Nov 122023
 

I woke up on the ferry Tuesday morning, officially in Finland and also feeling sick. :( I dunno if it was just the air in the cabin or what, because I did eventually start feeling better once I got up and ready. I will say that while the overnight ferry was SO CONVENIENT AND CHEAP, it was also kind of chaotic because you have basically an hour to eat breakfast before the ferry docks around 7:30AM. That…is an early start.

We did pay extra for the breakfast buffet – I think it was $16pp which is not bad, really – after I realized before our trip that it was going to possibly be a bit difficult to find somewhere to eat breakfast once we arrived in Turku. Most of the cafes seemed to open around 10 and I really didn’t see us lasting that long without food. Especially Chooch and me. We be bitches.

But dang, that buffet was chef’s kiss. I mean, every breakfast buffet we had on this vaca up until now was impeccable, delectable, incredible, all of the bles you can think of, I’m not a fucking thesaurus. Sadly, we would be on own for breakfast after this, since we weren’t staying in a hotel in Helsinki.

Don’t worry, we’d survive.

Barely.

Sigh.

Um, I wrote IN REAL TIME from that morning so you might already know that Henry jacked up my Turku plans and we ended up just taking a train to Helsinki almost immediately after getting off the ferry, but not before standing on a platform for something that Henry “wasn’t sure” was correct and seeing some kid get bit on the stomach by a dog. That was pretty dramatic. I mean, the kid was screaming and crying but the mom was like, “*shrug*” after half-assedly checking for broken flesh, and meanwhile the dog-owner was like a comic cell of the word SKEDADDLE come to life. She and the dog peaced out big quick. I mean, I didn’t blame her. I am always on the dog’s side. Why did he bite that kid? What did that kid do to him? Probably SOMETHING, you know what I’m saying.

I wonder what the law is like in Finland. Here, if that mom would have pressed the issue, that dog probably would have been put down, and I really fucking hate that about America. So,  dogs can’t protect themselves? OK cool. Great.

Anyway, the train ride was about 2 hours, maybe less. Henry slept immediately for the entire duration, Chooch did god knows what on his phone (actually, he spent almost the whole trip doing deep dives into critically acclaimed music lists during all of the bus rides, etc), and I looked out the window marveling at the Finnish landscape.

My first real observation, while Henry tried to explain to the cab driver that morning what we were trying to do is that English didn’t seem to be AS second-language-y as it was in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. So this was our mistake not being prepared with better translated instructions for the driver after becoming way too complacent in the first half of our trip. Ugh, we probably totally came off as “those” kinds of Americans, and I 100% swear to god we are not and do not ever expect our dumb language to be spoken by all.

Fuckin’ English.

I was still kind of annoyed with Henry by the time we got to Helsinki and also nervous to see how scary it was going to be to navigate. Turns out, NOT TOO BAD. We were able to get our luggage locker with success, and this was the first time on the whole trip being in a city where you have to pay to use the public restrooms so that was fun (no really, it was cool!). I haven’t had to do this since I was a kid in…probably Italy? Germany? I can’t remember which other countries had pay-to-use restrooms back then. Definitely only accepted coins back then though, lol!

First impression of Helsinki was that the people were chill and laidback.

I think the subway was easy to use? I seem to recall Henry and Chooch fighting over this a lot but we always seemed to get where we needed to, somehow.

He hates us lololol.

We had some time to kill before our apartment for the week was ready, and it was nearing lunchtime, so we stopped inside Hakaniemen Market Hall for a small bite.

First we walked all the way around both floors to get a good idea of what was offered – a lot, that’s for sure, and quite a few vegan options as well! Chooch and I made friends with an older man who had a booth of his original artwork on postcards and magnets plus general souvenir fare like patches, etc. Of fucking course I didn’t have my credit card so we promised the guy we would be back while we went to fetch Henry who was probably erotically sniffing meat odors somewhere. I’m sure the guy was like, “Mmm, heard that one before,” but we really did come back, after snagging some chocolate samples from another vendor and then collecting Henry.

This reminds me that I need to get my print framed still! I really liked that guy! His Helsinki city art was bright and fun.

Then we went back to the very first food vendor we saw, all the way at the entrance, and got pastries and sandwiches. Isn’t it funny when it works out that way?? I homed in on those pastries as soon as we walked in and plus they had meat-free sandwich options, so it was perf.

It was the perfect lunch.

Chooch was desperately looking for Hoobastank to buy for Bill. Inside jokes, you guys. At the time of this trip, our record player was broken had been broken for a few years and Henry kept saying he was going to buy a new one. Our other one was legit from the 70s or 80s and worked so well, but then the needle broke and apparently in this modern area, replacing a needle on an old turntable costs as much as buying a new, good record player. So anyway, every time I told Chooch, “Why don’t you buy something for yourself,” he would say AND PLAY IT ON WHAT?? Anyway, like a month after coming back, Henry finally bought a new one, so I bet Chooch is kicking himself. Dude, I was still buying records the whole time our player was broken! I didn’t understand Chooch’s logic, but then again, I don’t usually understand him at all, ever, so why am I even wasting time typing words and thoughts and feelings about this.

Just can’t escape that piece of shit!

Dude, the amount of times we would be in the area of Helsinki’s Central Station over the next three days….

Anyway, we eventually retrieved our luggage from the locker and figured out which streetcar we needed to get to our apartment, which was in an old building with a super scary vintage elevator, and a mini-geocache sesh was required to procure the key from its hidden spot. It was a very small studio with a double bed and a futon but it was worth it for the amount of time we were actually there, and the neighborhood was so quiet with lots of conveniences nearby, like small markets, cafes and restaurants. And there were bus and trolley stops within walking distance too so I wasn’t mad about it.

View from the window.

Here’s a map for reference.

Taka-Töölö!! I love that name so much!

Anyway, after getting settled in the apartment, it was time for our first Finnish amusement park! STAY TUNED. This park was actually so magical and I think about it lovingly at random parts throughout the day. I would love to go back! It had VIBES, man. VIBES.

Nov 082023
 

Remember in my last post when I was like, “Hi this is the last chapter for the Sweden section of these vacation recaps” and you guys were like, “Thank god, please tell us the end is nigh, these posts are boring and tedious”? Well, I lied. But we’ll run through this one right quick, aye aye.

When we were originally planning the second half of this trip, we were going to fly from Stockholm to Helsinki, and then we tossed around the idea of flying into Tallinn, Estonia. But then we realized that, for basically the cost of one plane ticket, all three of us could take an overnight ferry, cabin included, from Stockholm to Turku (I dunno why, but I had my heart set on going to Turku first and then taking a train to Helsinki). Literally, this cost us under $200, the Viking Glory was AMAZING – like a mini-cruise ship, and it was pretty comfortable.

The best part is that it made our canceled Norway ferry trip sting a bit less knowing that we would still have the opportunity to do the overnight ferry thang later on in the trip.

Wow, I just realized that there are NO PHOTOS OF ME on the Viking Glory.

Before the ferry departed, we got some drinks and chilled on the desk, listening to an actual good DJ who played a sick remix of In the Air Tonight. It felt like legit vacation times, finally. Chooch ditched us to give his friends a tour of the ferry via Facetime, and Henry and I actually acted like we were a real couple, enjoying our drinks and talking about our trip so far, our favorite coasters, the Coaster Crew – it was SO RELAXING and made me think, “Could I do a real cruise one day maybe???”

I dunno. Overnight on a large ferry in the Baltic Sea was one thing. I’m not sure about a full scale cruise though!

I felt really choked up and sentimental watching Stockholm fade into the distance.

But! I was excited to wake up in Finland, for sure. Finland is one of those countries that I always thought would be interesting to visit but I can’t imagine any scenario when we would wake up one day and decided to plan a trip there for no reason. I am so so so so so glad that this Coaster Crew trip happened and this became a viable option!

For anyone considering a Sweden/Finland trip, I do highly recommend doing the overnight ferry. If we had flown, we would have had to pay extra for our bags, PLUS get a hotel for that night in Finland. It would have cost so much more than what we paid for the ferry.

We had a good dinner on board too! There were numerous choices, and a lot of veg/vegan options as well.

THE BRAT.

Mmm…a greasy meatless culinary delight!

I imagine if you do the day trip, there’s a lot more action, but I didn’t want to spend an entire day of our trip stuck on a boat, you know?

Anyway, that will FINALLY do it for Sweden. Here is a video collection of our non-Coaster Crew day in Stockholm:

Nov 062023
 

Yo, guys. You’ll never believe it. I think this might be the last of the Sweden series and then we can move on to a new locale! That being said, I will try to keep this snappy and concise.

As you can see from the photos, we had some more subway funway after lunch. I think Henry was scared that I was going to become obsessed with Stockholm’s subway system and ask him to re-design the Seoul Subway Sign, but Mona, I’m here to tell you that I don’t think anything will ever dethrone ANY part of South Korea from my heart’s top spot. Honestly.

I did enjoy exploring the public transportation in Sweden, though. It was clean and, not that any of this ever falls on me, but it seemed pretty easy to navigate? Henry? Chooch? You wanna weigh in on that*?

*(LOL as if they read this. Trust me, the last thing they want is to relive their life events through my blurry kaleidoscope* eyes.)

*(OK the way that I spelled that correctly on the first try, no hesitation, like it’s my middle name, but then I misspell common, everyday words in every single blog post. Got it.)

I could go for some Swedish chocolate bars right about now.

Subway shot.

We went back to Skeppsbron, where we had caught the ferry earlier, in order to have honest to god fika at Skeppsbron Bageri which evidently has the “city’s best cinnamon rolls.”

They were good! We got the OG cinnamon and also cardamom, which I have to say was my favorite roll variety everywhere we went. I just REALLY enjoy me some cardamom.

In a much better mood for photos after fika, that’s for sure. I have to laugh though because the whole point of fika is to take a break during the day to have coffee and a treat with family and/or friends. You’re supposed to slow it the fuck down, put your phone away (probably, I’m making the rules up as I go), maybe play some old school hangman on the back of a receipt, etc. But that’s supposing that you’re there with someone whose company you enjoy. I’m…not sure you can say that about the three of us, lol. So basically we chilled for about 20 minutes, probably didn’t talk – actually, I have a FAINT memory of verbally eviscerating Henry for preparing my coffee improperly and him saying THEN GET IT YOURSELF NEXT TIME.

Can you even imagine? The audacity. The sheer gall.

Walking around, walking around.

Literally every street is gorgeous in Gamla Stan.

You know what’s crazy and I just realized it while looking at a map? Gamla Stan is right next to an area (neighborhood?) called Norrbro which a Hipstamatic film pack is named after. I’ve also been to a place in South Korea that one of the film packs is named after (Hongdae)!

Also, yes, I still use Hipstamtic almost exclusively to edit my photos, how 2010 of me, I know. I actually created my own “favorite” action and named it Gamla Stan!

We took the subway back to a bigger, more modern area called Norrmalm because I wanted to continue my futile search for Beartown. We must have went to three bookstores and one salesclerk said, “Oh, another store has it – we can have it shipped here for you!” and I sadly said, “We’re leaving today.” :(

This was in one of the malls and I thought it was so smart and a great idea! Also in this mall, we went into a toy store to buy Pippi merch and happened to wander downstairs where I found a rack of name stickers and one of the names was Saga, which is the name of one of my friend’s daughters – I couldn’t believe it! What are the odds that I’d randomly spin a rack of stickers with no agenda, just kind of in passing, and it stops spinning on Saga?? I guess that name must be popular in Sweden?? Anyway, I totally had to buy it even though I have never met Saga! My friend’s other daughter’s name is Ophelia but they sadly didn’t have her name in sticker-form. I got her cute unicorn stickers though because I might be a jerk and lacking in a lot of areas, but I at least know that you can’t buy one little sister a present without getting something for the other too. Come on, now. You’re talking to Erin Kaleidoscope Kelly here.

We had a LITTLE bit of time left before we needed to return to the hotel to grab our luggage and get our asses to the ferry, which was scheduled to depart at 8PM with or without us American schmucks.  So we just strolled around and soaked up as much Stockholm vibes and vapers as possible.

I gotta cut that bitch out of the background. She looks so stern! I hate it.

Guys. You know what’s funny? I just realized, looking at this photo on the map on my phone, that this was Norrbro, lol. Nothing like getting your bearings two and a half mths after you left to come back home.

There is so much I wanted to do here, but with less than a full day, it was impossible to even scratch the surface.

Back at the Sheraton to claim our luggage and use the bathroom in the lobby real quick, where Chooch got to report a “poop incident” to the front desk and this time THANKFULLY it wasn’t his own. I didn’t see it because the restrooms weren’t unisex but Henry said it looked like someone opened the stall door and just bent over and sprayed the wall with their ass. So….similar to my story in the last post re: puking in the restroom of the science center after the viking movie gave me motion sickness! FULL CIRCLE.

Kind of.

Nov 052023
 

After my anger subsided re: GAMLA STAN PHOTO OP FAIL, things got a lot better. Well, sort of. The plan was to go to the Vasa Museum but then Chooch downloaded some app that Coaster Crew people told him about and he decided that in addition to counting coaster creds, he needed to start counting ALL RIDE credits. And this app listed all rides in general, even if they aren’t in a traditional amusement park. So this is how he found out that the Viking Museum has a dark ride whcich counts as a credit.

I gotta admit that the prospect of visiting a museum solely for a dark ride was tempting and probably definitely something that I would suggest anyway. So I was on board.

First though, we had to walk past some woman protesting in front of the royal palace, burning a book, and shouting about how Sweden killed her mother. Not really sure what was going on there but it didn’t seem fun.

The Viking Museuem is on the same island-thingie (archipelago or whatever) that Grona Lund is on so we got to see it from the water which was amazing!

Ugh, I wish we could have popped in for an hour or two!

I don’t have too much to note re: the Viking Museum. It was small, not too crowded which was nice, and pretty interesting. I have a love/hate with museums though. I usually walk in all gung-ho to do some learning, fill my empty headspace with some cold hard facts, but tend to run out of steam after one room.

There were some good photo ops here though!

I kept thinking about the time I was pregnant and Henry and I drove to Columbus to go to the science center with two dumb people we no longer associate with because they turned out to be terrible humans. While there, we watched some Omnimax thingie about Vikings and the combination of the CHERRY SLUSHIE I had earlier and the full theater screens made me so nauseous that I had to run out of the theater to the bathroom. I was just about .05 seconds too late though and instead of puking in the toilet, I puked ON the toilet, on the floor, etc. It was a bad scene man. I felt awful about it.

So yeah, vikings. Barf.

And I got to learn how to write my name using the Viking alphabet!

The dark ride itself was actually pretty cool, I’m not going to lie.

I started to get HANGRY at this point though. The ferry ride was back was annoying because some dumb bitch – also a tourist – was like, “Excuse me” and I thought she needed to scoot past me or something so I stepped aside and she STOLE MY SPOT on deck?! I was like, “Hello bitch, really?” I think she was FRENCH. I made sure to stand REALLY CLOSE to her so that her sightseeing was as uncomfortable as possible.

I loved that ferries were part of the public transportation system!

After this, we got to take the subway, which was not that bad but also not Seoul. Henry and I just had a real time argument about the order of transportation but I’m pretty sure what happened was that we took the subway, walked to a burger place that has vegan option but then I was like I DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS FAST FOOD I DON’T WANT THIS and Chooch was like JESUS CHRIST HERE WE GO so then we continued to walk aimlessly which you’d think was our preferred mode of transportation while traveling.

Anyway, we found a used book store in our search for lunch. One of my Swedish quests was to find a hardback Swedish copy of Beartown but shoooooo, that was not easy. I struck out in Gothenburg too but hoped that I would have better luck in Stockholm. The bookstore clerk suggested that we try a mainstream book store and directed us down the street but we all needed food in a bad way so we put that on the backburner and trudged along in search of food that we could all agree on.

Which ended up being some rando bistro called Snaps, an establishment that was so mediocre and unmemorable that I had to look at the geotag of the following pictures to even determine the name of the place.

We had to order at the outdoor bar and I was like, “WELL SINCE WE’RE STANDING HERE AT THE BAR, WHY DONTCHA WHIP ME UP AN ELDERFLOWER SPRITZ” so then Chooch had to get a non-alcoholic bevvie to look cool, I guess.

You know what’s funny is that it’s almost like Henry didn’t exist in this part of the day, lol. I have no pictures of him at all and have no idea what he even ate.

Chooch and I both got the fake chicken sandwich, and it was fine. I was just content to be sitting outside in nice weather and feeding my fat face.

Of course, this was the one day that I wrote NOTHING about in my vacation journal so I could be leaving out some major facts here but oh well. That’s what happens when I wait nearly three mths at this point to recap this idiot journey.

Oct 302023
 

Our first day without Coaster Crew was SO FUCKING SAD. Henry and I hung out at the hotel lounge the night before for a bit – Pam and Sherry were sitting at the bar so we joined them even though the bar was JUST CLOSING when we got there. Ugh! I blame Chooch because he made us go out and get him McDonald’s and also we had to get saline solution finally because it was a NOW OR NEVER situation at that point. We saw Pam and Sherry at the bar as we were leaving and figured we had time. WRONG I guess. I don’t know if it’s because it was a Sunday night or what, but it seemed like the bar was closing early-ish?

Anyway, some old man was also at the bar, TOTALLY trying to pick up Pam. It was fucking hilarious. Sherry was like, “Good luck with that,” and left. I feel like he said he owned a shoe store or something and even gave me his email address too, which I promptly left in the hotel room. “Do you want this?” Henry asked the next morning while packing, holding up the scrap paper with the email address.

I just looked at him liike, “What do you think?” so he tossed it.

Anyway, Tim, Brandon, Ally, and Jeremy were also hanging out in the lounge. It was a somber evening. Everyone was just quietly nursing their drinks. Tim came over and thanked me for the note I wrote on the back of the Liseberg print, having read it by then. It was also the first time we really talked to Jeremy, and he was so great. I wish I could rewind time, go back to the beginning, and talk to everyone more. HINDSIGHT, etc.

The next morning, I woke up in a foul mood because sometimes that’s how I project sadness: full-throttle bitchiness. We went down to breakfast and it was another MAGNIFICANT buffet but…it was missing Coaster Crew (I did see Amy and her husband down there, and even though we never talked to them – they really kept to themselves mostly – it was nice to see familiar faces). Still, the food was so good and I wish I could go back JUST for these amazing Scandinavian breakfast buffets. They were such a highlight.

We ended up sitting next to an American? Canadian? family – parents and two young kids. I didn’t really pay much attention to them, but Henry and I got up together at one point to get more FOODZ and when we returned, the parents were laughing and conversing with Chooch who was in the process of trying to SAW OFF one of his park wristbands with a BUTTER KNIFE. I was like, “Jesus, I thought we were safe leaving you alone for a minute now that you’re SEVENTEEN but apparently not!”

“Maybe you should ask the front desk if they have scissors!” the dad suggested with a laugh.

We left shortly after that and I made a big production of telling the family to have a nice day (and by “big production” I mean that I said, “Have a nice day guys!” with a fake smile since I was still trying to hold back COASTER CREW tears). As we passed through the lobby, Chooch stopped to have someone at the front desk assist with the wristband removal operation, and then as we got on the elevator to pop back into our room before checking out, THE FAMILY ALSO GOT ON THE ELEVATOR so then I was stewing in awkward sauce having JUST went out of my way to say goodbye to them, and now I had to do it again??

Henry and Chooch will tell you that it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I must have replayed this moment over and over in my head for like 3/4 of the day. This is what we call AN AFFLICTION.

Checked out. Got our luggage tagged so that we could pick it up later when it was time to get the ferry to Finland. Embarked on our walk to Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s iconic Old Town, which was pretty close to our hotel and actually even closer than we initially thought, as we would accidentally discover later that day.

But let’s just look at pictures of Gamla Stan because even though I was in such a bad mood, I did get over it and I actually love these pictures so much even though there was a lot of BICKERING that went on behind the scenes.

We really didn’t think we were going the right way, and then suddenly:

This square is REALLY iconic, total Instagram spam. It’s always crazy seeing sites like this in person because they often seem so much smaller in real life. This was one of those times. I thought it was so beautiful and was so excited to be there but also – it was just a very small square!

It was still really early in the AM so we beat the tourists, but the lighting was also bad since it was so early. You take what you can get, right?

We walked through here a few hours later and it was PACKED. I think this is where the arguing started. Sometimes I get so frustrated when it comes to photos and I know IT’S SO FUCKING STUPID because truly no one else cares but me, but in my very busy and loud headspace, all I can think about is wanting – nay, NEEDING – the perfect shot because what if we never come back here?? And every time Henry took a picture, we were covered in shadows. He kept yelling, “YOU CAN EDIT IT LATER!!” but I wanted to be PERFECTO from the GETGO.

This one was less bad because Chooch took it but it still wasn’t what I wanted and I was getting frustrated. This went on for probably 15 minutes – look, I’m laying it all out for you. I was being a fucking BRAT. I was. I admit it. Henry, if you’re reading this  – SHUT IT. I still think you take terrible pictures of me!! But I was overreacting bigly.

I just wanted to have one nice picture of Chooch in this square. You never know, one day he might actually care and want to show his future spouse these old dumb pictures.

Not even pretending to smile at this point, lolololol. I bitched because Choocg “cut the tops of the buildings off” and he was like, “Take it yourself, I’m out” and then literally left us there arguing and went to look at souvenir shops.

The Nobel Prize Museum opened while I was trying in vain to show Henry how to take the picture I wanted of myself and he just couldn’t fucking do it, his sausage-fingers kept rejecting any angle that wasn’t making me look like My 800 Lb Life so he would revert back to his usual way of setting up the shot and I looked so homely and PISSED probably because I ACTUALLY AM ONE OF THOSE THINGS 24:7 AND THE OTHER THING I AM MOST OF THE TIME.

I wonder how many times I ended up in the background of someone else’s photos, making stank face, radiating with SPOILED AMERICAN BITCH syndrome.

I took this photo as an example of what I wanted but Henry FAILED. Oh well, at least we got a decent shot of HIM out of the miserable process. Ugh.

Things got better from here after we left the square. And by that, I do mean “after I stormed off and acted like I had ANY IDEA where I was going.”

I pretended to be really interested in these monuments while Henry and Chooch casually strode behind me at a safe distance, knowing that I would eventually come around and not bothering to coddle me. WHICH I HATE. Sometimes I WANT THE CODDLING.

PAY ATTENTION TO ME.

I let them catch up to me and decided that I’d give up on my search for a flight back to America that day and maybe go shopping for souvenirs instead. Plus, Henry and Chooch were like, “Coffee?” and I’m always up for coffee. So now we had a new plan to replace my TAKE FANTASTIC PHOTOS IN THAT GAMLA STAN THING quest.

You know, moving on and all that.

I was still pissed off, but what can you do?? The live version of this photo is hilarious because my smile is replaced SO QUICKLY with the most unflattering grimace/scowl and I completely walk away, lol.

These little alleyways though! I could have probably spent the whole day just poking around this area.

Henry chose this cafe and got completely ripped off by the old guy / owner. Lol. I know Sweden is notoriously expensive but I’m pretty sure the going rate for two coffees from some no-name alley cafe is not $25. Good one, Henry. More photos from here over in my last post re: photos from the “good camera.”

I loved this shop so much! It’s called Hilda Hilda. I bought Sue a dachshund print pouch because I just couldn’t pass it up. It was too cute and I loved that it’s quite literally made in Sweden as the tag says. See above for evidence!

I linked the shop – ya just gotta check it out, man. Ya just gotta.

We should have gone to THIS cafe!

Anyway, after shopping for about an hour (and running into Scott and Judy!) it was time to move out of Gamla Stan and explore some other areas. So, look forward to that post I guess.

Oct 282023
 

Hello here are some photos I took with the ‘good’ camera in Stockholm – mostly around the Gamla Stan area. Some of these were also taken by Henry I guess because I was making him carry the camera and he took that as an invitation to play travel fotog I guess. Anyway,  I have a bunch of pictures on my phone too that I haven’t gone through yet so I will post something more comprehensive soon but I can tell you right now that the first hour or so was BAD NEWS BEARS. I was in such a shitty mood because Henry wasn’t following any of my direction when I was asking him to take a picture of Chooch and me and it was actually embarrassing. Just didn’t want to give the impression that everyone was so fucking perfect OMG family vacation yee haw.

 

Oct 272023
 

Spoiler but not: I end up crying, lol.

I kept seeing ads for a Pippi circus while we were in Stockholm!! The original Swedish Pippi movie was Kelly Family Favorite back in the 80s. My brother Ryan and I used to watch it A LOT and make fun of it, but also I was low-key terrified by it??

Yo, Grona Lund is so freaking beautiful. Vaguely reminiscent of Indiana Beach in that it sits along water, but um, obviously Stockholm trumps anything in Indiana (sorry, Indiana peoples) so I’m going to have to give Grona Lund the win here. The beautiful thing about nearly every park we visited on this trip is that they have so much aesthetic appeal and the rides are almost secondary to the experience of just BEING THERE. I can see Grona Lund being a place where people would go just to walk around, eat, enjoy being next to the water, bickering with people on Reddit over the Lost finale.

I don’t know, just seems like a peaceful locale to really settle in for some comment section belligerence.

They have THREE DIFFERENT TYPES OF DROP TOWERS. Calm down, Grona Lund.

Being tormented by MOMMY as usual. I think he was pissed because some of the cool guys from our group were sitting nearby, drinking beers and he didn’t want to be seen being mommy’s monkey.

Me looking old AF because news flash, this was not a chill, relaxing vacation lol.

We would be on that ferry in approx. 24 hours from when this picture was taken!

Yeah like imagine going here on a date, you know? Shit, son, how romantic!

If I had brought the good camera into the park with us, I would have made Chooch stand here for senior portraits. What a missed opportunity. Notable about this bridge though is that it was the FIRST TIME of the trip we had a convo with Alex from Coaster Spot! Well, technically Chooch had previously conversed with him AND ridden with him too probably, OK cool guy.

But anyway, he was filming stuff and then stopped to say something to us, I can’t remember what, but we started chatting and then I blurted out ARE YOU COASTER SPOT and he very reluctantly admitted that yes, yes he is. I’m a subscriber of his YouTube channel but he is notoriously ALWAYS behind the camera and usually only films his wife. I had THOUGHT that they were going to be on this trip but then when 2 days passed and I never saw his wife, I figured they didn’t come. But then SOMEONE on the bus said he was on the trip and I was like, “WHAT.” One day, Henry was standing near him and recognized his voice and said to me later, “Hey I think that’s Coaster Spot” and I was like, “no way, his wife isn’t here…” but yeah, it really was him! Anyway, he very bitterly said, “[XXXXX] outed me” and I said, “Yup,  that’s exactly how I heard you were here.”

Apparently, that same person is an absolute menace to coaster personalities on the internet and a lot of them had to block him. But it was a bonding moment, lol. And then he said, “You should have talked to me sooner!” and I wanted to be like, “Well, you were always with the girl who hates me, so.”

He hasn’t posted a single video yet from this trip but I’m really looking forward to it because he does a lot of walk-thrus whereas the other guys heavily edit theirs. I want to be able to relive more of the experience by watching someone’s walk-thru!!

Stockholm carouselfie!! This carousel was a tiny baby thing.

We had fun in kiddie land!

I think LARRY took this! We were riding with Dawn, Robert, Arnold and Eamon!

Plus a random dad and kid who got stuck riding this with a bunch of Coaster Crew dumbos lol. We kept hand-slapping every time we went around a bend since the train would curve, but I could never reach anyone!!

Chooch and I caused a scene when we rode this and were the only ones who couldn’t get their elephant to fly. People were laughing at us and I really wanted to bury my head in the sand, or in Dumbo’s butt.

Random collection of Beatles artifacts.

Two shots of my LICORICE ICE CREAM with LICORICE TOPPING.

Wow, Henry is so cool.

At one point, Chooch and I were in line for something and looked down (a lot of the rides have elevated stations) and saw Marshall sitting on a bench, smoking. “Did he even ride anything on this trip?” Chooch mused out loud. “All I ever see him doing is sitting down and smoking. ‘Hmm, I wonder what it would be like to smoke cigarettes in Sweden. *signs up for trip*'”

This trip turned Chooch into a stand-up comic. I mean, he’s always made me laugh, but this was next level guffawing.

GUFFAWHAWHAW.

We made Henry go on the fairy dark ride since he skipped out the first time and it was his favorite ride at Grona Lund in case you needed it to support the Henry’s Nude Fairy Fetish section of your “Henry: Inside the Mind of a Man & His Beard” dissertation.

Man, did this day go by quick. (You would never know based on how long it took me to recap it, Jesus Christ, get it together, Erin.) But I will always remember how it ended: It was getting close to the end of the night so we decided to get a final ride on Monster. It was a walk-on for the back row and Sam ran over and asked if he could ride with us. Of course we said yes! That kid is soooo full-throttle adrenaline, I swear to god. It’s contagious. So we were all pumped up by the time we returned to the station and the ride attendants said we could stay on if no one was waiting for our row. NO ONE WAS! So me, Chooch, and Sam stayed on but Cry Baby Henry got off. That was fine though because Dewey came and sat with me! It was my first time talking to him the whole trip so we bonded as best as we could in the short amount of time we had left.

“I really think I’m going to cry!” I yelled across my restraints. And he said, “I know, I can’t believe it’s our last night!”

And you guys. You guys. You guys you guys you guys. Almost the whole train was Coaster Crew, last ride of the night, and we were shrieking, “Coaster Crew! Coaster Crew!”

It was so fucking wholesome. So pure. And Henry missed it!

After that, we all gathered around near the front of the park, waiting to get back on the bus. It was a sad drive back to the Sheraton. A bunch of us talked outside while Tim handed out our room keys and then we had to go to the luggage storage room to grab our shit because we had dropped everything off prior to going to Grona Lund since we weren’t going to have the same bus bringing us back. Or something. I can’t remember. This is a boring detail anyway.

I made Chooch take pictures of Pam and me. I MISS HER MOST OF ALL. I’m crying right now, LOL. Ugh.

Anyway, after this, I gave Tim the special Liseberg print I got him with the thank you note I scribbled on the back. He was like, “Should I read this now?” and I screamed “NO!!” but the gesture alone made him tear up and then I teared up and then we were both tearing up and hugging and he called us a sweet family which made me laugh but it came out as a blubber on account of all the tearing up.

Jesus Christ, I can’t handle it. There wasn’t much more that I wanted to say here but I will include it in the beginning of the next post which was A PARK-FREE day, can you even believe it?? And I will leave you with this comprehensive video of the second half of this day. I will warn you – the beginning of this is a LOT of “bus window scenery” content. SORRY but I thought everything was so beautiful and I didn’t want to forget it OK?? Sue me.

Oct 242023
 

Before I continue onto part 2 of Grona Lund, I want to tell you about the craziest, most terrifying, and BEST MOTHERWHOMPING fun house I have EVER conquered. But let me tell you – that mother almost conquered ME. Those steps in the beginning?? I have never done ones that were this steep and intense but when I say I couldn’t get a groove and almost fell backward twice – I’m not kidding you guys, I probably would have had to go to the hospital. Or worse.

I had the whole “I dreamt I was falling” full body shudder / panic as I started to fall back and I have never grabbed on to anything so tight before in my life.

Whooooo boy. And you people thought I was going to die on a shady Nordic coaster. Nope. Moving funhouse steps? Way more likely.

By the time I got NEARLY to the top, I got a rhythm going and figured out how to just ride it out by coasting on one step at a time. I had no game plan or strategy when I started at the bottom, just forged ahead like gangbusters, and nearly did a full split as the steps pulled my legs in opposite directions and just…kept going.

That was unpleasant.

Shit you guys – this was probably the best fun house I’ve been in. I haven’t done any of the other crazy ones in Germany or Prater in Vienna, though. So, for now, I think this is my #1 as far as fun houses go, lol. And the best part is that you’re in there for a substantial amount of time!

The grand finale slide thing called for a souvenir magnet.

Oct 232023
 

Guys, this is it. We’ve reached the last part of the Coaster Crew portion of our Scandinavia & Beyond coaster trip. I was so excited to get to Stockholm, but hoo-boy was it bittersweet!

On the drive to Grona Lund from Kolmarden, I was whisper-hissing back and forth to Chooch from across the aisle of the bus because we HAD to give away some of the chocolate he won at Liseberg. I mean, it was either that or bring upon extreme diarrhea trying to eat it all ourselves rather than try and fly home with it in a few days. That giant box had FOUR DOUBLE-LAYERED boxes inside of it. So much chocolate. And you guys, it was GOOD chocolate too. I think I mentioned this already but when I looked those assortment boxes up online, they sell for over $30 a box.

And we had FOUR of them.

We kept two for ourselves and I passed around the other two to everyone on the bus because I am apparently the spokesperson of our family. Chooch REFUSED to initiate this chocolate-sharing experience. Some of the REALLY COOL GUYS were sitting in front of me and I was SWEATING. Aside from Mark and Hunter, I didn’t really make much contact with these guys so I was like, “ARE THEY GOING TO SNEER AT ME AND BE LIKE WHY WOULD WE WANT YOUR CHOCOLATE, LADY?” But no! It was the opposite! I tapped one of them (Jeremy I think?) on the shoulder and said, “Hey, do you guys want to take some of this and pass it around? We can’t take all of this home with us!” and they were like “YES PLEASE YAY CHOCOLATE!” I gave the other box to the guys behind me (who I was shipping so hard, btw) and they each selected a piece and passed it back like you normally would, while the cool guys in front of us were taking this VERY SERIOUSLY, reading every description, discussing amongst themselves…Chooch texted me and was like, “Good one, they’re never going to pass it on.” They did though and we STILL ended up having some chocolate left in one of the boxes.

It was so fun though, hearing everyone being stoked for surprise bus chocolates.

This is why I love group trips! We gotta start doing these more. There are benefits to also traveling solo / without a tour group, but being on this bus with these amazing people really made me sentimental. I loved the organized group trips of my youth, like when I met Olivia, had my first Older Man Crush, and made possibly my first Frenemy, Steve.

We took this group picture as soon as we entered the park and I was like, “Goddammit, don’t cry.” Also, another picture where the Oh Honestlys are not together, LOLOLOL. Seriously, we probably were known behind our backs as the Family Who Was Always Fighting, lol. (To be fair, we actually did not fight that often!) But I think this is a true testament to how comfortable we had become with the group that we didn’t need to be attached to each other like lemmings like we usually are at home.

Coaster Crew: Norden Sub-Crew 4L.

But yeah, Grona Lund, baby! I have watched so much YouTube content of this place over the years that I truly built it up so much in my head. Did it live up? Actually, although it was SMALLER than I imagined, it was more magical than I could have dreamed. It’s located on one of the many archipelagos of Stockholm! One of the ways to access it is by ferry, which we would actually do the next day because there were other things we wanted to do on this particular archipelago (a word that will never not be difficult for me to say, spell, remember. Pretty sure I called it an archbishop at one point).

Views of Monster, the new B&M invert, as soon as you enter. Cameras out: Thoosies gon’ thoosie.

One of the many little alleys of Grona Lund. And more chocolate roulette!

I think there are THREE drop towers here. Insane.

Our first credit was Vilda Musen – Wild Mouse! The people in front of us are Lucas and his friend whose name I never learned but they were sitting on the bus facing us on the way to Kolmarden and coughed the whole time and I’m 100% sure they got me and Chooch sick. Anyway, we rode this with them (I can’t remember how we got separated from Henry – OH I KNOW it’s because we told the ride attendent there were two of us and she sent Chooch and me on the same car as those two and we left Henry behind hahaha) and I said, “Hey it’s our first time riding together, you guys!” and they were like, “Mm heh.”

My giddy charm didn’t penetrate everyone on this trip, sadly.

Ew, I took this for Corey and I don’t think I ever sent it to him but we HATE Machine Gun Kelly and I wanted him to see that he performed there a month prior to us visiting. Ugh. Grona Lund actually holds some pretty amazing concerts. My Chemical Romance even played there!

Oh real quick another fun fact about Grona Lund that I didn’t know until I watched Airtime Thrills’ Kolmarden vlog, but they were actually the park in talks with RMC but since they didn’t have enough room to spare, they BOUGHT land in Kolmarden and had RMC build Wildfire there. In case you were wondering how a zoo in Sweden randomly became home to one of the best coasters in the world.

You know, it might come up one day. At a brewery trivia or something. And then you might win a giftcard to said brewery because that was the question that propelled you to first place. So, you know where to send the THANK CARD. (Or maybe not. But I will give you my address if you ask because I like getting mail.)

(Maybe I’ll just give you Janna’s address because I have been muy paranoid lately.)

Henry and his new family.

The Wild Mouse was pretty good but also scary because these ones always terrify me because of the jankiness. But real talk, if you can see that blue track that interacts with the Wild Mouse track, that belongs to Jetline, a coaster that’s currently standing-but-not-operating (SBNO) because of a fatal accident that occurred literally about a month or two before our trip. Never want to hear about anything tragic happening in a place meant for people to have fun. I don’t know what happened. I tend to cover my ears and sing the LA LA LA song rather than face reality, but man my heart goes out to her family. I think she was a mom there with her kids?

I actually hadn’t heard a thing about this at first but my sister sent me a link to the article and was like DON’T RIDE THIS WHEN YOU’RE THERE. :/

The facade a Kvasten (The Broom), a Vekoma suspended family coaster that was actually a real fucking delight! From the creepy witch hunt station to the smooth ride experience, I highly enjoyed this one! Henry didn’t ride it because he’s a little bitch and thought it was going to be like a shitty Vekoma SLC, so his loss.

Grona Lund is so goddamn charming, I can’t.

The station for Monster was impeccably themed! Also, it was pretty much a walk-on all evening.

House of Nightmares was an upcharge haunted walk-thru – of course we did it. It was decent! Better some of the ones over here that we go to during haunted house season, honestly, and I feel like it was only an extra $5 for each of us? I know it couldn’t have been that much if Frugal Henry opted in.

Basically, this joint has facades on lock. I really felt like I was in another land. I mean, I *was* in another land to me, but you know what I mean. The whole park had fairy tale vibes. Not quite Grimm’s but a similar feel, if you know what I mean? You smrobly don’t and that’s OK.

OK but pretend like you knew what I meant up there and now apply taht aesthetic to the dark rides here at Grona Lund because holy shit. HOLY SHIT. I wish I was still a member of the Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiasts club so I could tell them all about these dark rides of Scandinavia and Finland at their next meeting j/k they didn’t have meetings when I was a member, just events at various parks where the group leader acted like he had no idea who I was even though we interacted with each other for years on Facebook and we visited his home haunt one October?!?

He’s no Tim, that’s for damn sure.

Looking at these photos has me nearly in tears. If I close my eyes, I can almost feel the Grona Lund vibes.

I wish the front of my house looked like this :(

And I wish all of the ceilings in my house looked like this. :(

This is Jetline :/ (The blue track.)

Us having no idea what we were in for.

Us coming out with lots to think about….More on this one later – I have pictures and some video too I think which I’ll put in PART 2 like that’s actually enough to entice you to come back for seconds.

Honestly though. You can keep your shooter dark rides. I want more vintage dark rides like these, please. I wish Kennywood hadn’t:

  1. let Le Cachot burn down;
  2. turned Gold Rusher into a dumb shooter ride;
  3. ruined the Old Mill repeatedly

Come on, Kennywood. Give us an old-ass Sally Darkride with pretzel cars and a musty water smell.

Post-faux-chicken nuggets. I was annoyed because Grona Lund had legit restaurants, but we ate at one of the fast food type of joints probably because Chooch was crying about it. Also, he was probably quoting Mark here for the thousandth time, saying, “Guys, I’m going to marathon Insane all night.”

Insane, by the way, was one of the most fucked up coasters I’ve ever ridden. It’s an Intamin Zack Spin, and well, it was Insane. Plus, I had to pee AND ALMOST PEED MY PANTS ON A COASTER FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, AT THE AGE OF 44.

Which, you know, would make just as much sense if I were 4. I can barely sneeze or, I dunno, do jumping jacks without the risk of peeing my pants these days.

The view from the chicken nugget place. Grona Lund, you da best, girl.

OK, second part forthcoming! Keep prolonging the inevitable, Erin! The trip came to an end, it’s BEEN DONE. Move on with your life. Shit.

FUCK.

Oct 192023
 

Airtime Thrills posted his Kolmarden video and I am happy to share that here tonight because I just came home from Kennywood and therefore am too tired to post my own content.

I remember LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY (and you might too if you read my blog yesterday lol) leaving Kolmarden the second day and realizing I was behind Airtime Thrills as he was vlogging and trying desperately to duck. At the end of his video, you can see me taking this picture:

Wow! Really cool, Erin.

Oct 182023
 

We have reached a critical point. This is the beginning of the LAST DAY with Coaster Crew. THE LAST DAY. Sunday, August 13th. I just realized that I hadn’t putting the dates in most of these recaps, LOL, oh well. I’m sure Future Me will figure it out.

I just glanced at my not-always trusty vacation journal and realized that I forgot to note in the Skara post that when we were standing around, Robert asked me, “Are you guys all from the same place?”

Odd question, I thought. But I said, “Yes.”

“OK I was just wondering because you’re always dressed in warm clothes and shivering, but they’re always dressed in shorts and t-shirts, ready for warm weather.”

An accurate assessment, Robert.

At breakfast on this morning, Pam sat with us. Henry and Chooch left together to go get our luggage but I stayed to chat with Pam. I flat out asked her if she liked [someone in our group] and she said YES but that the distance would be a problem :( She was also telling me, “Oh don’t you start!” because I was already moping about it being our last day with the group.

UGH, why am I so sensitive??

Apparently, this was also the day that I realized I had been incorrectly referring to Jimmy as “Jerry” in my journal the whole time.

Before we headed back to Kolmarden for morning ERT, we got to enjoy a Swedish car show across from the hotel! Here is the post I wrote about it while still on vaca, IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Swedish Car Show

Kolmarden was not yet opened to the public when we arrived, but we were allowed to enter through the resort entrance, which was STILL a hike but not as long of a walk to Wildfire. It was still a very steep grade though. Eric and Marie are both….Marines? Army? I can’t remember which, but it was cute because Eric was like “LET’S GO” and they started Army chanting thing while running up the hill. Chooch and some of the other younger guys were like, “We will also run” and they were the ones who made it all the way without losing steam, haha.

I didn’t run and I’m glad because otherwise I might have missed this amazing snail-buddy chilling on the side of the path!

After some morning ERT, we did the famous cable car ride through the zoo, which provided some amazing aerial views of my Swedish bae, Wildfire. I REALLY had a great time riding this!

There aren’t many coasters out there that can beat this setting. This is definitely part of an elite club in that respect.

I have no idea why I took this? Was it in error? Oh well, I’m including it.

Chooch still needed the kiddie coaster over in the legit kiddie land that is just chilling in the middle of the zoo like all zoos have a kiddie land with actual rides.

(WHY DON’T ALL ZOOS HAVE THIS? LET’S GOOOO PGH ZOO. GET OFF YOUR LAZY ASS.)

On some tea-cup thing for no reason.

This part was so exciting because Robert and Dawn somehow knew that Chooch was dying to see the capybaras and they came over to urgently tell him that one of them was out!

(Honestly, everyone on the trip knew Chooch. People were asking him, “Riley, what are you parent’s names?” like 6 days in.

Chooch and Sam on Wildfire again. Chooch was actually hoping to get to ride with Mark because they never rode anything together the entire time, but he and Sam were paired together constantly by the coaster universe, lol.

Oh, I’m going to miss it here.

Also, Brett asked Chooch to take a picture of him, Mark and several others under the sign but it was hilarious because he was being a hyper-director over it. “Now do it in landscape. Take one in portrait. OK, now…” literally he asked Chooch to take like 10 different shots it felt like, and it was almost like Chooch was being punked but he was for real, lol. He had Chooch use his own phone and airdrop the shots to him, so Chooch was like, “Cool, now I have these on my phone for no reason.”

Heading out for Gronalund! I walked DIRECTLY behind Chris from Airtime Thrills while he was vlogging so I hope I’m not in the background.

Pretty Kolmarden flowers to end a beautiful split-day here.  I’m so glad we had these extra hours to get to enjoy the zoo portion of Kolmarden. It was so wonderful there.

Let’s end this with a collection of videos I took from that morning!

Oct 172023
 

Heyyyyyy you guyyyysssssss! We’ve reached the part of the trip where I got to practically pee my pants, act like a goddamn corn-shuckin’ sex-through-holes-in-a-sheet-havin’ Amish bitch on motherfucking Rumspringa, boiiiii. Hold while I wrench the bonnet off my dumb god-fearin’ head because this Dutch slut of about to get fucked by the ONLY RMC coaster on this trip: WILDFIRE.

GODDAMN SHIT-SUCKING WILDFIRE.

(Sorry, the Lost Boys quotes come out of me at weird, irreverent times.)

(I’ve had two sips of wine so far and I am like HOLLA LET’S GO WHERE MY PARTY PEOPLE AT like I just stepped out of a Goodwill copy of Girls Gone Wild.)

(I actually saw an old GGW videotape on a road near my house a few mths ago. Someone ripped all the tape of it and left it and the box in came in strewn along a sidewalk. It was there for weeks. The first time I walked past, I only just glanced at the box and thought it was porn at first because Brookline.)

And I wonder why I’m still sloughing through vacation recaps!! FOCUS.

OK, what’s with the (ish) in this blog post title, you might (not) be asking? Well, Kolmarden is actually this enormous zoo in Sweden that JUST HAPPENS to house one of the world’s best roller coasters, and arguably the coaster with the best view, Wildfire. You know one of my bucket list items is to ride every RMC in the world. I guess I would have imagined that I would conquer the ones in Texas and California first, yet here I am, about to cross the only RMC in Scandinavia off of my list.

Wildfire. Shit son are you even serious right now. I was SQUEALING.

After the disappointment earlier at Skara Sommarland, the whole group was looking forward to some positive vibes.

I love this picture! Should I print and frame it? Do I have any wall vacancy??

OMG the thing about Kolmarden is that it is massive and you have to walk up a fairly steep hill straight away. One of the girls that hated me had to sit down halfway up because she was so winded. Thank god I have been training for this unknowingly for the last years! Professional walker up in this zizzoo.

See the entrance down there on the lower lefthand side? Now see the sign for Wildfire all the way up there in the upper right? Lol. Pray for us.

(JK I WAS FINE. PRAY FOR OTHERS.)

THOOSIES ON THE LOOSIES.

!!!!! I-FUCKING-CONIC. HOLY SHIT.

A 10 minute wait. For an RMC.

Do these non-thoosie local zoo-goers even know how lucky they are to have this incredible coaster in their ZOO??

LOL that red thing on the righthand side of the photo is the “clown nose” on my phone case. Sometimes it gets in the way when I do .5x pictures.

WILDFIRE STATS.

(Fun fact: I have spelled Wildfire incorrectly every single time so far because we are now up to 4 SIPS OF WINE.)

OK real talk: this is not my favorite RMC. BUT, it was still a terrific ride! I do have to say that my favorite part was the view from the turnaround after the lift hill.

HERE watch this POV!! I’ll watch it with you:

MY EVERLOVING LORD. I am so thankful that Rocky Mountain Construction exists. Did you see that beautiful view at the top?? That’s what I BELIEVE TO BE the Bråviken Bay, part of the Baltic Sea.

We got to split into groups and do a tour of the maintenance shed, which involved us CROSSING THE TRACK while the coaster was running. The maintenance supervisor was like, “You guys are enthusiasts so I know I don’t have to go over safety rules which you” and I was like, “Mm, that’s because you haven’t met me, but OK.”

I was so embarrassed/annoyed at Henry because we were getting off the coaster when he noticed that a small group of us were being taken down to the infield for the  tour and he was like “LET’S GO” because two other people form our group who had just gotten off the coaster also tagged along, but WE WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO DO THAT. Tim was separating everyone into small groups at the exit after they were getting off the ride, and we BROKE THE FUCKING RULES and went rogue EVEN THOUGH I DID NOT WANT TO DO THIS. I felt like such an asshole.

HENRY IS NEVER RIGHT. I knew it was wrong to follow his lead!!! If this truly was Rumspringa and I was following some creepy bearded American man into a restricted coaster area, you know I’d be waking up in row 4 of the spare train in the maintenance shed, missing half of my organs and hair slick with track grease.

Dude.

I got to get a shot of PAM AND KEVIN riding together, from the restricted area of the brake run!! That non-Coaster Crew broad is looking at us like, “WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE MILLING ABOUT IN RESTRICTED AREAS, SHOULDN’T A SIREN BE SOUNDING.”

In line for ride # who knows at this point! Henry is…wow, why are you here, Henry? Do you even like coasters?

Getting credit #2 (there were 3 in total!).

This one was taken by Larry and sent to Chooch, everyone’s favorite Oh Honestly. That’s Jean and Arnold in front of us! <3

Dude, vegan gyro for dinner at the zoo! We sat with Pam! TMI but I was feeling REALLY SICK after this, but I think it was mostly from the McDonald’s. The last hour or so was V.UNCOMFY for me. LOTS OF BATHROOM BREAKS IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

ERT after the zoo closed! Here’s Chooch riding with his buddy Sam!

Ew Henry.

The one bad thing about Wildfire is that the ops were like NO, YOU MUST SIT WHERE YOU ARE ASSIGNED even if there was literally no one else waiting. It was whatever. At least during ERT we got to do whatever. Oh!! Tim got to dispatch one of the trains during ERT too!!! I wish I had a video but it was after I claimed defeat because my stomach hurt so bad that I needed to sit down, doubled-over, in a large rock.

Afterward, we had a very long walk back to the bus.

The bus was parked next to a PICKLEBALL COURT, BOOOOO.

Then we drove to our hotel for the night in nearby Norrkoping, which I blogged about in real time.

And here’s a video which includes scenes from the drive to Kolmarden featuring A WASP INCIDENT where Brent was like I AM ALLERGIC AND WILL DIE and Lucas was like I HAVE TRAINED ALL MY LIFE FOR THIS, HOLD ON SIR while Henry aggressively shoves food in his mouth like he’s an ACTUAL viking (have I mentioned how EMBARRASSING he is?) and I accidentally show you a view of Up My Nose. Then we have Wildfire stuff, and Norrkoping footage!

Oct 152023
 


Ugh I have been lowkey dreading this recap because it was truly the only disappointment of the whole trip. Skara Sommarland was pretty out of the way from our next destination – the amazing Swedish zoo, Kolmarden. But it was worth the detour because it has this one crazy S&S coaster that is OOAK and therefore a rare credit. There were two other coasters there so 3 credits in total were to be had.

But since it was out of the way, we had to forego that good Curiosa breakfast in favor of a 6:30am bus call and bagged breakfasts.

I felt like a heel because there was this whole discussion with Tim the day before about how he was going to handle my breakfast – he asked if I could eat an egg sandwich and I was like yes for sure, I’m just a plain ol’ vegetarian but then reminded him that Chooch is one and he was surprised because I guess this whole time he thought it was just me, hi I’m the problem, it’s me.

(Will be whipping myself later for quoting T.Swift.)

Anyway, Tim was like, “I DID NOT KNOW THAT, I WILL SEE WHAT I CAN DO” and then said later that we apparently would have specially-marked bags, right? Well, the next morning, my bleary eyes saw two carts of bags: one cart was unmarked, the other cart had bags that said LACTO.

I grabbed one of those but then panicked and thought maybe it was for someone who was LACTOSE INTOLERANT but then I saw someone in front of me with the same bag (we had a new bus on this day and the seats in front of me were a cluster of 4 around a table so now I had two people semi-facing me) and I panicked even more so I gave Henry the bag back and told him to go back and return it because it must be WRONG but he came back and said there were no other specially marked bags.

THEN someone in front of me AND behind me complained that their sandwiches didn’t have MEAT on it so I guiltily said, “Um, maybe you have mine, because I’m a vegetarian?” but it turned out that NONE OF THE SANDWICHES had meat on it so people were really annoyed about that and I lowkey worried that this due to a miscommunication, like maybe Tim was all, “Hey-yo Curiosa friends, two of these sandwiches need to be meat-free” and they forgot how many he said so they defaulted to all sandwiches being vegetarian??

I don’t know, if Chooch was reading this he would say, “It’s not that deep.”

There was also orange juice and yogurt in the bags, in case you were wondering.

Anyway, now that we had a new bus, Marie and Eric didn’t want to sit at the table facing people so they moved to the other side of the bus and sat in front of Chooch. (Justin’s) Kevin sat in front of me and Jimmy from GP Coasters sat next to him, and then Lucas and whoever his friend was who might be the only person whose name I never learned, now that I think about it, sat on the other side of the table facing my direction.

This was all very irrelevant and probably a whole ass fucking snooze for you to read, my deepest apologies.

30 minutes before we arrived at Skara, Tim received an email from them saying that their MAIN ATTRACTION was down and they were waiting for a part to come in from another park. When he made this announcement, the mood dipped pretty low. We still had to go, it was paid for, we drove so far out of the way and it was, I guess, too early for us to go to Kolmarden. So, we had to make the best of it.

They even opened the park early just for us. The original plan was to have ERT on Tranan grab the other 2 creds, and GTFO before GP entered the park.

But then we got inside…

and learned….

….that only the spinning wild mouse was running.


It was soooo rickety. I rode with CoasterKev and asked him, “Do these normally shake this much?” and he went, “Nope! Not usually.” Cool cool!

THIS FUCKING THING WASN’T EVEN RUNNING!!

The only concession the park staff could make for us was to get some other dumb flat ride to run for us, where, as luck would have it, we were “transported to the swampy areas of the United States.” Henry actually rode this with me because everyone was riding it so he wanted to fit in, I guess. If this actually was the United States, he would have been sitting on a bench, holding my purse, and chuckling at IG reels.

Oh yeah and at one point, they were testing Tranan so everyone was screaming, but it was all for nought. It never ended up running for us. The part probably arrived right after we left, too! We probably passed it on the road!

lolol

Then we departed for McDonald’s! BUT FIRST, there was drama because Kevin was missing!! I remembered seeing him come onto the bus and he appeared to have taken his stuff and left, but I didn’t think anything of it. So Tim was doing a silent head count of the upper level everyone around us noticed Kevin’s empty seat and pointed it out to Tim who was like WHERE IS KEVIN? KEVIN ANSWER ME and Kevin wasn’t answering. But then Tim called him on the phone and confirmed that he had moved downstairs so Tim signaled for the driver to PULL OUT BABY.

But Chooch was like, “THERE ARE THREE KEVINS, WHAT IF TIM CALLED THE WRONG ONE AND NOW KEVIN IS LIVING IN RURAL SWEDEN??”

Also what if: I made a WATTPAD story about the Coaster Crew Norden group?!

McDonald’s was fine except that I felt really rushed and didn’t know what was going on and then Henry fucked up and didn’t get a receipt so we didn’t know what number we were. It’s always something.

But at least McDonald’s has a veg menu. If this was a US trip, Chooch and I would be eating fries I guess.

LOL as I’m writing this, one of the Coaster Crew members posted this on his Instagram story and it is so relatable:

OK, I’ll end here and the next post, we’ll pick up with Kolmarden day 1!

Oct 142023
 

OK man, let’s wrap up Liseberg so we can move on to the next before my old lady brain completely stops spitting out the facts.

After our lovely day carousing around Gothenburg, we went back to the hotel for relaxing time (see: Henry immediately took a nap while Chooch and I went gallivanting around the hotel) and then returned to Liseberg around 6:30 for dinner and to get some more rides in before ERT on Balder started at 11PM.

We had originally planned to eat at the very first restaurant we came upon because the menu outside had veg options but when we got inside and were seated, the actual menu was different and the veggie burger wasn’t on it. I was under the impression that this is what Chooch wanted, that it was a deal-breaker, so I thanked the server and said we would need to go somewhere else.

BOY HOWDY, this set Chooch off, injected not just one bee but a whole goddamn HIVE of bees straight into his bonnet and now I was suddenly Enemy #1 because I EMBARRASSED THEM, and HE NEVER SAID HE WOULDN’T EAT ANYTHING ELSE.

Mmm, ok. Have you met Chooch? MR. FUCKING PARTICULAR? So now he was pissed at me and I was retaliatory pissed off at HIM. 90% of our fights: over food / college shit / the state of his room. It’s so dumb. Literally, what a waste of time.

Henry was caught in the middle, trying to diffuse the dynamite we seemingly had shoved up our asses.

My favorite part was when we were like this:

Collectively: BITCH BITCH BITCH *SCOWL* BITCH BITCH FUCK OFF

*Sees Robert & Dawn approach, puts on BIG FAKE SMILES*

Collectively: OH HELLO!!! *prays we’re playing the role of Happy Family believably*

But then, you know what? Something came over me and I dropped the charade. “WE ARE CURRENTLY FIGHTING WITH EACH OTHER OVER WHERE TO EAT DINNER” because we had spent hours upon hours with these people at this point, might as well keep it real, you know?

“People are going to remember us as ‘that family who was always fighting,'” I added, with a self-deprecating chuckle.

“Look,” Robert said, “you should hear us at night when we’re back at the hotel.” Dawn nodded in agreement. “We get it!”

It was such a nice, real moment, you know?? They suggested the place they just dined at, but it was pretty much all seafood so that did us no good.

We ended up at Spokbaren Gasten, which was the sister restaurant to the haunted house! It was sat right at the end of the exit of the haunt, how convenient!

Chooch got “non-alcoholic” wine, so basically grape juice. He said it was OK. I think I got a cider and Henry got a local beer. It took a reallllly long time for our food to come out so they comped our drinks, which was very nice.

Not gonna lie though, the food was pretty effing good. While we were eating, Tim and a bunch of other Coaster Crew guys came in and claimed the tables behind us. Tim came over and talked to us for a good bit and it is honestly what I remember more than the food itself – the good conversation with Tim. It was like our first REAL TALK and I loved it. I wish anyone who is reading this could meet Tim. If you are a fan of riding roller coasters, you should seriously consider joining Coaster Crew. Annual memberships are not very pricey (I want to say our family membership is like $50??) and you can attend fun events with super amazing people. This was our first time meeting Tim in person but I could tell by comments online that he is sincerely beloved in the coaster community, and, once meeting him, I very quickly understood why. Patient, funny, caring, attentive, knowledgeable – he’s the kind of person you want on your team, you know?

So, I’m looking at this picture of my food and all I can think about is Tim leaning on the railing next to us and asking us about our lives back home, etc.

After dinner, we went on the Lisebergjoulet – the Liseberg Ferris Wheel. WHAT AMAZING VIEWS.

When I say the wheel was “off the beaten path…” It was like we weren’t even in the park anymore, but some type of nature preserve! The path wound up the hillside and was completely hidden from the rest of the park. You couldn’t even see any of the rides.

After this, Chooch and Henry rode the drop tower with Pam, Kevin, and Johnny. I almost always sit out when it comes to drop towers, and this one was no exception. I just really don’t enjoy them! Anyway, Chooch bullied me about it afterward and tried to make me jealous that I missed riding something with Pam. He also said that Kevin had a very high-pitched scream and that it was jarring.

Pam and Kevin both had decided to opt out on Balder ERT since they gotten enough rides on it during regular park hours. So after the drop tower, they both planning on calling it a night. However! Johnny had given us the scoop that if you ride the little boats near the entrance, you get an actual license at the end. I didn’t really understand what that meant, but I was sold and apparently so was Kevin because he stopped to ride them before retreating to the hotel for the night:

Chooch and I were soooo giddy on these boats. We somehow caught up to Kevin and kept bumping into the back of him, so finally he turned around and yelled, “These aren’t bumper boats!” and that just made us crack up even harder. Chooch and I can be the ultimate pests when we buddy up.

But dude! Johnny wasn’t kidding – there are these machines at the exit where you put in your name, it takes your picture, and shoots out a license. I am obsessed with it. I actually forgot that it was in my wallet and saw it the other night when I was at dinner with some work friends and I tried to get them to look at it but they ignored me. Story of my life. I will strive to be more exciting so that I can captivate an audience.

Played more candy roulette, rode the best pendulum ride of my life (it was also apparently the first one I’ve ridden by Intamin so I guess that’s the difference), rode some flat ride that looked super thrilling and daunting from the ground, but was actually pretty tame, went back to the hotel lobby for ICE CREAM, got a final ride on VALKYRIA, and then joined the group at the entrance of Balder for an hour of insanity!

We stayed for the full hour and the energy was sizzling, man. It was electric! Everyone was chanting BALDER BALDER BALDER, the ride ops were hopping on with us, they were BARELY pushing down the restraints so we’d get max airtime – I was in love with everyone on this night. My face hurt from smiling and my throat hurt from screaming! These rides on Balder were by far the best that we had during our time there. I was mildy underwhelmed when we rode it on the first day, but no – this is a back row night-ride coaster through-and-through.

Chooch never left his seat in the second row – people just kept rotating out with him. I got to ride with him once and he was like, “Be prepared to be annoyed” because the one girl who hated me also was staying in the same seat with her friend and Chooch said they were being so obnoxious but clearly not enough to get him to change seats, lol!

Since the park was officially closed, we got to leave through a restricted, employee’s only area that took us under the track of Valkyria! This is also where Chooch realized that he left his backpack in the cubby in Balder’s station, so he had to run back. I was like, “Give me the room key, I’m not dealing with this” LOL and sent Henry off with him.

Luckily, Chooch said that Eric and Marie were actually still in the park so they didn’t have to actually open a gate up for him or anything, THANK GOD. I would have been so embarrassed if Tim had to get involved! But Chooch said that when they got to Balder, the ride crew was walking out, having just shut everything down for the night, and one of them had his backpack slung over their shoulder.

Anyway, it was well after midnight at this point and we had a 6AM bus call in the morning so that was concerning. Tim was VERY CLEAR that we were going to be on a tight schedule and therefore would be waiting for NO ONE. I guess there had been instances on past trips where people were late getting to the bus and it screwed everything up for everyone, so Tim was trying hard to not let that happen again.

(It didn’t! This isn’t a cliffhanger, lol.)

Anyway, I spliced all of my Liseberg videos into one comprehensive wrap-up and will post it here FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION. I should have been doing this with my videos from every park. Sigh.

Oct 112023
 

We took a break from Liseberg Day 2 in order to explore the city. I mean, it would be a crime to go to Europe and only ride roller coasters, right?? I was so excited when I saw we had two days at Liseberg because I knew I was going to want to use some of that time to be tourists.

There was a tram stop right across from our hotel and we were able to very easily take it right into town.

We got off at the central station area and spent the rest of the afternoon just walking around with no real plan other than looking for a hardback copy of Beartown in Swedish (no luck), somewhere to grab a light lunch, and somewhere for Henry of the Petite Bladder Clan to piss. (Spoiler: the Ikea there did not have a public restroom.)

Random ice cream sign that needed to be remembered. I miss you, GB Glace. I miss you bigly. No one misses you more than me. I’m a person that misses the most. A tremendous amount of missing.

Gothenburg had a poppin’ shopping district where I bought zero things.

I think I know that kid.

I’d like to add that Henry is supposed to be helping me write this but he claims he “doesn’t even remember that day.” Now he’s looking at some man soap website on his phone that is not even Swedish.

“Is that when I was looking for a bathroom?” he just mumbled. OH SO HE DOES REMEMBER.

You know how when you’re in the moment, you just start snapping photos because you want to remember everything, no matter how insignificant it might seem, say, two months later when you’re sitting at home looking at them and trying to think of how to caption them for your blog?

Yeah…

If I lived in Gothenburg, I would sit in this courtyard often. It surrounds the magnificent Gustavi Cathedral, btw.

No photos allowed inside, but we went inside to gawk and light a candle. Big fan of churches from a tourist POV.

I MISS SWEDEN. Literally not a single shitty experience was had in the entire country. Wonderful people. Chill vibes. Beautiful culture. PREVALENT LICORICE. Korea is still my past life country (not in the sense that I think I was Korean bc that would be a gross and inappropriate line to cross being the white mutt I am; I just mean that Korea feels so familiar to me like I lived there once), but Sweden is somewhere I definitely see myself revisiting again and again.

I asked Henry if he would go back. He paused, looked up at the ceiling which I guess was to illustrate that ‘look at me, thinking’ and then said, “….I think so. Yeah.”

Wow.

I liked this door so I took a picture of the door. Oh, I remember now!!! We were walking aimlessly toward where we thought the water was! And Chooch sidetracked us because he wanted to climb some random steps that ended up being a good plan because it allowed for some nice views at the top (PLUS THIS DOOR).

I mean, even with that crane in the skyline, isn’t this place just a goddamn dream??

I look old AF (because I am old AF) but I’m including this because MEMORIES of walking around looking for food while Chooch complains because he wanted to buy his friend Zakk something from some random sci fi shop and we made him leave because we were LOOKING FOR LUNCH.

He threw this in my face for like 3 days afterward. “I can’t wait to tell Zakk that I wasn’t allowed to buy him anything from the sci fi shop.”

OMFG please. That brat just wanted to buy himself something and I promise you it’s something that he could have bought anywhere, not unique to just Sweden.

LAKRITS. I want a giant LAKRITS ice cream cone for my front yard.

At one point, we ran into Kevin (the one who sat in front of us on the bus for nearly the whole trip) and Marshall who were excited to tell us about the great lunch they had nearby and what a good value it was on top of that and we did go inside briefly to check it out but IF YOU RECALL, I wanted a small, light lunch that day for some reason. Maybe I wasn’t that hungry? And as usual, who cares when Henry and Chooch wanted, am I right? Haha ha hahaha. Ha.

Then we found the famous Ahlstroms! This was on my very unorganized list that mostly lived in crumpled ball in my head. But I recognized the name! It was established in 1901!

“I was just glad they had a bathroom,” Henry sighed.

While he was pissing his heart out in a 1901 urinal, Chooch and I braved the sandwich counter. The people working there (and in line with us!) were so wonderfully patient and helpful. When I asked if one of the ladies if a certain sandwich had meat on it, she couldn’t think of the word in English and the girl behind me paused her convo with her friend and said, “It’s cod!” and we all had a laugh.

No cod sandwich for me, please!

Henry was still in the bathroom!!!

EW HE JUST TOLD ME HE DIDN’T JUST HAVE TO PEE, THAT WHOLE TIME HE HAD TO SHIT TOO. He pooped in a 1901 bathroom!!!! He ruined it with his American waste!!!

You guys, this sandwich was just what I needed. The bread was so perfectly poppy-seedy. I can’t remember what Chooch got – some kind of cheese sandwich? Mine was EGGS. I got a cinnamon bun and Chooch got whatever he got.

Then Henry came back from stinking up the bathroom and pouted because we had food so we were like, “You are a grown-up, capable of independent decision-making. If you want your own sandwich, go the fuck up there and get one?!?” So he did. Something with meat on it. He thinks he liked it.

Then…more walking! It was the perfect day. High 60s. Blue skies. Fresh air. We had just signed Balder that morning. Writing this blog post, 2 mths later, and I can still remember how content I felt!

Guys, let’s go back to Gothenburg.

German Christian Church. I’m glad Chooch isn’t the type of kid who gets all put-out and whiny when it’s time to pop in a church for cultural purposes.

Otherwise, we might have missed this.

My geotag on this tells me it’s Gustav Adolfs Torg, a town square.

We went into a souvenir/candy shop around this area to buy magnets, etc.

Made our way back to Central Station because there was more fun to be had at Liseberg and we needed to start heading back.

But first one of these two doofuses I was with put us on the wrong tram and we were headed in the opposite direction. Luckily, it was an easy fix but UGH these two and their constant map-quarrels. They both have to be right and I feel like they purposely choose different routes just to be forever contentious with each other. Idiots.

Before we went back to Liseberg, we tore into this famous Princess Cake that we got to go from Ahlstroms. I wasn’t sure if I liked marzipan but turns out, sure! I sure do! I wish I hadn’t had to share this with Henry. Fuck.

But Gothenburg? Will you have me back someday? Because I really want to come back, stay at the Curiosa again, spend a day at Liseberg and then do all of the Gothenburg things. This was, to summarize the best way I can think, a comfortable day. The transportation was easy-ish, I bought a ton of licorice treats at Lakrids By Bulow—they have the best, fanciest, designer licorice, you guys – we got jars of lemon-coated licorice balls and mango-coated licorice balls and…I miss those balls, is all I’m saying. The lemon ones especially were amazing because they were slow-crafted and therefore $$ but 100% worth the inflation—and we just had a nice day of not rushing around and only moderately hating on each other.

ONE MORE GOTHENBURG/LISEBERG recap after this, and then we will move on to another part of Sweden. Please don’t jump ship. Stay with me. Pretend like it’s the 1950s and I pulled out the old, overheated projector and we’re going through a slideshow of blurry photos, most of them with Chooch mid-eye roll and Henry airplaning food into his own gaping maw while I’m trying to get shots of the scenery behind them while I’m narrating it in a monotone and making you eat salty licorice. See? It could be worse.