Harms' Norway/Denmark Vacation 2013 Part 1

And I'm back! Currently nursing my jet lag, and trying to motivate myself to work off all that wonderful food I've been eating for the last 10 days. The jet lag makes the motivation part somewhat more difficult...
For our family vacation this year, we decided to go to the Motherland: Norway. You may have gathered by now that I am part Norwegian, and that many of my family traditions are Norwegian traditions. Therefore, our family decided to visit the place of our ancestors by going on a Norwegian cruise.
The cruise started in Copenhagen, Denmark, and we decided to arrive a few days early to check out the city. The city is absolutely beautiful, especially Tivoli Gardens, where we went our first night after getting off the plane. 

Tivoli Gardens is the second oldest amusement park in the world, and was a lot of fun. My sister, Hillary, and I went on the ride below, which went up so high you could see the entire city from the top. It was awesome and terrifying at the same time. 

The city is also the hometown to Hans Christian Andersen, the author of the story I was obsessed with as a child (and may still be obsessed with), The Little Mermaid. One of the city's most famous landmarks is a statue of The Little Mermaid that I've always wanted to see, and finally got to. 

Some more more pictures from Copenhagen:

Having a Carlsberg in Copehagen

Two more observations about Copenhagen: (1) The fashion is what I would expect to see in Seattle (kind of mixture of grunge and hipster and lots of top knots); and (2) The Hop On, Hop Off buses (that are apparently in many European cities) are awesome. I would highly recommend them.
Our first stop on our Norwegian cruise was Oslo; the nation's Capitol and the site of the Nobel Peace Prize. I was most looking forward to seeing the Viking Ship Museum, which houses the largest complete Viking ships in the world. Being that my ancestors were Norwegian, I also like to think that they were Vikings, which made this museum even cooler. 
The Vikings had a tradition of burying their dead in their ships, and they found these ships in a large burial mound, which is why they are so well preserved.
 

We also managed to catch a hop on, hop off bus and were able to see more of this beautiful city. 

Almost every night on the cruise, my family would get together to do trivia. The first night, we won, which boosted our confidence to show up the rest of the week as returning champions. That first night ended up being our only victory. Oh well. We did get some Royal Caribbean key chains as a prize though.
 

 
Later this week I will be telling you all about the rest of the trip. Today, I will leave you with some cute pictures of my nieces :)

Grandpa Harms was sneaking Lily Oreos. I think she liked them.