Home again home again..Where to start? DAY 1

I have been writing my blog -in - my- head- for the past two weeks.... but when it comes down to it...eek...where do I start?
Break it down day by day?-- a list of do's & don'ts or just lots & lots of pictures?

OK--- Let me just start by saying I am sooo very proud of myself & my non camping family.... WE MADE IT.

We actually camped 10 out of the 14 days away... I had a blast... & except for being cold...(FREEZING my tail off... I loved it.) The camping grounds we found, by pure LUCK were awesome... the ones in Northern Germany were the best... & I would do it all again.

What I learned this trip.... We are NOT ready to sign up for a stint on the "Amazing RACE"..
-although I am sure we would make for some pretty fun/pathetic TV. We would lose on the first leg...

My children ROCK!

We CAN live without TV/Cell Phones/Internet for 2 weeks.

traveling with your family...children..husband is NOT the same as backpacking with your girlfriends when you were in college...

I planned WAY too much for us to do. Bjørn & I figured our pretty early on, I had tried to stuff way too much into our 2 weeks away.

NEXT time... we will pick a destination & take our time. The moving camp almost every day wore us all out....


Lets start with the TI PI.... You know I was a bit worried about sticking out with our TI PI... (Norwegian LAVAA...) turns out there was nothing to worry about...



no one even noticed....













Seems Tipis are all the RAGE this year!







Day 1....

Took off EARLY & drove through Sweden & Denmark....

Made really good time... Bjørn & I had our first argument over the "other" woman... the GPS - who would end up dictating our trip MOST OF THE way... We made it into Germany early evening & LUCKED out with an AWESOME campground..

CLEAN.. friendly... playground & a BIERGARDEN... what more can you ask for... Dane made some nice German friends ...

First stop BERLIN... We managed to see Checkpoint Charlie, the remains of the wall & Brandenburg Gate... I had my first & BEST schnitzel of the trip.

After about 5 hours of walking around the city we took off to go to TROPICAL ISLAND... which is about 60 km south of Berlin.

We had an AWESOME time in Berlin.... what I would do different NEXT time....

print out a city map. Park the car by a metro & get a day pass.... use the public transport to get to all of the sites....

by the time we found everything the kids were WORN out... ok... so were Bjørn & I...