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Our Amazing Race: Germany and Poland

Our final cruise destination was Warnemunde, Germany. We actually left the cruise a day early because we didn’t want to go to the last stop, which was back to Copenhagen.

From Warnemunde, we took a train to the cute little town Rostock. This is exactly how I pictured Germany!

After exploring Rostock, we took a train to Sachsenhausen. This was a concentration camp during WWII. It was a very emotional couple of hours. Below are pictures from the camp.

From there we took a train to Berlin.

I had to get a pretzel since we were in Germany!

The Berlin Wall was very cool to see!

Checkpoint Charlie

Brandenburg Gate

The entire time we were in Berlin it was crazy! The European Soccer Finals, UEFA was going on while we were there and the entire city was in party mode!

On my birthday we went to Slubice, Poland for a couple of hours. It was an adorable little town.

Barcelona ended up wining the UEFA and that just happens to be our next stop!!!

Our Amazing Race: Russia and Estonia

The main reason we went on this cruise was because Judd has always wanted to go to Russia. Russia is the first country that we’ve traveled to that we needed a visa to enter. After much research, we found out that you can either go through the lengthy process of getting a visa or you can book a tour in which they will do the work to get a blanket Visa for you. I decided to book a tour, it was VERY expensive but it was worth not dealing with the hassle of dealing with the Russian government. The tour company we chose was T&J Travel, I was blown away at what a great job they did!

We spent 12 hours in St. Petersburg and loved it!

Our first stop was the Church of Savior on Spilled Blood. Judd and I also call this the “famous colorful ice cream church” (the top looks like soft served ice cream to us). 😉

Then we went to the Hermitage, one of the largest museums in the world!

Next we went to the beautiful Peteroff Palace!

The palace was breathtaking!

Walking through this fountain is supposed to bring us good luck! We got very wet, I’m hoping this makes all of our dreams come true!

Then we visited the gorgeous Catherine Palace.

The Catherine Palace is known for its Amber Room. I actually wasn’t supposed to take a picture, opps!

We finished the day by doing a little shopping. This shop was so fun!

Everyone told us we were crazy to visit Russia but we LOVED it!

The next day we visited Tallinn, Estonia.

Tallinn is a cute little city with lots of restaurants and shopping.

The Old Town is beautiful!

There were beautiful gardens everywhere!

Judd loved this little dungeon bar!

I love this guy!

This city was very pretty and reminded us a lot of Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Now on to Germany!!!

Our Amazing Race: Denmark, Cruise Embarkation, Sweden

From Iceland we flew to Copenhagen, Denmark. What a beautiful city!

We took a stroll through the GORGEOUS Nyhavn Harbor. This was absolutely breathtaking, so many colors and so much to look at.

We then continued our stroll down the main shopping district. There was always something to look at with all the shops, people, and entertainers.

One of my all-time favorite movies is The Little Mermaid. Copenhagen has a beautiful Little Mermaid Statue. I made Judd walk miles while carrying luggage to see this statue!

Beautiful government square with soldiers. This reminded me of London!

In Copenhagen we got on our cruise- Costa Favolosa . This is our second time on Costa Cruises. We’ve been pleased both times. The food is good, the ship is clean, and the staff is helpful.

My favorite things about Costa are the food and the places the cruise line goes! I LOVE how Europeans eat: Pastries and sandwiches galore for breakfast and a large cheese plate after dinner.

We want to see as much of the world as possible since we both have a crush on the world. 😉 Both times we chose this company because of the places the cruise stopped (actually that’s always why we select a cruise). The cruise itinerary is usually very busy with long days at each port, we love this!

Below was our itinerary:

However, nothing is perfect. Since this is an Italian cruise line,very few people on these cruises speak English. Our boat had 3,500 people and only 30 of these were Americans! We go on cruises for the destinations. If you love the cruise experience and love going to the shows/entertainment, this is not the cruise line for you because nothing is in English.

Our first stop on the cruise was Stockholm, Sweden. This city is expensive but GORGEOUS!

We walked through a farmers market. I love farmers market. I love the smell of the fresh fruit and veggies!

Beautiful views along the water

This is a government building that also looked like a castle

Royal Palace

We had a blast! We loved Copenhagen and Stockholm! Now on to Estonia and Russia!

Our Amazing Race, Day 1: Iceland

I really need to do a better job at keeping this updated! I’ve mentioned before that my husband and I have a passion for traveling, in just a few years we’ve been to 30+ countries. A few weeks ago we got back from a big trip; we call it “Our Amazing Race.” We visited 11 countries in 16 days! We had a blast and feel so blessed that we got to see all these places! I am going to be doing several blog posts to talk about all of the countries we visited.

The countries we visited in order were:
1. Iceland
2. Denmark
3. Sweden
4. Russia
5. Estonia
6. Germany
7. Poland
8. Spain
9. Morocco
10. Portugal
11. Netherlands

Our Favorite Four (we can’t choose one): Spain, Russia, Morocco, and the Netherlands

Our Least Favorite Four: Iceland, Estonia, Poland, and Portugal. Note: I don’t dislike these countries; these were just our least favorite places (from what we saw).

A TON of work went into planning this trip. We planned it all by ourselves: transportation (10 flights, 1 rental car, 1 cruise, 3 train rides, tons of metros and buses, a cruise, 2 ferries, and a couple taxis), hotels, excursions, and daily itineraries.

Today I’m going to share about our first stop, Iceland. We spent 24 hours in Iceland which was plenty of time for us. I’m the first to admit that I’m not a huge nature person. If you like nature, you might enjoy Iceland more than me. We rented a car and drove for hours to visit different places in the country.

Our first stop was the Blue Lagoon, a beautiful hot spring. National Geographic named it one of the wonders of the world. It was breathtaking.

We had major jet lag and sitting in a relaxing hot spring probably did not help with this. We just wanted to take a nap!

While driving through Iceland, we kept making comments about how weird the landscape was. It really looks like Mars!

Then we went to the Bridge between Two Continents. This is exactly what it’s called, a bridge between two continents (North America and Europe).

We put a lock on the bridge with our names on it

Then we went to a sulfur geyser. This was cool to see but oh boy, did it smell! It smelled like rotten eggs!

Then we went to the biggest city in Iceland, Reykjavik. It was pretty cute!

Everyone in Iceland was very nice and friendly. Every place we went it just seemed to have the small town vibe. Out of all the places we’ve been in the world, I’ve never felt safer than I did here.

Our last stop was in Keflavik, a small fishing town. We stayed the night here and then caught a flight early the next morning. One thing to note, Iceland is very basic. All the hotels I looked at were basic and simple, every single one. We stayed at a “5 star” hotel (the nicest one I could find) and there was nothing fancy about it.

Bye Iceland. Now on to Copenhagen, Denmark.

Mini Wonton Tacos

I am so lucky to have an awesome husband that can cook! I usually cook dinner but every couple of weeks Judd is in charge. The last time he was in charge was a fiesta! I was blown away by the food: mini wonton tacos, fried wontons, and fried rice. Below is the recipe for the mini wonton tacos.

Mini Wonton Tacos
1. Cook ground beef or turkey meat
2. Place Won ton wrappers in muffin tins
3. Fill with taco seasoned ground meat and cheese
4. Bake for 8 minutes at 350 degrees
5. Top with favorite taco toppings!

Coca-Cola BBQ Chicken

I tried a new recipe this week and we loved this and I hope you do too! It’s incredibly easy to make and delicious!

Ingredients:
• 4 – 5 thawed chicken breasts
• 18 ounce bottle of BBQ sauce. (We’re from Ohio so we love Montgomery Inn BBQ Sauce)
• 1/2 can Coca-Cola (approx. 6 ounces)

Instructions:
1. Cook the chicken in the Crock-pot on high for 3 hours
2. Drain any juices from the Crock-pot
3. Mix together BBQ Sauce and Coca-Cola in a bowl
4. Pour mixture over chicken
5. Cook on high for 1 more hour
We ate this with rice! So delicious! 🙂

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