For eight years I have hosted high school foreign exchange students in my home. Each spent a year living with me while attending high school in Phoenix. Hosting so many students means I now have an extended family of those students, plus often many of their family and friends that I have gotten to know as well, all over the world. The last few summers I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to travel and visit some of those students in their countries. This summer, I had the amazing opportunity to visit Nils in Switzerland; Dean in Germany; Julius and Christian in Denmark; and Aksel in Norway; and along the way Roland from Estonia and Matti from Finland joined for portions of my trip. I had such a great time visiting their countries, and they were all great tour guides!

My trip began in Switzerland, and then I worked my way north over the next 17 days by train and airplane to Munich and Berlin, Germany; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Bergen and Oslo, Norway. I had been to Switzerland and Denmark before, but I count both countries among my favorites, so I was excited to visit them again. I will do separate, more detailed, posts about the highlights of my travels to each of the countries later. But for now, here are some quick observations from my trip:

The Swiss mountains are spectacular. Sudden, Arizona-like monsoon storms happen in Zurich too. School groups tend to flood the trains in Switzerland in June. I preferred Munich to Berlin. One can actually get decent Mexican food in Berlin. Germany obviously has many sites dedicated to World War II history, they are both painful reminders of what happened and strong lessons to learn from. No matter where you are in Germany, the beer is abundant. Denmark is probably the country I could see myself most likely living in if I didn’t live in the US. I love how walkable and bikeable the country is. There is no better way to celebrate the Summer Solstice like the St. John’s celebrations they have in Denmark with bonfires and occasionally the burning of witches. The cross-country drive between Oslo and Bergen in Norway takes 7 to 8 hours, but is one of the most gorgeous drives I have ever experienced and is well worth it. Just as well worth it is the 1 hour train ride from Myrdal to Flam and doing a fjord boat tour with FjordSafari in Flam – spectacular beauty all around. Our drive through Norway was like a traveling United Nations, with 5 guys in the car from 5 different countries – US, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Estonia. Norwegians love tacos!

Look for future posts where I will share more details, but for now, enjoy the video with the highlights from my trip.