stop at a hotel for a break – it seemed like the hotel was paying kickbacks. We didn’t go inside but most other people did, and outside we saw a father lose patience with his daughter who was freaking out. He got a little rough which alarmed me, but later we saw him holding her and they both seemed OK.

The bus continued on to Voss, and dropped us off at the train station there. We already had our tickets so it was just a matter of lining up on the platform. We saw the Indian family again on the opposite platform, and this time their son was shouting and complaining that everyone in his family was blaming him for something he didn’t do. I thought it might be exhausting to travel with that family.

We caught our train and sat down, again the train was full of mostly Japanese and American passengers. Around us a Japanese family sat and talked about their upcoming visit to Sweden. Down a few seats a lady brought her dog on board, and it was cute to see a little boy politely ask the lady if it was OK to pet the dog. The dog was happy to get the attention but kept checking back with the owner to make sure everything was OK.

This was a shorter train ride from Voss to Bergen, and it was past 8 pm. Outside the sun was still out, and the scenery remained beautiful. Lakes, tiny towns, and still waterfalls here and there – I wonder if the residents realize how good they have it.

We arrived in Bergen at 8:45 pm, and thanks to Kuniko our hotel was right next to the train station. Our hotel’s restaurant was pretty lively, and there was a nice bar too. We checked in, our bag was waiting for us, and so we brought it up to our very Scandinavian room. We were still looking to eat dinner so we headed out to take a look at Bergen.

It was still light outside (and a little cold) and we could enjoy some sightseeing as we worked towards the center of town. There were a lot of younger people out at this time of the evening. The restaurant that I had picked had changed from a traditional seafood restaurant to a party bar, which wasn’t the vibe we were looking for. Another restaurant had a long line, so we ended up at a place called Egon – which apparently is a chain since we had our hotel breakfast there in Oslo.

It wasn’t a traditional cuisine restaurant really, but we ordered a cod dish that was tasty, some shrimp that was cooked in a spicy Thai style, and I had a local juicy IPA that I had been wanting to try. The servers there were super-friendly and everyone spoke English so it was easy to order. It was a little strange that we had to order from the counter, not the table. An old guy was there flirting with the staff, who took it goodnaturedly. 

It was a short meal for us since it had been such a long day, so from there we walked back to our hotel and went straight to bed – pretty exhausted!

We didn’t sleep as long as we expected to, so we got organized and decided to talk a little walk around the area to look around before breakfast.

We had central Oslo to ourselves – the sun was coming up and the temperature was just on the border between cold and cool. We chose streets at random, enjoying the architecture and empty streets, and found ourselves near the cathedral. It was a simpler structure compared to the others we’d seen on this trip, and of course this early it was all locked up so we would have to wait for later to go inside. 

Oslo station was a very modern station that did have a couple of people walking around, and some shops were open so that people could stock their backpacks before catching a long distance train ride. We knew that we’d be back here tomorrow morning to do just that.

It was about time for our hotel breakfast, and we went next door as they had some sort of agreement with a restaurant called Egon. It was a pretty big restaurant, designed to resemble the interior of a train which was fitting as it was right next to the station. They had prepared a breakfast buffet that was quite good – I liked the melon/passionfruit yogurt, and plenty of eggs, cold cuts, cheeses and mushrooms. The coffee was only so-so. 

After breakfast it was time to explore the city, and the size of it made it easy to do on foot. We started out heading towards the waterfront, and walked past buildings right on the water that seemed like they were either rental cabins or small restaurants – it wasn’t very clear. At the end of the waterfront was a giant cruise ship docked, and we could hear announcements inside rallying the troops for a shore excursion.

From there we passed through the fortress grounds, along the back way to get to the city hall, which was unfortunately under renovation at the time. Mostly there was no people – a few bikers or joggers but all the sightseeing spots were available for us to enjoy on our own.

Eventually we stumbled on the main thoroughfare called Karl Johan Gate, which connected the downtown with the royal palace on the hill. The palace was also undergoing renovations on one side, but it was disguised well enough that I didn’t notice at first. There were royal guards here and there, moving their heads back and forth to watch for attackers and to stave off boredom, I guess. We walked to the back of the palace which is located inside a large, well-cared for park, and took a break on a bench. Kuniko was impressed that all the benches were perfectly clean – something hard to find in the last three countries that we had visited.

As we walked back along Karl Johan Gate we started to see a few more people out and about, and the stylish cafes and restaurants were opening up for breakfast business.

By the time we reached the Oslo Opera House there were buses of tourists and one more super-size cruise ship was moving in to dock.  The design of the opera house is unique in that anyone can just walk up the sloping roof and climb to the top of the building, and continue over to the other side. The steps were a little scary for Kuniko and she was worried about falling, kind of like when we visited the Batu Caves back in Malaysia. Next to the opera house was a giant temporary structure that was used for a Red Bull cliff diving event that was coming up. 

We squeezed through lots of Chinese tourist groups and then found our way to the Edvard Munch museum, the artist famous for “The Scream” paintings. I had been able to buy tickets online, so we just had to wait for a bit outside before they let us in, and everyone was eager to rush to see The Scream. 

Since The Scream is a series of paintings, they have the most famous three of them for viewing, and to limit their exposure each one is displayed for only 90 minutes at a time. Then it is covered and the next one is revealed. While we were there we saw two of the three, a black and white version that I liked quite a bit, and one of the colored versions. This system took visitors by surprise and I think the staff members who worked in that area must have had to answer lots of questions all day long. 

But there was much more to Munch than just The Scream. There were some dramatic works – some huge in scale – that I had never seen before and the design and layout of the museum was exceptional. Kuniko and I took our time here and really enjoyed the museum. We even got a Scream keychain for our Christmas tree.

By this time we were getting our appetite back, so we walked across town to our lunch restaurant pick. The sun was really shining now, and despite the cool temperature Kuniko was worried about the sun on her scalp. She pulled her cardigan over her head and was looking like a babushka. Earlier in the trip we had seen a shop called “How to Babushka” and we loved the name – Kuniko was doing it in real life.

The restaurant we targeted, Kaffistova, was closed when we arrived. Once again the Google maps application had opening hours that were not correct – this was a recurring theme on this trip. We had to kill 20 minutes so we went to a nearby park and relaxed on a (clean) bench in the shade of the trees. 

Once it was time we went back to the restaurant, and we were the first customers. The staff sat us down and gave us menus, but after we translated them using our phones and made our decisions, the staff apologized and said that they were the incorrect menus. She gave us some lunch menus that were in English, so much easier.

Our first choice, the moose patties, was apparently going to take a long time, so we just ordered fish soup to share, with a glass of Prosecco and a local beer. As we waited a huge group of Korean tourists came in, part of a bus tour apparently. They all settled in and suddenly we were in a crowded restaurant. We were lucky to get our fish soup before the group ordered – and the soup was really good! 

The restaurant staff were clearly overwhelmed by the tour group so we decided to leave and get some more food somewhere else. Next we went to Dovrehallen, and on the 2nd floor of this historic building we found a guy looking exactly like Rasputin waiting around with no customers at all.

It was a really cool restaurant and interior, and the background music was an eclectic selection of American soul music from the 60s. We had fried halibut and local beer, and a great pickle salad that I want to try to make sometime. Rasputin was a friendly guy, maybe because he was so lonely, and we talked about weather. It almost sounded like he was complaining about the heat – this is the coolest we’ve felt in six months, dude!

Later we walked around some more, there was a big demonstration supporting Ukraine, complete with some people stepping on the Russian flag and making angry speeches (in Norwegian?) Around the city we saw a lot of Palestine flags as well, so the city seemed pretty active in political issues. Also in the city we found a chain coffee place called Hakone Coffee. Hakone is a city in Japan, and I remember finding Oslo Coffee in Tokyo and Kobe, so it was an odd mirror moment. And Hakone Coffee had a pretty long line, too.

All this walking around, eating and drinking had us a little tired, so we headed back to the hotel to rest, take a nap, and do some journaling. But soon enough we were thinking about getting some more food. This time we went to a restaurant that was a tiny bit unconventional, a local place focused exclusively on pork. 

Kuniko had a giant pork knuckle with garlic veggies and mustard potatoes. I had a pulled pork dish that had tasty mashed potatoes, and we washed it down with Voss Pale Ale and some house red wine. We got a nice table outside without reservations – yes! – and we saw an Asian lady sit nearby all alone and power down a plate of pork. It must be tough to travel and eat alone – it is harder to try many dishes. At another table we heard lots of Americans talking… we saw a lot of Americans and Chinese in Oslo.

Afterwards we walked back towards the central station, now the streets were packed with tourists. It was hard to reconcile this situation with the empty streets we had enjoyed earlier that morning. We decided to have one more cocktail at an outdoor cafe before heading back to bed, and so we sat in the main square not far from the giant tiger statue. Kuniko had a Bellini and I had a gin and tonic – but they weren’t all that special. It seemed like the bartender was new and so I guess he was a little nervous.

We turned in to bed a little early this time because we knew we had a very early train ride the next day. Oslo was a lot of fun, and we felt like we had seen all we wanted to see. 

It seemed like Kuniko was able to master the air conditioner settings, and we slept in a surprisingly long time. For breakfast today we went to Izzy’s Cafe, close to our hotel located in part of an empty lot with walls covered in artistic graffiti – the art was created there as part of a contest.

Izzy’s had outdoor seating, and we moved from table to table until we found a spot that was out of the rising sun. We started with some mimosas, and then had monster coffees to go with our breakfast. Kuniko had avocado and poached eggs in a hollandaise sauce, and I had the more traditional eggs panagurski – poached eggs in chili oil, yogurt, and cheese. My dish was really good – sopping up all that flavor with the bread that came with it was a pretty decadent start to the day.

On our way back we passed through the ruins that are preserved underground in the city center. It was interesting to see how they integrated the historic ruins into the design rather than remove them, and although it was quite hot under there with the glass windows above, it was worth checking out.

After buying a strange but interesting ornament from a tourist shop underground we went back to check out and store our suitcase with the hotel. Once we were free we headed to the National Gallery to get some culture and use their air conditioning. The main exhibition was on the work of Vasil Chakarov, a Bulgarian artist that was sort of discovered late in his life. 

In addition, there was a collection of national works of art, and the whole museum was housed in a beautiful building that was once a palace of its own. Our tickets didn’t get us into the national ethnography museum, but we decided to skip that and just focus on the art work. 

After our museum visit we went back to the quiet neighborhood that I had enjoyed so much the previous day, and went to the restaurant/cafe called “Made in Home”. It was a nice vibe in there, with younger patrons and simple, delicious food. We had a light meal of potatoes with yogurt, garlic, fried dill and jalapeños. I had local beer and Kuniko had a glass of white wine. We were enjoying the vibe and taking our time, I made faces at a cute kid at the next table, and we were about to order a little more when we saw that the menu said “Cash only” at the bottom. Since it was our last day in the country we didn’t have much cash, but luckily it was enough. But then oddly when we left the staff asked “cash or credit?” Confusing!

With plenty of more time to kill we made our way back to the Imperial Gastropub where the owner remembered us and was happy to pour some more wines for us. We sipped these outside under a black awning, with some stuffed peppers as a side dish. Spending an hour or more just chilling out in cafes is one of my favorite ways to relax – too bad we can only do this for a couple of months back in Japan. 

Our seats were right in front of the streetcar line, and we were interested to note that almost all the streetcar drivers were middle-aged women, wearing regular clothes rather than uniforms. The drivers looked a little stressed as they passed – I don’t think it is a relaxing job.

Finally we decided to head back to the hotel and pick up our suitcase. We used the very luxurious restroom there before leaving, and passed by a bunch of people taking pictures for an upcoming wedding. It seemed like our hotel was a historical landmark, and so it attracted some stylish weddings.

We rode the train back to the airport, sharing our train car with a big family. The dad was asleep and the mom looked a little stressed managing her three kids, but we shared a smile while watching some of their goofy antics. 

It was a breeze checking into our flight at the airport so we killed more time eating a cheap sandwich and some red Bulgarian at a cafe restaurant near the gate. The staff was really bored, reading a book with nothing else to do. He was playing some loud and annoying (to me) music, and so I started hinting to Kuniko that it was time to move on. But my hints weren’t strong enough, so eventually I said that we have to go now – something about the music was really bugging me. 

We boarded our 3 hour flight to Oslo on time, but for some reason Kuniko’s boarding pass set off some extra security check. Japanese passports are some of the strongest in the world, but they wanted to know how long she’d be staying in Norway. They didn’t care about me or anyone else, so it was strange.

We got lucky with an empty seat next to us, so we could spread out and relax on the flight. The two guys in front of me promptly reclined their seat (way back) so it was nice to have the room to slide over.

This flight was our first time to use Norwegian Air “Shuttle” – the third word in the name makes a big difference. It was sort of a low-cost carrier, and so pretty no-frills. I will always remember the expression on one of the flight attendants – she had eyes and an expression that said that she was completely dead inside.

Landing in Oslo marked a significant change in our trip. We really wanted to escape the heat of summer in Japan, and while it was much more comfortable in the European cities we had visited so far, it was still hot. Once we landed in Oslo there was no more of that, and we a week of the best weather we’ve ever had for a summer trip. The bad news was that costs for just about everything would be higher, along with the standard of living. 

But this flight was the end of one part of the trip and the beginning of another, and it was memorable because of it.

Oslo airport – wow! It was beautifully designed, clean and modern, and easy to navigate. As we went through we were sad to know that we wouldn’t be back here as we’ll be leaving Oslo by train. But from the airport, there is a high speed train that takes you directly into the city center. The ticket machine was electronic and designed in a clean, user-friendly way, and we easily got our tickets and got on board the next train. It was nearly midnight, but everything was still running normally.

Our train car was marked as a quiet car, but a group of five or six family members didn’t seem to realize it, talking in loud voices as they boarded. One of them was trying to lift their taped suitcase up onto a rack, but their foot was on the tape that had come undone, and so they were straining against their own weight without realizing. It was quite a family to watch, and eventually a train attendant came by and reminded them of the quiet zone very politely. They finally figured it out.

The train was so clean and fast, with a vertical digital display showing news and information – it was nicely integrated into the design of the train and I couldn’t help thinking about the contrast with our trains back in Bucharest. We got off at the central station – other passengers ran like hell to make some connecting train, but we had a room nearby so could go slowly.

Our hotel was adjacent to the station – we walked out the door and there it was. When checking in they had some trouble with Kuniko’s credit card, but rather than futz with it he let us go ahead and get our room. The room had a nice view of the city (and the northern tip of Oslofjord. The pipes had some trouble – a little air and brown water came out at first – but then they acted OK for the rest of our stay. 

So it was off the bed at nearly 1 am. No air conditioning needed – the temperature was much cooler here.

We got up pretty early, shivering from the cold air put out by the air conditioner. We couldn’t figure out how to adjust the temperature, or even turn it off. But we jumped into the hot shower to warm up a bit. When Kuniko stepped out of the shower, there was a pretty good river of water traveling across the wood floors to the other side of the room – uh oh. We sacrificed some towels to solve the problem, but the design of the shower wasn’t well thought out.

So, out the door early for sightseeing, and we headed straight to St. Alexander Nevsky cathedral to take a closer look. On the way there were plenty of beautiful buildings to see, and despite being a relatively small city the boulevards were sometimes quite wide. 

The cathedral itself was quite impressive, similar in style to the more modern St. Sava that we had visited in Belgrade. Inside no photos were allowed, but the interior was styled in a dark and traditional way, in contrast to the bright modern gold interior of St. Sava. We spent some time walking around and then started to backtrack towards the center of the city to get some breakfast. We had decided to forgo the hotel breakfast and see what kinds of local delicacies we could scare up. 

We enjoyed a nice meal at Rainbow Factory, a little stylish cafe in a busy neighborhood near downtown. I had a beef sandwich with melted cheese and pickled onions, and Kuniko had an omelette. Everything was good – and we liked the vibe of the place. Around the corner we checked out a Billa supermarket and got some rose candies to try out, more yogurt, and everything was really cheap. 

We went back to the hotel to do some laundry in our room – we were kicking ourselves for not doing it the night before and having our air conditioner dry everything out. After laundry we were ready to do some wine tasting, so we went back out on the town. I had a pretty good list of places that offered tastings, so we went to the closest one, Tempus Vini, but got bad news.

Apparently they do tastings only through “guided experiences”, like Viator and Trip.com. I’m sure this is more profitable for them, but for us it meant that we’d have to wait until 2 pm for their next reservation. No thanks, plenty of other wine places to check out. The guy didn’t seem that friendly or interested in more business, so I’m glad we skipped tasting here. The second place said they were open for sales at the moment but tasting wouldn’t be until 2 or 3 pm, so we decided to go get a couple of glasses of wine at a nearby square. After a little searching we found the Imperial Gastropub, with an owner who was happy to open a few bottles and let us taste. 

We tried a Bulgarian white wine, that in all honesty was a little simple for my taste, but we could sit and sip and plan the rest of our day. The atmosphere of the place was pretty stylish, with seats out front overlooking the streetcar rails and square. 

After a bit we headed out to have lunch at Izbata Tavern, the first actually traditional restaurant since our aborted attempt on the touristy thoroughfare last evening. As we entered we were apparently a little early, but they seated us in a corner and gave us drinks while we waited 15 minutes or so for the kitchen to open. I enjoyed a cold local beer – it hit the spot.

For lunch we were served some grilled bread with garlic and cheese, and I had sausage and porcini mushrooms served in a hard bread bowl. The mushrooms were a little mushy, but the sausage was nicely flavored. Kuniko had pork in wine sauce with rice, and that was excellent. It tasted like comfort food, and both enjoyed finishing that off.

As we finished our lunch people started drifting in to eat, and a group of local workers were sitting near us. I tried to see what they ordered to see what dishes were popular with the locals, but I couldn’t see clearly without looking like a stalker. It was good to see that the restaurant was doing well, though.

Walking back through the neighborhood around the restaurant I was struck by how comfortable it was. The streets were lined with trees, there were many small shops and interesting looking restaurants, and it was quiet with a comfortable breeze flowing through even in the heart of summer. I wished I could stay longer and explore more.

We took a break back in our hotel room to cool down. We hadn’t forgotten our original plan to do some wine tasting – so we next headed off to try wines at Wine Generator. This time, they let us inside and we walked down some steps. The lady who helped us (and who seemed to be the owner) seated us and asked us what we were looking to do. She had a tasting with some cheese for a very reasonable price, so we promptly agreed. After some trouble with some wine glasses we got sorted out and were able to choose from six different wines. We each chose three to taste (making sure that Kuniko and I had different wines) and that helped us taste the lot.

Kuniko’s three were: Sandanski misket, Vrachanski misket, and Gamza. I had Nikolaevo Chardonnay, Mavrud, and Syrah. All the wines were tasty, I especially liked the reds as they tended to be hearty and flavorful without hitting you over the head like some big reds do. 

As we sipped the wines another group nearby were talking and tasting, switching between English and another language we didn’t recognize. It was strange how they switched languages for no apparent reason.

The owner came by now and then to get our opinions and see what she could do to help us. As we left she brought out some cherry liquor as an apology for the glasses mixup, and it turned out that she had been to Napa recently for a wine industry event. She was super nice – Kuniko said she reminded her of Lady Gaga – and I was so glad we chose this place to taste wine rather than the first one with the tour requirement.

As we walked around we stopped in Lidl, a market that we had often visited on our last trip to Europe. It was a little junkier than I remembered, with lots of boxes unpacked on the shelves. Different countries, different vibes, I guess. 

Later we were able to develop our appetite and decided to try another traditional restaurant for dinner. This time we went to the very touristy Hadjidragonov’s Houses Restaurant. It was a pleasant walk in a different direction for us, in pretty hot weather. Even though it was cooler than Japan, it still was tough going when walking in the sun. 

Since we were eating earlier we didn’t need a reservation, and we were seated upstairs in a big room all by ourselves. I’m not sure if it was meant as a snub, but we were happy to have the quiet place, and avoid any traditional live music or dancing that might break out. We didn’t have the friendliest server, but she was speaking English for us so I can understand. For dinner Kuniko had kavarma po radomirski – baked pork in a tomato sauce, with a chili pepper on top for fire. I had a similar dish but cheese rather than pork. Both dishes nicely fit into the comfort food category, and we enjoyed them with glasses of local red wine. 

After we ate I think the server kind of forgot about us – we waited for quite a while but nobody came up the stairs. So in the end we had to leave on our own, and when paying the bill our server looked visibly unhappy. Often on this trip servers would say something like, “this price does not include service” or something to that effect. They are hoping that you’ll add a tip or leave some cash. This tipping in Europe feels weird to me – I hope they are not trending towards the American style of tipping. But we certainly weren’t planning on tipping after being sort of forgotten upstairs, and so  I think our server was caught in a cycle of bad attitude -> no tip -> bad attitude -> endless loop.

On our way home we stopped once more at Billa to stock up on the rose candy (that was quite good – jelly candies dusted in white powdered sugar – and came across a little drama. As our cashier was ringing up our items some big voices erupted (in Bulgarian I guess) behind us, and we turned to find a huge (and I mean huge) supermarket worker in the process of apprehending a shoplifter who was trying (I guess) to steal a can of beer. Shouts were exchanged between the two of them, and then the staff physically pushed the guy towards the exit door. Unfortunately between the shoplifter and the exit door was a line of customers checking out. The two of us, for example. So as this shoplifter is bouncing against walls on his way out the door we had to do some quick side stepping to avoid being hit.

The big staff guy followed the shoplifter out the door to get in a few licks, and even our cashier stepped away from the register (leaving our items still on the counter being scanned) and went outside to get in on the event. She wasn’t a big cashier but I guess she had confidence with her big coworker by her side. Once they left the door automatically closed on them, and suddenly all the customers were left standing there going, WTF? 

Our cashier wanted to come back in and was locked out by the automatic door, so I went over to activate the motion sensor, and she came in to finish our transaction, practically throwing our items against the wall after scanning them. Whoah lady – we are the good guys here!

After that excitement we walked down the long touristy street to check out the National Palace of Culture. The palace is located in the center of a huge park area, designed as a place for the people of the city to gather and relax. There were a lot of people out that night, amateur singers and dancers, magicians, and just families enjoying the outdoors.

I liked the vibe out here – with the sun down it was cooler, and it felt like the city was sort of coming together to celebrate. The palace itself was dramatically placed at the center of some fountains (although nowhere near the scale of Bucharest) with trees and flags lining the square. 

Eventually we wandered back down the touristy street, checking shops and buying water and drinkable yogurt on our way. There were two types of water bottles from the same maker, one pink and one blue. I asked the staff what the difference was, and she looked at me like I might have asked the stupidest question in the world. She just shook her head, and said that it was water. And she was right – I picked one at random and that was exactly what it was.

We retired for the day, hopefully the air conditioner would treat us more nicely this evening. 

We got plenty of sleep, then got up at 7:30 and went downstairs to avail ourselves of the hotel breakfast. The cat that was there the other day was waiting around, but he clearly knew that we were not givers – he ignored us and slept on a chair instead. He was missing out – the breakfast was once again very delicious. The presence of a big jug of fresh squeezed OJ was enough to make it memorable, but I was blissed out on the eggs, mushrooms, cherry jam in yogurt, and a cappuccino. Sitting outside enjoying a slow paced breakfast after sleeping so well is one of the best parts of our trips.

Later we walked around the neighborhood looking for touristy shops that sell keychains. We walked past the wild area from last night – the clubs were closed, the dancers at home sleeping – and it was empty and peaceful.

As the weather started to turn hot we went back to our room, organized and then checked out of the hotel. There was not a farewell glass of Prosecco so we left with only our suitcase and headed to the airport.

To get there, we retraced our steps upon arrival, and headed to the fountains once again. On our way we noticed some Asian people interviewing people as they passed by. We had seen this now and then and it had us curious. Unfortunately we were not in their target profile and nobody approached us. A couple of homeless guys near the fountains called out to us, “(something something) English!”and I responded, “lo siento” for some reason, and then we were both confused.

We took a break in the shade and spent a few last minutes enjoying the fountains, and then went down the elevator that we had emerged from just two days ago. We felt that we knew Bucharest much better. 

But apparently not well enough to catch the correct train. We got on the wrong one and had to backtrack after discovering our mistake. Even train veterans like us make wrong turns now and then. Once we arrived at Gara de Nord we had some time to check it out more. It was seriously old fashioned, and there were lots of people waiting around for their trains. Cats lounged on the platforms looking very comfortable in the shade.

We found an electronic ticket machine and bought our (very cheap) tickets, and then boarded the airport express train. This time we were ready for the hot and sweaty ride. The ride was quicker this time, and then we got off to head for the departures area of Bucharest airport. Once again we had to traverse a lot of steps with a suitcase, and we wondered at the poor design decisions here. There were elevators available, but not many escalators or ramps.

Since I had checked in online we simply had to drop off our luggage, but after finishing that we walked away and then realized that we weren’t issued boarding passes. Even when I’ve checked in online before we get them usually to make things simpler for security, so we went back. The same lady helped us but she was pretty pissed to have to go back in and issue the tickets. “Use your phone, use your phone!” she exclaimed.

Once through security we went to a burger restaurant to chill and have a light snack, but the staff was overwhelmed. There was some construction going on at the adjacent gate (jackhammers and everything!) so it was pretty loud and stressful. At first the staff were not friendly at all but eventually they warmed up to us and started being friendly. The burger wasn’t bad, the “standard fries” that we ordered were covered with Parmesan and garlic so I wonder what the premium fries looked like.

After that we went to the gate and just waited for boarding the short flight to Bulgaria. As we waited we talked about our visit to Romania, and our impressions. One impression I had was that the places we visited were sort of underdeveloped (like the train system), and in the process of improving infrastructure. Great architecture all over, and the people were almost always nice despite smiles being a rarity. We both commented on all the smoking – even more than Japan. Good food, good wine, and pretty delicious meat-based food. All the ingredients are there to make this a great stop – but there is still some room for improvement.

We took a bus out to our ride out of the country, a propeller driven ancient Tarom airline plane. It might have been the oldest plane I’ve ever flown in (commercially). The handful of passengers were remarkably quiet for the one hour flight, and they seemed more patient than the Romanians we’d met so far. Maybe they were all Bulgarian.

The plane circled over the city of Sofia, and as we drifted on a pattern towards the runway the course brought us right over the Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky – the golden domed church that was on the top of our must-see list. Thanks to the time of day the sun lit up the domes and the city around it was lined with plenty of trees between the buildings, showing a lot more green than we are used to in a city.

It was easy entry into the country, we got our bag and then tried the ATM to get some cash – my card didn’t work but Kuniko’s did – so it was nice to have a rich independent wife to bail me out.

Luckily we had the cash because the ticket machines at the train platform didn’t take credit cards, despite the internet saying that they did. It was a bit disorganized getting through the gate and we missed the first train, but it was only 7 minutes until the next one. The train was a little more modern than the one in Romania, and ran inside a covered track, so it was hard to take in the scenery, and then it went underground and continued into the city in the dark. 

Our stop was fairly close to the hotel so it was easy enough to roll our suitcase and check in. The hotel had an old leftover-Soviet feel that reminded me of our hotel in Minsk. The bell captain had a spooky scar in a large circle around his face and head, and the corners will a little dark and historic. But the real trick was finding our room. The number of the key didn’t match any of the rooms on our floor, and after we asked a nearby staff he led us behind an unmarked door in the corner, which had two numbered room doors behind it. Huh.

Our room was very nice, but the controls of the lights and air conditioner used a touchscreen device that had no text – the icons were not so clear and it took a while to figure it out. Also, the room did contain a baby crib taking up one large area, so some wires had apparently crossed. On our way out for dinner we asked the staff and they later took it out and put it in the hallway. 

We were pretty hungry and it was getting late so we went to the nearby tourist area to find a bustling street with lots of cafes and restaurants. It was a little past the dinner hour so many cafes had switched to just drinks, and we also were hoping to try some local food rather than pizza or burgers. Unfortunately our requirements were a little strict so we started getting grumpy with each other. Finally in desperation we sat down at a restaurant that specialized in kebabs, pizza and sandwiches. The drinks took a long time to show up, so our mood wasn’t good. We finally got in an order and we had some club sandwiches. At least my sandwich had some Bulgarian sausage for the meat portion, and once we had a little food and some drinks we were feeling better.

After dinner we found a little market that was selling many kinds of Bulgarian yogurt – I scored some really good strawberry flavored drinkable yogurt, I love this stuff. Finally we headed on back to our hotel, and went to bed around 11 pm, with the air conditioner running – we couldn’t figure out how to adjust it!