Spoiled little brat

Theodor just arrived at the world famous Geysir on Iceland but he couldn't care less and hid in the IKEA bag

We have realised that Theodor Nilo Bengtsson is a spoiled little child who won't go on more trips abroad with us. We have many examples of when he falls asleep right when we get to the main attraction. Not even Disneyland seemed to have caught his interest. Here we show you some more examples:


Theodor met Mickey Mouse on Disneyland. Every kids dream but Teddy just looked away.


Theodor in Whistler where dad tried to show him the slopes.

It's an investment though to bring your toddler around the world when they are really young. You only pay 10 percent of the flight ticket for an infant and they usually stay for free in the hotels. Insurance, food and attractions are inexpensive for minors. When they become older and start to demand Sea World and and Disney World vacations you can just tell them that they already have been there and that they shouldn't complain...

Leaving Mona, Rasmus and August in Hanoi for Nha Trang

We have now left Mona, Rasmus, August and their lovely staff in Hanoi. Last night, Huyen, their excellent chef had prepared a fantastic crayfish dinner for us. The best prepared crab we have ever eaten! Thank you so much Vaupels for taking care of us. Maybe we will come and move in with you :-)


Today we took an early morning flight to Nha Trang in the southeastern Vietnam. Here we will spend five days on the beach before going back home. As you can see our view from the hotel room isn't that bad :-)

Its something wrong with our phone

 

A technician fixing the telephone lines in Hanoi

I tried to make a phone call last night but wasn't connected. After a stroll down town I realised why. It was something wrong with my telephone line and here you can see a technician fixing it. Now you can call us again :-) 

Halong Bay

Click on picture to see album from Vietnam

We are back in Hanoi after two wonderul days in Halong Bay. We had our own djonk where we spent the night in this amazing archipelago. On our way to Halong Bay we saw a sleeping pig.

Lets move here!

-Lets move here!

This was the first thing Karolina said when we arrived at Mona, Rasmus and August house in Vietnam. They have a great house, a sweet nanny, a great chef who cooks wonderful food everyday, a driver who makes errends and not the least an exciting country to travel around in. It for sure makes it easier to be a parent when you can get all that help.

A thing that I love with many places in Asia is that you can just leave your doorstep and enjoy. There are so many things to look at that you can spend hours in a crossing and look at people. Even the traffic is exciting to look at.

Yesterday we spent the day together with Mona and Teddy in downtown Hanoi. Now Karolina and I will go on our own and leave Teddy with August nanny Sven.

Visit August i Vietnam on http://prinsaugust.blogspot.com

August and Theodor

Our room in Mona and Rasmus house. August nanny Sven to the left and Teddy's nanny to the right

 

 
Teddy and August

Welcome to Vietnam Theodor!

We made it to Vietnam after all. A 14 hours flight from Seattle to Taipei and then 3 hours to Hanoi. In order to gain points in my country competition I had to get out of the airport in Taipei.

After leaving Karolina and Teddy at the gate I ran to the Taiwaneese immigration. In order to get out I had to tell them that I needed to meet a friend outside the airport. They told me that it would be hard for me to get back in time since my flight was due in an hour.

I thought that with my boarding card it wouldn't be a problem and I went out and got that stamp in my passport!

I ran out to get some Taiwaneese rain and then trough the terminals to get back inside. Unfortunately I couldn't get back in with my boarding card and I had to go back to the check in terminal to get a new one with my tickets. Now I was getting nervous and thought that this might be a re-run of Argentina where a Boing 747 had to wait for me :-)

It was so much people in the terminal so I had to run in front of everyone in first class on China Airlines and excuse myself. It went quick to get a new boarding card and I ran through security and had to cut the line there as well. I came back to Karolina and Teddy in time for boarding and probably lost loads of calories on the way. They hadn't worried too much and we were happy that the family was united again :-)

Air China

Mein Gott Air China!

We are now at the airport in Seattle. We fly Air China to Hanoi via Taipei. Well that was our plan anyway. When we arrived at the check-in counter the woman behind the desk tells us that we have booked two infants. Since we only had Theodor with us she realised that something was wrong with the booking. It took over an hour for them to sort this out while people were waiting in line after us.

Luckily we use Mitchum Deodorant “so effective you could even skip a day” so even though it was stressful we kept ourselves cold headed. When we were about to get our boarding cards the Air China woman asked me for our Visas to Vietnam.

I got all warm in my body...

In order to enter Vietnam you need to have a Visa otherwise you will be sent back.

Since it was a pretty long time ago I booked these tickets I wasn’t sure what rules I had read about this matter but I was persistent and told her that it shouldn’t be a problem.

She told me that I had to leave the line and she couldn’t help us anymore. Karolina who was standing with Theodor some distance away suddenly overheard our conversation and ran up red in her face and started to discuss the matter with the woman. Theodor was tired and cried and everything was chaos.

In the back of my head I remembered that I had spoken to my friend Calle about Visas to Vietnam and he had said it was OK without as long as you had a ticket out of Vietnam. Well this didn’t help us with the lady anyway so I called our friends Rasmus and Mona in Hanoi. Rasmus, who we are supposed to meet in Vietnam works at the Danish Embassy and should have the info.

Rasmus said that it was OK for a Scandinavian to visit Vietnam for 14 days and that he could fax it to Air China. I went back to the woman but she still refused.

Suddenly we heard somebody shout:

- Its OK let them board!

The manager had checked up the Scandinavia info we had given them. The woman still didn’t seem to get it and had to spell out S-W-E-D-E-N on our passports to make sure it wasn’t some other country but then we were finally fine to go.

 

Last night we went to Olivia’s baptising ceremony and then to her parents Renee and Spencer’s house for dinner. Olivia gave Theodor a really nice kiss and there might be a boyfriend/girlfriend potential in this couple. Thank you all for taking care of us in Vancouver, we had a great time! 

Vancouver with friends

Roar, Teddy, Sammycat, Karolina and I on the 26th floor in Vancouver.

We are now in Vancouver and had a celebrity welcome to Sammycats and Roars guest apartment. They had framed pictures of Karolina and me by our bed, the fridge filled with Swedish food, ducks for Teddy to play with in the bath and lots of other things to make us feel at home. Not bad! Last night we went to a regatta party in a yacht club and today we had Sabrina showing us around downtown Vancouver and to a great sushi restaurant.

Tonight Karolina, Teddy and I will stay on the 26th floor in Sammycats and Roars apartment and if we can get our eyes off the view we will watch a DVD while the others are out partying tonight again.

Sammycat and Roar are friends I met when I temporarly lived in Halifax (Canada) and Sabrina is an old collegue to me whom I worked with in Bosnia.

Theodor standing in our hotel room in Seattle

We are leaving the US after 35 days. Tomorrow we are driving to the airport in Seattle to return the car. We have driven 8043 km and the car is blinking and making sounds that it wants service, oil change and a new driver. The trip has turned more exciting the further west we have driven and we are quite impressed by the hospitality and friendliness we have encountered on the way. It really makes it easier to meet and talk to strangers if you have a small child with you. Not that its hard in the US anyway. At the airport we are catching the bus to Vancouver, Canada where we will meet Sammycat, Roar, Sabrina, Renee, Spencer and Olivia. We are looking forward to see you soon!

Olympia, WA

My old High School, Timberline High School

Today we spent the day in Olympia, Washington. I was an exchange student here for a year, 15 years ago. It is a strange feeling coming back somewhere where you haven't been for a long time if you have a lot of memories from that place.

So many memories came back to me especially when we went to the old house on 1107 Rockcress Drive. Memories from when we celebrated Christmas and how I clogged the toilets so that they always overflew :-) I always brought a plunger with me after that.

It was nice to show Karolina where I spent a part of my teenage years. We are now in Seattle and will stay here until Thursday when we continue to Vancouver.

"My" old house 1107 Rockcress Dr.

Pebble Beach, San Francisco, Astoria, Oregon all in 24 hours!

Yesterday morning Teddy woke us up att 7 o'clock in Carmel with no real plan on what to do. We needed to get closer to Seattle where we have to return our car on the 16th of November. We started out slowly and drove around Pebble Beach with all its Golf Courses and luxury villas. Then we continued to San Francisco where we went to the Golden Gate Bridge and to Fishermans Wharf. Karolina took the same pictures of me in the same spot in front of Golden Gate as I have of myself 15 years ago.

The day had passed by quickly and it was already 19:00. Teddy fell asleep in the car and we bought a huge pizza that covered the whole front seat. Since its a long way to Seattle and since its easier to drive when Teddy sleeps we decided to drive through the night. When Teddy sleeps for the night he sleeps 12 hours. Karolina gets really tired in the evening which I don't as long as I drink some coffee so I was the designated driver.

I drove and drove and suddenly the sun came up and we were in Portland, Oregon (the border to Washington State). It took me 12 hours to drive from San Francisco. I drank 5 coffees and two red bull and didn't get tired at all. After a Starbucks Coffee and breakfast in Portland we continued to Astoria by the coast in Northern Oregon. This is where we are now in pouring rain and gale. Alltogether we drove 1457 km in the last 24 hours.

Awesome...

Click to see this funny movie!



What a drive! We started our day by with visiting Hearst Castle which was built by William Randolph Hearst in the 1920s to 1940s. Hearst was a man who owned a media empire and who loved parties and making his castle bigger and bigger. He bought monastaries in Europe and shipped it all to his little 165 room chatau.

We then continued on the amazing Highway 1 to Carmel where we are now and will spend the night. See pictures by clicking on the link to the right!

Karolina has fallen in love with Taco Bell.

We have begun our journey on Highway 1

Crystal Candeliers in Beverly Hills

Since we like driving along routes (we just completed Route 66 between Chicago and Los Angeles) we couldn't just stop in LA. Therefore we have begun a journey on another famous route, Highway 1. This road winds along the west coast right by the ocean and the scenery is supposed to be fantastic. We are now on our way and ended up for the night in a cozy little town called San Luis Obispo just north of Santa Barbara. On our way here we stopped in Beverly Hills and Venice beach.

This is the third time I write a blog message tonight because my computer continues to crash. All our pictures are gone (luckily we have uploaded many of them on Picasa) and our Navigation System for the car brakes down as soon as we connect it to this piece of hmmm that I am writing on. Please send us a new computer and maps.

Except for the computer problems I am experiencing we are really enjoying ourselves and we think Teddy is as well. Look out for great pictures tomorrow!

The El-Antably family and some pictures

We have now stayed four days in Laguna Beach in El-Antably's home. Since we arrived here we have driven along the coast to Newport, seen Disneyland and spent some lovely time on the beach where it was hot. It was 33 degrees celsius here yesterday!

Pamela and Nabil have helped us with everything and invited us to restaurants, given us great tips on what to see and also helped us out with Theodor.

Thank you so much Pamela and Nabil! We really enjoyed staying with you!

Tomorrow we will be leaving them but we hope to see them this next summer in Sweden.


Here we can see Karolina choosing formula for Teddy. In Sweden we only have two different packages to choose from when we need to buy baby food. On Wal-Mart we found around 50 different formulas for Teddy! With iron, without iron, no lactose, organic, advanced formula, with liple etc etc. He is still alive so we probably choose a good one.


We met Mickey Mouse! I thought that he was a made up character but now I know that he exists for real.

We have moved in with Pamela, Nabil and Jason in Laguna Beach

Theodor took this picture in Newport

When we were in Las Vegas we looked on the internet for a place to stay in California. We came up with the idea to send some emails to people who wants to swop homes. We thought that can let somebody stay at our summerhouse in Hovenäset if we find a nice place in California. A very friendly family in Laguna beach wrote back to us and said that we could come and stay with them so we did. Now we feel like part of the family and they even through a party for us when we arrived!

Today we went into downtown Laguna Beach and then continued to Newport. We miss our car so much so we thought we had to take a little drive. Instead of following route 66 we will soon follow route 101 instead.

Tomorrow you will see a picture of our new family!

San Diego, We like. Very, very good.

This is where one should be during the winter months!

We are staying on Coronado Island a small peninsula right outside San Diego where the beaches are white and sandy (!). Today we took a little tour and went to Hillcrest, La Jolla and Mission Bay all within San Diego.



Linus recommended us to go to La Jolla which we are happy for and we would like to recommend this “Baja Maja” that we found there. The size of it is rather spectacular. Either it’s for people with a lot of waste or it’s for girls who want to go to the toilet at the same time…? Anybody have a clue?

Joshua Tree park

We are in Palm Springs after driving through Joshua Tree Park. Tomorrow we are off to San Diego!

The Mojave National Preserve with my cow girl and baby boy

What a day! We left Las Vegas with no real plan. The sky was clear as always on these latitudes and after a Starbucks coffee and a sandwich in the “drive through” we were on our way.

After some negotiations with Theodor we decided to go to the Mojave National Preserve which has 1,5 million acres of sand dunes, the worlds largest Joshua trees, volcanic outcroppings and stunning rock formations (Lonely planet, California).

Even though we have a navigation system in the car we ended up on the wrong road thanks to us interpreting the map wrongly. This was bad because we were in the middle of nowhere and were running out of petrol. According to the GPS the nearest petrol station was 100 km in the wrong direction and since we were soon on the reserve I decided we had to turn around.

Out of the blue, like a mirage we saw an oasis with some palm trees and an old fashion gas station! I wish it always felt that good to fill up your car! They didn’t have any food but we could not care less even though we hadn’t had any lunch.

In the afternoon and after a detour we reached Mojave and went to see some strange stone formations. In our guide book we found a little tip to drive a scenic dirt road in the mountains called “the wild horse road”. You had to talk to a ranger first to ask for permission and to make sure it was open. That’s what we did and regret we did…

In less than an hour we were on that bloody horse road with help of a local map. In the rear mirror you could only see a huge dust cloud that our car was making. At first it wasn’t that bumpy but suddenly there was a HUGE hole in the road right in front of us and even though I hit the brakes we had no chance to stop.
If you click here you can see the result of that hole in the road. Parents who read this don’t have to worry about their grandson because he was safely fastened in his chair and wasn’t paying too much attention to his stressed parents…

We continued feeling a little low to the Kenso dunes and experienced a beautiful sunset before driving south towards a little town called Joshua Tree which is next to the Joshua Tree National park.

This was the first place where they served food on our little day trip and if you haven’t eaten since breakfast those burgers taste even more fantastic!

Its time to go to bed after an exciting and fun day (the car is fixed). Good night (and good morning Sweden) from Joshua Tree

Leaving Las Vegas

We are packing our bags and leaving Las Vegas in a few hours. We are not sure if we are driving north, south, east or west but you'll find out tomorrow.