Wednesday, July 23, 2008



Monday July 21, 2008
Road trip with Jens and Johnnie to Jonkoping.. for the week... about a 3 hour drive..



We stopped at Braehus Ruins.. Ruins of an old place or castle that are on this cliff overlooking one of the largest lakes in Sweden...


The view was pretty amazing if I do say so myself...



In Jonkoping I met up with my good friend Mike Puzey who had just flown in from the states that day...



Here we are at about 2 am after having eaten burgers at Max's....

Sorry, just a quick post! :)

Monday, July 21, 2008

Stockholm Sweden!! July 19-20th, 2008..

Back in Sweden......
So after a long and uneventful flight I made back to the land of the midnight sun... :) I flew from Denver to Atlanta, and from Atlanta directly to Stockholm... I was kind of surprised to run into two different friends from Sweden in Atlanta who were also waiting for the Stockholm flight in Atlanta... I am always amazed at how small the world can be....

I thought I had been able to sleep a bit on the plane, but I think i just imagined it because i needed quite a long nap once I got to my friend Johnnies place in Stockholm. I was still kind of out of it when a bunch of friends came over to say hello and hang out.



Amanda och Jens...



Hannah and Victoria...



Johnnie....



Victoria....



ahh the newlyweds....



and a little guitar hero.....

After that, Johnnie, Jens and I did some packing for the road trip to Jonkoping where we will be for the week, but then at Midnight we walked down to the lake for some night swimming... It was a beautiful night and the water was quite warm actually... :)








I think he was praying that the water would be warm or something....



It doesn't look like Jens thinks its warm....





So today is the road trip to Jonkoping... Fest i Nord for the week! :)

Friday, October 05, 2007

Stockholm Sweden, Oct. 5th 2007....

Hey..so less than a week to go and I am home in SLC! Crazy.. I definitely have mixed feelings about coming home. It will be hard to leave everyone here in Europe, and all the great places over here, but It will be great to see my family and friends in the states again.

The last month I have been terrible about blogging.. I guess because I have been on the move alot this last month... I was all over Germany, Norway, and in Prague... Now I am back in Stockholm...



View of Sweden on my flight in from Germany on Wednesday....

I am going to be posting some updates about each place.. so keep an eye out.. I probably wont be done before I get home.. I have only this weekend left and I arrive in SLC on Monday night (oct. 8th)....

I can't wait to see everyone!
-JP

Monday, September 03, 2007

Copenhagen Denmark, August 2007......

So finally an update.. I have been in Norway again for a week and haven't had much time to update this..so here's the latest update... jumping back a few weeks to a trip to Copenhagen... enjoy :)

My freind Johan Colvig from Denmark lives in Malmo Sweden, but works everyday in Denmark. I was visiting friends in Malmo, so I caught a ride with him over the bridge to Denmark from Sweden...



The bridge is pretty amazing.. They were building it when I was in Malmo on my mission. It crosses the huge bay and then goes to a man-made island in
the middle and then down under the sea in a tunnel. They had to make the tunnel because the Airport in Copenhagen is close to the bridge, and it wouldn't work to have a huge bridge by the airport...



He dropped my off by the train station, which is right across the street from the famous Tivoli in Copenhagen. It is the old amusement park which is right in town..



Walking past that you come to one of the main squares with the city hall and some other great buildings... The city hall in on the right, and the one on the left is a great hotel....



A few more views of the area..



I like this view with the statue... yeah i am a photo nerd..haha



A close up of the City Hall...



Another view of it....



I think the details on the Palace Hotel are pretty great... :)





I left the square to walk up to the Temple, and on the way there is a big lake that runs through the center of town.



There is this really cool old pavilion on the side of the lake...



Here are a few shots of some buildings along the way to the temple... Long buildings with rows of windows like this is pretty typical for Scandinavia....



Another one right around the corner from the temple... Everytime I come to Copenhagen and try to find the Temple I know I am close when I find this bridge....



Copenhagen Denmark Temple!

It is right in town as you can see by all the buildings around...



The cornerstone has two dates on it...Thats because this was first a regular meetinghouse before being turned into a temple. They came in and did a massive restoration and rebuild of the inside and the grounds of the church to turn it into a temple...
The first date is for when the church was originally build and the seconde is for when the Temple was dedicated....



Here is another view of the front...Last time i saw it it was still just the church and they had started the construction to change it to a temple.. pretty cool to come back to see it all finished...



"Holiness to the Lord, The Lord's House" (in Danish of course)



Here is a view from the side from the grounds...



After seeing the temple, I walked back into town to the main cathedral...

Here it is tucked down a small side street off of a square in town...



Here is a close up of the entrance...If I remember right that is a statue of Moses on the right..



The interior of the Cathedral is really bright and white...a very quiet and peaceful escape from the city...



If anyone has been to temple square in Salt Lake City then you will recognize the statue below. The main statue in the Cathedral is the "Kristus" statue done by the Danish Sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. and yes this is the original....the one in Salt Lake is just a copy of this one...



Thorvaldsen also made sculptures of all of the apostles which line the cathedral. Here is a picture of peter holding the Keys....

Read this great story about what President Kimball said about the keys when he was standing here in this very cathedral... Its related here in a talk by President Packer...

http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=d7363ff73058b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1



From the Cathedral it isn't far to the long walking street. Its called Stroget. It has all of the shopping..and is apparently one of the longest in Scandinavia.



Here are a few shots of Stroget and it winds through town.. goes past alot of great areas and squares in town...



Another view of Stroget.... lots of great stores and restuarants..



Crepe's anyone? (yes Michael..they did have Nutella and banana...:)



Here I took a slight detour from Stroget to go towards Christian Borg, which is the name of the palace that is now Parliament. Just passed a carriage on the way...



Here you can see a square leading to Christian Borg... Unfortunately the tower is being restored so you get this great view of the covered scaffolding... hahaha



a closer view of the statue in the picture above.....



Here is a lone guard out side of Parliament.....just marching back and forth....sounds fun to me!




Here is the square on the north side of parliament... the building to the back on the right is the old stock exchange....



Here is a closeup of the old stock exchange... i like the tower, it is three dragons with their tails going up in a spiral. I heard the dragons are representative of the three Scandinavian powers... Denmark, Norway and Sweden I assume... sorry about that Finland... haha



Back to the parliament.. here is the other side in the garden courtyard....



I walked out of the courtyard to the main gates of the old palace Christian Borg (now parliament)... here you can see a bridge over one of the canals..



And here is the canal in front of Christian Borg...



At the far end of Stroget you come to a large square with a garden in them middle... Here you can see the old Opera House on the left...(with the dome)....



Still in the square... now you can see the old Opera house on the left... These plastic circles are part of an exhibition with lots of inventions...each one had a display inside...



Across the square you come to a great area called Nyhavn...(new harbor)....check out the size of this anchor...



Here is a great view from the end of Nyhavn.. looking towards the sea at the far end.. a great dock with colored houses on both sides and lined with boats...Here you can see one of the tourist sightseeing boats coming in...



another view walking down Nyhavn...



and another.. all types of boats are docked here..



I stopped here for lunch and was able to hear some great music from some street musicians..



....and here is what I ate.. a great shrimp salad sandwich on a croissant... :) super good! and fresh...



Just a close up view of a sightseeing boat in Nyhavn.. turning around to head back out to sea...



okej..one last view.. a pretty picturesque area...



by now I had met my friend Vibeka, (another Dane who lives in Sweden and works in Denmark) and we went to a few parks... This is a long path in Rosenborg Have (park)....it was an old garden to one of the palaces...



And here is the palace.. Rosenborg Palace...



Right next to the palace are the botanical gardens...



just a few shots from the gardens.....



Hey Mom and Jordan.. I bet you guys wish you had an herb garden like this one below....



after leaving the gardens, we drove over to the area by the main palace...

First stop is the Marble church... the dome is patterned after St. Peters in Rome...

The text on the building says in Danish "The word of the lord continues eternally"



The church is surrounded by statues of famous Danes as well as prophets... These look a bit scary..haha



You can see the view of the Marble church from the courtyard of the main palace..Amalienborg you can see the wings of the palace on either side of the street.. this is where the royal family lives in Denmark....



I happened to be there during the changing of the guard....



I walked through the palace from the marble church and then out by this fountain which is next to the harbor.. .This is the view looking back from where I came....



...and here is the view in the other direction...looking over the harbor to the new Opera House... It is supposed to resemble a type of ship...



Check out the steeple on this church close to the new opera house... It reminds me of the tower of babel with the spiral going up... haha



On our way back home we stopped by this beach to check out the parasurfers in the lagoon... pretty amazing to watch... I was impressed by the fact that they all didn't crash into each other...



It was pretty cool to see them turn around... some of them were lifted way out of the water...



after that... and after a long day in Copenhagen...We drove back across the bridge to Sweden... if you look to the left in the picture below you can see Sweden off in the distance.... :)