The Adventures of a Twin Mom – Page 24 – Motherhood and Travel Blog

July 13, 2015

Our Amazing Race: Spain

The next country on our list was Spain! I’ve wanted to come here for years! We flew into Barcelona and stayed here for two nights. I could not have been more in love with this city! Below are pictures from Barcelona.

Behind me is Casa Mila. A guy by the name of Antoni Gaudi designed several of the most famous tourist attractions in Barcelona. We visited several of the places he designed. This was one of the places, notice there was not one straight edge.

La Sagrada Familia Church also known as the “sandcastle church”. This was also designed by Gaudi.

Isn’t it beautiful?

This picture is from Tibidabo Hill. This hill has a beautiful amusement park and church with gorgeous views of the entire city.

The amusement park and church

Casa Batllo- Another one of Gaudi’s masterpieces. I loved all the tiles!

We spent an afternoon at Barceloneta Beach. This wasn’t the prettiest beach I’ve been to but it was fun!

In my last post I mentioned that Barcelona won the UEFA Finals. While we were in Barcelona the entire city was celebrating.

There was a parade with the players’ one of the days. It was so much fun to watch! I thought Americans were crazy about sports but they don’t even compare to Europeans and soccer!

My favorite place in Barcelona was the Park Guell. This is another one of Gaudi’s masterpieces. It was originally going to be a neighborhood with houses but a lot happened and now it is just a BEAUTIFUL park! Judd and I got a little picture crazy here, below are more pictures!

Now on to Malaga, Spain and Africa!

July 13, 2015

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!!!

July 12, 2015

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!!!

July 12, 2015

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!

July 11, 2015

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.

March 8, 2015

How to Experience Dubai in 2 Days

Thanks to a computer glitch with Etihad Airlines (super cheap tickets), we spent this Valentine’s Day weekend in Dubai! We had 2 days /3 nights in Dubai. I planned out every minute while we were in Dubai because I wanted to make the most of our trip and I’m so glad we did because we saw and did everything we wanted!

We drove 6 hours to Chicago and then hoped on a direct flight from Chicago to Abu Dhabi for 14 hours. I have to share how impressed I was with this airline! Each seat had a clean blanket (wrapped in plastic) and a disposable pillow that had never been used (I’m all for cleanness) as well as a goodie bag that contained a toothbrush/toothpaste, an eye mask (one side said “Wake me up for food” and the other side said “Do Not Disturb”), ear plugs, head phones, and socks! I loved this! They gave us plenty of meals and delicious snacks through the entire trip (Klondike bars during a midnight movie was perfect)! Between all the food, my personal TV, and sleeping pills I was a very happy girl!

After a 14 hour flight, we arrived in Abu Dhabi on Friday night (Dubai time). We then took a 1.5 hour shuttle to our hotel in Dubai. We went straight to bed after checking into our hotel (Ibis Hotel of Emirates).

When we travel to big cities (London, Paris, NYC, etc.) we tend to do the hop-on hop-off bus tours because it is an easy and convenient way of seeing cities. These bus tours always stop at the “main” sites. I picked the 48 hour pass with Big Bus Tours and was very satisfied. I based our schedule around the bus’s schedule and went from there. Here are the bus schedules: http://eng.bigbustours.com/dubai/route-map.html.

Here is a brief outline of what we did on Day 1 which happened to be Valentine’s Day:

We explored the Mall of Emirates as soon as we woke up which happened to be a 10 minute walk from our hotel (I picked this hotel on purpose because of its location). This is the second biggest mall in Dubai and the mall that has Ski Dubai (more to come on that later).

We took the City Bus Tour on Day 1 that left from the Mall of the Emirates. We first went to the world’s largest mall, the Dubai Mall! We could’ve spent days in this place! It was incredible.

We ate lunch at the WAFI Mall/Egyptian Mall! Can you tell UAE loves malls?

We then went to the Spice Souk and Gold Souk! This was a great cultural experience.

Did I mention how nice the metros are? The metro and the entire city are spotless! Everything looks brand new! I’ve been telling people that it reminds me of the Capital in the Hunger Games. 🙂

Next came our favorite part of Dubai. We went on a Camel Sunset Safari in the desert.

The company we used was North Tours LLC. They picked us up at our hotel and we went dune bugging for a few minutes in the desert dunes which was fun but I’m glad we chose the short route because I would’ve gotten sick.

Once we arrived to the camp we rode camels towards the sunset for 45 minutes. It was just the two of us and a guide. It was amazing!

Then we headed back to the camp.

I got a henna tattoo.

We tried on traditional clothing.

Then it was time for a traditional dinner and watching a belly dancer.

We asked the safari driver to drop us off at the Dubai Fountains. We watched the fountains with the Burj Khalifa behind it. I can’t describe this experience. I remember looking up at my husband at one point and saying “Is this real life?”

We then headed back by metro to our hotel and passed out around midnight! It was the best Valentine’s Day ever!

On Day 2 we covered a lot! First thing in the morning we had reservations to go to the top of the Burj Khalifa (world’s tallest building)! I recommend buying tickets ahead of time because they sell out fast.

Then we spent the majority of the day covering the two remaining bus tours, the Beach tour and the Marina Tour.

We saw the Burj Al Arab, also known as the sailboat hotel!

We then ate lunch and walked around the beautiful Madinat Jumeriah Souk.

Then we went to the Marina District. This street holds the records for the highest block of skyscrapers in the world! It’s breathtaking to see!

Then off to the Palms! This is the island shaped like a palm tree and at the very end is Atlantis! We walked around for a little bit. We’ve been to Atlantis at the Bahamas so we decided not to buy the pool/beach pass this time.

We finished off the day by eating dinner at the Mall of the Emirates and then Judd went skiing at Ski Dubai! He said it was amazing!

There are a lot of little things that we did and saw that I’m not mentioning. I just wanted to cover the big things!

If you are not the fastest or most experienced traveler, I’d recommend 3 days in Dubai. My husband and I are young and we are used to traveling without much sleep. This trip was very tiring and if something had gone wrong we wouldn’t have been able to do everything we did.

If you happened to do the calculations, that is 50 hours of traveling for only 56 hours in Dubai. Was it worth it? YES, it was SO worth it! This is an experience we will never forget and a city that will forever hold a big place in my heart! 🙂

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