Travel | THIS IS FANNY

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Today is “Fettisdagen” (the Fat Tuesday) in Sweden. This is the day we eat the semla. I haven’t had a real Swedish semla in years. They start to sell them already in like November on some places and some people, like my dad, loves them.

Last week when Jim was off work for President’s Day and the weather was lovely, we went for a long walk. We stopped a few times along the way. First stop was Wolfgangs in Tribeca where we had bacon and rosé for lunch (yes, very healthy 🙂 ). Two blocks north, there is a FIKA, so we stopped by to have coffee and semla. Fika nyc is not the greatest, but at least I can keep the Swedish traditions by going there. Our journey that day continued on to find jeans for Jim. He didn’t find anything but I walked home with a bag of two pair of jeans and a long sleeved:) Back home, after a walk with Thor in the sun, I went to the gym to pretend to be healthy again, haha.

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In New York City, Travel

Ferry to Staten Island

Fanny Sura24 February, 201727 February, 2017Leave a comment

staten-island-ferry_aug2016_01 Since we went to Staten Island last weekend, I thought I could share the experience me and my parents had when we took the ferry over in August 2016.

The ferry to Staten Island is free. It leaves downtown Manhattan every 30 minutes during the day. It takes about twenty five minutes and then you’re on the island. Many tourist choose to take the ferry to Staten Island to see the Statue of Liberty instead of paying for the boat to Liberty Island. It’s up to you if you’re ok with seeing the statue from a distance or if you want to see the lady up close.
Once you’re on the island, there is nothing to do. Really. Nothing to do. We walked around a little and then decided to get something to drink at a bar near the harbor. I asked the bartender if she could recommend anything to do there, and she basically just laughed at me. She told us that they are building a huge Ferris Wheel and in the future that could be the big attraction on the island. I read about it. They call it the “observation wheel” and I guess you will be able to get a great view of Manhattan. It’s supposed to be done in the spring of 2018.

After a drink, we walked a little bit more but found nothing, so we decided to take the next boat back. It was nice to take the boat, get a great view over Hudson River, but it’s not something you wanna do more than once.

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In New York City, Travel

Mahayana Buddhist Temple

Fanny Sura8 February, 201726 May, 2017Leave a comment

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As you know, we have a list of things we want to cross off in NYC. Every weekend we have been talking about going ice skating, but when we wake up and realize it’s too cold we decide not to go. So on Saturday we sat down and thought of what we should do. I looked in one of my NY guide books and asked Jim if he wanted to go visit a Buddhist temple.

xo-restaurant-chinatown-feb2017_03 We took the subway up to Chinatown by lunchtime. We were hungry and decided that we should eat first. We walked around a bit and then just walked in to a random Chinese place, XO Restaurant on Hester St. Very cheap food there and everything was great! Seemed to be a popular place too. I felt like I was on vacation, haha, part because I was the only blonde in there.

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Right after our awesome food, we walked over to the Mahayana Buddhist Temple. I’ve walked by many times before but never been inside. The temple has the largest Buddha statue in the city, about 5 meter tall. It’s a tourist place for sure (I found it in my guide book), but other people do come there to pray too. It was peaceful in there, but it was also strange to know that the crazy NYC is right outside the door.

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Chinatown was blocked off on several streets with police everywhere since they celebrate the new year. They were playing music and danced in front of stores while tourists ran after them to take pictures. I think it’s fun that they celebrate the new year for days. Everyone was happy and they had these big poppers with confetti. Saturday was apparently just a pre-party for the bigger celebration on Sunday. And they had a big celebration the weekend before as well. I wonder how crazy it was then.

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In New York City, Travel

Statue of Liberty

Fanny Sura1 February, 201726 May, 2017Leave a comment

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Awhile ago, we booked tickets to go up to the crown of the Statue of Liberty. I have been on the island and seen Lady Liberty up close once before, but not been inside her. I’ve been told since I first came here that she was closed and you couldn’t go up, but that was apparently not true. She was under construction for a while after 9/11, but it’s been possible the whole time I’ve lived here. Oh well. My husband has never been out there so I’m glad that I got to experience this with him.

You have to book your tickets 1-2 month ahead, and I now understand why. It’s a very tight space and the stairs up doesn’t fit more than one person. And unhealthy people should be prepared for a workout. You can take the elevator up to the pedestal (which you also need tickets for btw) but if you feel like walking instead, which we ended up doing, it’s 354 stairs from the bottom to the top. The spiral stairs from the pedestal up to the crown is very narrow and hard to walk up if you have a bigger body. Jim, who isn’t super tall, had to watch his head on the way down, so to be short like me is perfect:)

The crown is small and there’s not much to see, but it’s absolutely worth it! I thought it was super cool to see it from the inside. I almost felt starstruck, haha. This statue represent so much and to see the city from the inside was amazing.

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If you plan to go out to Liberty Island on your vacation to New York, then I recommend you to go online at least a month before your trip and book your tickets for the crown.

In St Lucia, Travel

Hiking Piton

Fanny Sura25 January, 201718 February, 20171 Comment

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One day on our trip to St Lucia, we decided to book a taxi through the company, Real St Lucia Tours, that we booked to pick us up at the airport. A friendly guy came right on time and drove us down to the Piton mountains. It took about 1.5 hour from our hotel to drive to Soufriere. There we got introduced to our guide Stanley, a 53 year old Rastafarian, skinny man in very good shape who had climbed up and down the mountain for 14 years, sometimes twice a day. He was a fun dude. Most of the things he said was probably just random blabber and not true, but it was fun.

We started our Gros Piton hike with a lot of confidence. We were told that healthy people make it to the top and down in about 4 hours and that most people don’t actually make it to the top. Stanley told us about a heavy woman that wouldn’t give up and made it to the top in 8 hours! And then she had to go down too. When we had walked about a third of the hike we met a man who had given up before halfway. Stanley had a whole speech to this man about losing weight, hahaha.

The mountain isn’t that tall. We have been up the Vesuvius mountain in Italy which is almost twice the height so we thought this would be easy. O.M.G! The hike requires actual climbing too. Large steps on rocks straight up. My hamstrings and knees were really tired and ached right before the top, but I had a lot of energy still. Jim was kinda dying:) But he also carried a backpack with 2 liter water, I only had my camera bag.

We finally made it to the top. Beautiful view! Totally worth the hike up there. We took some photos, ate bananas and saw the rain coming toward us. I had energy left and didn’t want to sit down and get tired, so I told the other two to get moving. Oh man, the hike down was horrible. Going down is supposed to be the easy part of the hike and should take less time. But my short legs just couldn’t do it. The guys were way ahead of me. I had to lean on every single thing I found and sometimes slide down the rocks cause my knees couldn’t handle it.

When we had about 5 more minutes to the end, it started to pour down on us. We then met another couple that was going up. I’m very curious if they made it up. Wet rocks can’t be easy.

I’m very proud of my husband and myself. We made it to the top and back down in 3 hours and 15 minutes! And we thought we were slow. I think that’s pretty awesome! The next day, when we went on another adventure, our legs were very sore. And the day after that, I could not walk…at all, haha.

piton-mountains-thisisfanny2016-01 The view from our drive to the mountains piton-hike-stlucia-2016_03 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_04 View from the first stop, about a third of the hike
(The top photo in this post is from halfway up)
piton-hike-stlucia-2016_06 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_07 Near the top we met two dogs that was on their way down.
Apparently they go up and down all the time.
piton-hike-stlucia-2016_08 Our clothes were soaked in sweat!
(and Stanley was dry, haha)
piton-hike-stlucia-2016_09 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_10 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_02 The rain is coming piton-hike-stlucia-2016_13 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_05 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_11 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_12 Finally back down, starring at the mountain we just climed

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Showing all posts in Travel

Fatty Tuesday

Ferry to Staten Island

Mahayana Buddhist Temple

Statue of Liberty

Hiking Piton

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