Poland

After falling asleep at 9 p.m. at Denmark, I was awakened by somebody in my room. Instead of saying something, I just pretended to still be asleep. I turned my head just a little bit to see who it was, I saw a dark figure, trying their best to be quiet. It was my mother, who came in to steal a blanket for Zach. If I was still asleep before, I certainly wasn't now, the way she ripped apart the entire bed to get a bed sheet. After she "quietly" left, I rolled over to see what time it was. I powered on my phone, burning my eyeballs. It's 12:30 in the morning. I groaned as I knew it was going to be a long night. I tried to fall back asleep, by restlessly shifting around on my bed and staring out the open window but with no luck. After a seemingly endless night, I checked my phone, relieved that the rest  of my family would be getting up soon.

Rolling out of bed, I got dressed and put on my watch, and safari hunter hat, complete with stylish sunglasses. Our flight left at ten or eleven, so I started to get packing, mostly to get rid of my boredom. I went around fishing for my stuff through my sibling's backpack, my sleeping bag, and my water shoes. I wished I didn't have to carry them around, as my backpack became 2x bigger. I set my bag aside and waited for all my siblings to get up and get ready.

I sat around for an hour or so until we were all set to go. Stepping out of the apartment, we walked towards the bus stop. It was a cool morning, with a few people walking past, getting to their jobs or hobbies. I watched all this until my mom called out, "I forgot my FitBit!" I just looked at my dad who told her something along the lines of "Seriously, we are going to miss the bus!" But, he ran back to the apartment anyway

My mom has this look to her when she starts internally praying, she gets wide-eyed, starts doing a little dance thing. So, she was doing her ritual until my heroic father running back through the mist and handed my mom her bracelet. We all cheered, and by we, I mean my mom. The rest of the family just sighed.

Just five minutes after, the bus showed up. We picked up our gear and headed for the train station. I sat and looked through the window until we needed to get off, and speed walked to our train in order to make it on time.

We walked through the airport to our flight. These smaller airports don't seem to have those fancy walkways where they connect directly to the plane, so you have to go up to the plane and take the stairs, like the ones you see in the older movies. But, before you get to the plane, they make you take a bus full of people that smell like garbage and sweat. Also, I don't know why, but the flights here are full of weird colors, WOW airlines is purple and Ryanair is yellow. I don't mean a dark yellow, it's like a ripe banana.

But the flight was only 2 hours long and it wasn't that bad, I spent most of the flight watching a movie anyway.

I got through the airport and our family regrouped. My dad told us we had to take a train to get downtown and from there, walk to our apartment. The walk was about a mile away to our apartment so we need to walk fast if we are going to see anything later. I got all my stuff that I was carrying and started walking. The pace that my dad sets are more like a jog more than a walk. The best way I can describe it is how my mom puts it, "He walks like everything is on fire."

The day was cool, a nice temperature for July. It made the walk a lot more bearable. I could tell we were getting close to our apartment by the way my dad was looking at his phone. I should mention that google maps has been our best friend on this trip. In general, we have no idea if this trip would've been possible without phones.

I caught up with my dad after he started slowing down. We made it. We were greeted by this girl who was leaning on the door swinging the keys around. Funny enough, my dad told me that he told her to meet us at 3 without fully knowing if we were going to make it on time. Somehow we did, at 2:57.

Our family said hello and she took us down to our room via two hallways and an alley. She unlocked the door to our apartment. and walked through. Inside, she showed us around, with my family behind like sheep. I stopped seeing rooms as soon as I saw the living room couch. She said goodbye and that was that.

We got all situated and we decided to go see the square that was down the street. We were all pretty hungry so we kept an eye out for food as well. I first saw a sandwich place but turned it away when I saw the word "vegan." I like a little protein in my life and tofu doesn't make that cut.

We continued forward and found a pizza place just a little ways down where we all agreed to stop off and eat. Everything was so cheap in comparison to Denmark. Poland is generally cheap anyway, food is usually 2-5 United States dollars for a full entree which is nice for a family of eight. Our waitress was extremely friendly and helpful, probably just for a tip. ;-)

 After we finished, we made our way to the square. I should mention this is where I started to wish I could've slept last night because I was struggling to stay awake. Everywhere we sat down, I would take a quick nap, usually sitting up.

At the square, I looked around for keychains. There were a few shops that I browsed with really no luck. Until one store, I saw the missionaries. I didn't say anything because I wasn't in the mood to chat. They were also in the process of buying an 80 dollar chess set so I left them alone. I also found my keychain - a dragon. It's for the old folktale here about a dragon that once terrorized Krakow. You can read it here: http://myths.e2bn.org/mythsandlegends/userstory6306-the-legend-of-the-wawel-dragon-a-polish-traditional-legend.html

I picked it up for 2 bucks and went to find my parents, who at the time were having ice cream without me. Before I knew it, there was a whole cone right in my face. It wasn't the best ice cream but it wasn't bad. If you're ever in Poland, just don't get the fruit flavors as I found them to not be very good.

After touring the square, we wanted to go see some WWII monuments that were around town, specifically Oskar Schindler's factory, where he saved 1,100 Jews by saying he needed them for the war effort. You can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler

The walk to the Schindler factory is about 2 miles from the square. It was getting dark so we got up and left in order to make it back home not too late.  As we were walking, we were stopped by a tour guide with a golf cart thing. He told us that he could give us a tour around the entire city, seeing all the major sights and stuff. At first, we declined, but he said, "wait wait," then promptly grabs his phone and played Vivaldi. I found this funny because the first assumption he had for us English speakers is that we automatically love classical music. We declined again, but he gave us a good price so we finally agreed.

We hopped into the cart and we were off. I was so tired that I was out for most of it but I did see Schindler's factory so that was good. I also saw monuments for WWII and some cool buildings around the city as well.

After an hour, the tour came to an end. My dad had to pick up some zloty, so in the meantime, we had a photoshoot with our tour guide. I don't think he was used to being in photos but I got the photos.

We paid the guy and left to go back home. We stopped off to get some loady again before going home. This time, I got blueberry, not a good choice. I don't recommend it. Feel free to try it though to see what I meant.

We went to bed after playing the Wii at the apartment which Sam went crazy over. The thing was disgusting, the controllers were gross and you needed to take a shower even if you looked at them.

The next day, we planned out to go to Auschwitz, the camp where at least 1 million Jews died. We needed to get to the bus in order to make it on time. We got to the bus stop after passing through a mall. My dad had to pick up bus tickets in order to get on. After, we did a head check and realized we were missing someone, Sam was gone. We have a buddy system in place in order to prevent this type of thing, and Sam was my buddy so it was my fault that he was missing. My mom and dad started to panic and ran back into the mall and I looked through the crowds of people at the bus stop. My mom and dad found Sam, surrounded by old Polish women, desperately trying to understand what he was saying. My dad said that when he found him, Sam kept repeating my mom's phone number but didn't give the area code so it wouldn't have worked anyway. After I got chewed out a little for my mistake, we found our bus stop and waited for our ride.

As we were standing there, a girl approached us and asked, "Are you guys American?" I'm pretty sure she figured that out from the everything about our family, how we talk, and the size of our family. We said yeah and we went into a conversation about why we were out in Poland and where we were going. We chatted then got onto the bus. I then carried the conversation the rest of the time on the bus. I even talked about the church a little bit. Future missionary 2K17.

We got off the bus onto the entrance of Auschwitz. I have always wanted to see it and now there I was. They preserved Auschwitz in order for the world to  never forget what happened there and hope to have it that way as long as they can.

It was raining that morning and none of us had any jackets or warm clothing whatsoever, so we sat underneath a tree and waited while my dad bought tickets for the tour. We had some cookies that my dad bought too. Snacks are the savior of pacifying young kids. Shove a cookie into Zach's face and it shuts him up right away.

It was about an hour wait before our English speaking tour was on its way. We walked through a brick building that took us into the back where there were all these buildings lined up, housing for Jews. Inside each one was some history of either the Jews, the buildings, or the camp itself.

The building that got to me the most had a picture of  this mother with all of her kids. Mind you, the Nazi's would almost immediately kill women or children. So, when I saw this picture and seeing the look of fear in the mother's eyes it killed me inside.

We continued walking through buildings, seeing artifacts and photos, We saw one room with rows of prosthetic limbs and another room with 15,000 pounds of hair. It was harrowing to see.

 The rest of the tour was talking about a few other artifacts but the ones I mentioned struck out to me the most. I was able to get a few photos and sat down. The tour was supposed to continue to Birkenau, but we broke away and decided to get some food first before going to Birkenau. We walked past two sets of fences lined with electricity and barbed wire. I still cannot believe this happened. The last fence we crossed through said "Work Will Make You Free" which was an absolute lie. I can't describe the feeling I got when I read those words. We got to the entrance and made our way to find food.

We walked through an outdoor gym to a restaurant selling kebabs, burgers, and pizzas. The people were very friendly, and the food was a lot for an inexpensive price. My dad and I got the kebab while the rest of the family got either burgers or pizzas.

The food was massive! for only 3 dollars too! my kebab could've fed the entire family it was that much. My brother insisted that he could eat his own burger, so my dad ordered his own. When they brought it out, Jacob realized that it was too much. The burger was bigger than his face! We sat around there for a little until Natalie spilled garlic sauce into their plant water. We got out fast after that.

We walked back to Auschwitz and took a bus to the Birkenau concentration camp. It's about a 5 minute ride from Auschwitz or about a 30 minute walk. When we arrived, I was expecting the camp to be like Auschwitz, it's nothing like it. The camp is massive, with the housing for the Jews to be a barn. Cutting through the center of the camp were a set of railroad tracks. My dad pointed out to us that the tracks don't run through the camp. This camp was the last stop. We walked next to the tracks and walked around the buildings. We saw a crematorium, but was bombed out by the Germans in order to try to hide their crimes. We mostly just walked around and discussed the cruelties of WWII as there weren't as many buildings enter inside, in order to preserve the buildings.

It was getting late and we had to get going so we could make it back home on time. We hopped on our bus that took us to another bus which took us back to Krakow where we walked home from there. We got home and went to bed as soon as we could.

The next day we went to the salt mines in Poland. The mines had statues and carvings made entirely out of salt as the miners down there would work on sculptures in their free time. Getting up sort of early, we walked down to where the mine was located. It was really busy that day, where you had to wait an hour just to buy tickets. So, my dad waited in line while my mom but us more ice cream. My mom and dad were taking turns waiting in line while I was to keep an eye on the kids.

While my parents were gone, Zach told me that he needed to go to the bathroom. I had no idea where a bathroom was, but I couldn't just sit there. So, I picked him up and made my way to the nearest park. I found a little corner in some parking lot where he was able to go. I was constantly looking around hoping nobody would see me, but it didn't work out as I got a lot of weird stares from people walking past me. Doesn't matter, I'll never see them again.

I made my way back to where my family was hanging out where they were all eating ice cream while waiting. I sat down and decided to join them. Shortly after, our tour was beginning to start. We made our way to the entrance of the salt mines.

The stairs down was extremely long, almost 300 meters down! Our tour guide talked to us about the history of the mines along the way, explaining what we were going to see and why this salt mine was here. We got down to the bottom where we entered a huge empty room, with a few statues in the middle. I took a few photos while our tour guide was talking but the photos weren't very good because of the lighting.

We continued throughout the tour seeing the statues and carvings and they were impressive, but not as impressive as the tabernacle. The tabernacle was carved entirely out of salt, and it was huge! There were carvings on the walls and huge chandeliers made all out of salt. This room took 65 years to create, only made by 3 guys too. The picture on the right is only a small portion of it.

We continued through the remainder of the tour and hung out at a kid's zone thing for a little bit, where I took the advantage to take a nap. After and hour or so, we had to get going so we walked about a quarter mile to the elevators. When we were in line for the elevator, my dad figured out he forgot his glasses. He told me to go get them so I had to go all the way back, find the glasses, and come all the way back again. I managed to make it in time for our turn to go up, but I was getting close.

We got back to the surface and made our way home again. It was an intense day even though it was just the salt mines. We were all pretty hungry too so we stopped off and got some traditional Polish food.

Our dad was the one that usually took the responsibility of ordering for us, so we all didn't have to walk to the counter. So, my mom asks him to get her a salad, with a fried pork chop. He said great and went up to the counter. What he didn't realize was that he ordered her the XXL pork chop instead of the small one. The slab of meat was so big, they needed to bring it out on a cutting board. Make it worse, all underneath was packed with fries. It was rather funny to see all the other people around us, watching this happen with wide eyes and looks of surprise as this small lady is given a huge piece of pork.

After dinner, we went back to our apartment and got packed up again. This was our last night in Poland and we were making our way to Italy early ish the next morning. I loved Poland and I hope to find myself here again.

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Sweden

July 12, 2016

Today we left to go visit Sweden. We woke up late so we had to get going in order to make the most of the day. We started towards the harbor to cross into Sweden, but got distracted when we saw a bakery. We decided why not and picked up all sorts of pastries, and stopped off at a park for breakfast.

We played around on the swings and the slides for a little before we had to get going again. after an hour, we finally made it to the harbor where we got onto a boat that felt more like a cruise ship. Each boat had huge parking garages on the lowest deck, holding all sorts of cars, buses, and trucks that were on their way to Sweden. The interior of the boat was really nice as well, it had all sorts of restaurants inside to choose from, but we didn't because it was so expensive for 8 people.

 We set foot in Sweden for the first time and gazed upon the city before us. Since we didn't have much time, we weren't able to see a lot, but we still managed to get some sites in. We first visited an old military fortress, used to defend against Denmark when they were at war. We walked into the huge brick square and made our way up a steep spiral staircase. Every so often, there would be a door where you could step inside and listen to the history of that floor. One particular floor had a dress up closet and board games tucked into the corner. The one we played was called “foxes and sheep” while the kids were having a costume party.

We got to the top of the fort and got a cool view of the city below us. It was fairly cloudy that day but that didn't prevent me from taking 100 photos. We stuck around there for about 20 minutes before the wind drew us away and went back down to lounge around in a nearby park.

My dad took a nap while the kids played on a park and I looked for a photo opportunity in the general vicinity of my family. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo but it didn't matter anyway as all the photos I took beforehand made up for it. We finally left the park when it started raining on us. Thankfully, we had our rain jackets so it wasn't as bad but if we didn't get out of it quickly, we were going to get soaked. Thankfully, we were able to make it to a little shelter thing before the worst of the storm hit.

We waited until the rain died down to head back into the city. I started looking around for a keychain for Sweden when I found the Swedish red horse in a food market. The reason it's so special is because a long time ago they used to carve these horses to play with, as they were very poor at the time. They continued making these horses, but started painting them and designing them. There other horse designs disappeared, but the red horse managed to carry across the generations.

After I picked it up and probably spent way more than I should have, we started heading back to Denmark. We took the boat back to Denmark and slowly saw Sweden fade in the distance.

We got back into Denmark and started making our way back to the apartment. Before we officially left for home, we stopped by the Danish Kronborg Castle that was alongside the ocean, but we didn't go in because the price for tickets was insane. Although, fun fact, that castle is where hamlet took place. Feel free to look it up here: http://www.visitdenmark.com/kronborg-castle-shakespeare-hamlet

After we had our fun on the castle grounds, we headed back to the apartment. For dinner, we stopped off at the grocery store again and picked up some hotdogs and of course, stroopwafels. We carried our stuff to the nearest bus stop and took the bus back home.

The rest of the night we made hot dogs and watched the karate kid until we all fell asleep. Tomorrow we will be heading down to Kraków Poland and tour Auschwitz.

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Denmark

July 11, 2016
Today we woke up this morning at 3:15 to get ready for our flight. It's about a 45 minute drive to the airport from our apartment. I packed up my gear and picked up my sleeping brother, Zach, and got in our van. I took one long look at the beautiful scenery before we dropped off our van at the car rental, and made our way to our gate.

After an hour or so, we boarded the plane, the non fancy way, and said our final goodbyes to Iceland. I found my seat, got myself all situated, and as my dad said, “the lead singer of Metallica,” tells me that his seat is next to me. I'm in the aisle seat so I had to get up and ruin all my hard work. Sam was in the middle seat next to me and was going to be right next to this dude who didn't look friendly at all so Sam asked if I could switch him spots. It didn't matter anyway because after we took off, I put down the tray table and fell asleep and didn't wake up until after we landed.

We arrived in Denmark at around noon I believe. I woke up feeling like garbage as usual and got all my stuff and waited to get off the plane. After about 10-20 minutes, we exited the airplane and we got through the crowds of people from all parts of the world, we even met a lady from Ogden.

The airport was amazing, the structure of the building was a circular dome shape and was very cool with the dark clouds in the background. We planned out our route to go tour around Copenhagen to see the sights like the famous Hans Christian Andersen story “The Little Mermaid,” and the Kastellet Garden.

We made our way to some lockers to store our stuff for the day so we didn't have to lug it around. The lockers didn't take cards so we waited for a few minutes for my dad to pull out some coins to use. After he came back, we put our stuff in and shut the locker doors.

At the time, it was raining so we had all our rain jackets on, except for my dad. He took his off and stuffed it into his bag while on the airplane and forgot about it. So as soon as he locked the locker, he asked us if we got his rain jacket out, to which we all responded with no we didn't. Now mind you, it wasn't cheap to open up the locker, which made my father not very happy with his decision on shutting the doors. He just told us to help him out in the future and walked outside into the rain with a polo shirt and a hat. The day was starting off well.

We stopped off at a grocery store because we haven't eaten all day except for some granola and picked up these breads that were stuffed with pizza, some stroopwafels, which are basically sugar cookies, and some orange juice. We took our goods back outside and ate for a little bit. We didn't have any cups for the orange juice so my dad told us to drink straight from the carton. He then demonstrated how to do it by taking the orange juice, and accidentally spilling it down his shirt, the one that was already wet by the rain. We didn't know how to respond except with awkward laughter. We found some water bottles and poured the orange juice into the bottles instead, where I in turn, spilled it all over my hands.

After we finished eating, we continued on our way. Jacob was carrying the stroopwafels in his hand and was swinging them around in a full circle while he was walking. My dad told him repeatedly to stop doing that, but, like usual Jacob didn't listen. He spun them around one last time when the entire bottom of the bag ripped open and all of the cookies fell onto the soaked pavement. My brother uttered the words “oops” before my dad chewed him out for a little bit while me and my mom picked up the soaked stroopwafels. We still ate them of course but mine oddly tasted like a cigarette.


The rain let up and we continued on our way and stopped off at a cool canal with brightly colored houses lining the water. This is where I got my Instagram photo for the day. We sat by the water, and I waved to tourists while my dad took a nap and my brothers fed the ducks.

After a half hour later we were on our way again. We stopped off and saw a monument to “The Little Mermaid” that showed Ariel sitting on a rock. I almost bought a keychain of it in representation of Denmark but changed my mind when I realized she was nude. We reached the Kastellet Garden where we again stopped off and my dad and Elaina took a nap again for the second time today.

We fed the birds nearby and even tried to see if they would fly onto Elaina by putting bread on her head but it didn't happen.

After another hour of waiting for them to wake up, we left to go back to our apartment. We picked up our gear from the lockers and we got onto the train where I took an hour and a half nap before we had to get moving again.

My feet are getting pretty sore at this time but we had to walk another 2 miles to our apartment before we could get some rest. We stopped off at this restaurant where we had these things called kebabs which is like a burger but the meat is is shredded and it has lettuce tomatoes and a lot of ranch, stuffed into pita bread. They were incredible and would love to make it when I get home.

We stopped off at a grocery store as well and picked up some more food for tomorrow and finally made it to our apartment. It was nice to finally take a shower and to be able to wash our clothes after three days. It was tiring, but the sites and food made up for it.

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Iceland

I forgot keep track of the time change so I stayed awake the rest of the flight assuming that I could sleep at the apartment we were staying in. That was a horrible mistake. We arrived in Iceland at 5 in the morning and couldn't check into the apartment until 8. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy.

We rented a van here because it was the only thing that could fit my entire family and it is huge. I'm tempted to buy one when we get home.

The weather is really cold here, about 40 degrees is the highest in July, which makes me wonder what the highest temperature is in December. We stopped off at a bakery where we had sandwiches, paninis, and doughnuts. As we were eating, this cat showed up out of nowhere and started hanging out with us. It was pretty funny to see as the owner of the bakery (I'm assuming) just walked up and pet the cat, and walked off. I'm pretty sure that is a health code violation but she clearly didn't care.

We made it to the apartment where I crashed on a pullout couch and didn't wake up until two in the afternoon. When I did wake up, I looked and felt like I was hit by a train. I've never been so tired in my life.

My dad told us that day we were going to a pool that was thermal heated by volcanic activity, which sounded pretty cool so we all got into our swimsuits and headed out. Apparently in Iceland, they are very clean, so much so that you had to take a full blown shower before entering the pool. I figured this out as a naked, 50 year old man, came up and started telling me what to do. It was very uncomfortable. I just awkwardly nodded and quickly hopped in the shower, and got out of there as fast as I could.
I stepped into the pool and was it was very warm. Without thermal heating being so cheap, Iceland wouldn't have been able to have swimming pools. We swam for about 2 hours or so where we decided it was time to leave. I then had to go back into the locker room, and witness the horrors I previously experienced all over again.
We arrived home around 6 or 7 in the evening where we had chips and salsa and stir fry, the two most common dishes in Iceland (kidding).

I took another nap until 9 p.m. when my mom woke me up and told us we were going outside to tour the city. That sounded like fun so I got out of my sleeping bag, and hopped into our school bus for a van and headed down to Reykjavik.

The city here is beautiful. We parked off next to the water near a statue or monument of the Vikings. We toured around a while and I was able to pick up another keychain- an Icelandic Viking. It's not very big but it was 7 dollars for the stupid thing. We continued walking around, seeing new people and places when after an hour we headed back to the car. The sun was setting at this time and I was able to get a cool photo of that boat statue.

We got home at 11 in the evening and got situated for the night. My brothers got all ready and started playing their kindles. I figured this out when I walked in and saw all 3 of them, in their underwear, playing games, or watching a movie. I asked them what were they doing but got no response.

I Woke up the next morning, Saturday now, at 10 in the morning. We planned out before that we were going to tour the Golden Circle. We got on our way and stopped at where the American and European tectonic plates collided. It was awesome to see and I snapped a few photos here and there.

The next stop was these geysers. There were like 8 in one spot. We stopped off and watched tourists try to get crappy photos of the water shooting into the sky while my mom took my brother Zach to the bathroom. I guess while she was doing that, a girl slipped and fell and started rolling down a hill. An older man was hit by this girl, and the momentum was so strong that he flipped and started rolling too. My mom was watching all this and I guess she thought it was scary because she told us the story and made us feel like someone died. We later talked to the people and they all laughed about it so I guess it wasn't too bad.

We made one last stop at an incredible waterfall, Gullfoss Falls, where I took a few photos here and there before leaving.

We then turned around and headed back home, tired, and hungry. We stopped off at this little gas station where I tried to buy beer, thinking it was a soda. If only I could read Icelandic.

We got home at 8 p.m. and had some more stir fry, I'm starting to get sick of stir fry. I attached the key chains to my bag and my collection is starting to come along.

We headed down to the beach this evening. It was so peaceful until my siblings showed up. They put their feet into the water and threw rocks, trying to skip them. I threw in a few myself because why not? We also found crabs. My brother, Jacob, handed a crab to my dad who in turn put it down the back of my sister's shirt. I love family.

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Leaving Home

Every few years, my family likes to a summer trip, usually a road trip. We typically drive state to state seeing new places and people. As I'm getting older and leaving the house next year, my parents suggested to us that we could see family in Germany and tour Europe a little bit, as our final family vacation. We all readily agreed to the offer and planned out our route. As of right now, I still have no idea where we are going so it'll a surprise.

As I'm writing this, I'm in Iceland so I'm going to back it up to the beginning of this trip. I was rudely woken up by my alarm clock at 5:15 a.m. on Thursday. I proceeded to get dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, a waffle shirt, and an athletic jacket over all of that, making me feel like an overstuffed pillow case.

For each person, we have a maximum weight limit of 11 pounds for each carry on bag, the only bag that we will have for ourselves this entire trip. I'm still not sure how I feel about that as a little bit more weight would've been nice. But that's what siblings are for! I used the spare space and weight they had left and used it myself, so technically my siblings Zach and Sam have nine pounds and I have 15.

My backpack is a military style backpack, with little nylon strip things sewn onto it. I bought it specifically for this reason because I wanted to buy a pin or a keychain in every place we stopped in.

Around 5:30 a.m. We left for the airport. Our flight was leaving at 8:38 and we needed to be there early. We arrived at the airport around 6:30 and went through TSA, and arrived at our gate at about 7-7:30. This gave me some time to go look around for a souvenir. So, I found the nearest gift shop where I spotted a keychain with all the things Utah is known for: the Salt Lake Temple, skis, the mountains, and the words “Salt Lake.” As soon as I saw it, I needed to have it. I walked up to the cashier, she rings me up and I saw the price for this thing and I almost died. But, I closed my eyes and swiped my card anyway.

I walked back to my gate when I was welcomed with McDonald's. Since I'm the only one in my family that eats McDonald's other than the airport, I had 3 sandwiches because my family didn't want them. I could feel my heart pumping pure hash browns and orange juice but I don't regret my decision.

We finally boarded our flight to California where I was able to take a quick nap. We touched down an hour and a half later. The LAX airport is huge. It feels like a mix between a zoo and the movie Labyrinth. Through a few tense moments, and some Panda Express, we were able to find our gate. Everybody was exhausted at this point, and we had one hour kill while waiting for our flight. My siblings took advantage of this and used our bags as pillows and blankets to catch a few minute of sleep.

Here I was able to find another keychain, a California republic flag that was 2 dollars, a way better deal than my previous purchase.

Our name was finally called to board the flight to Iceland via WOW airlines and I have to say, wow (pun intended). I've never seen more purple in a vehicle in my life.

We got situated in our seats where I fell asleep immediately. I was out for about 2 hours of the 10 hour flight when I woke up and noticed my headphones were broken. It bothered me a little at the time because I couldn't listen to music on the flight anymore which I really wish I had. I haven't really missed them since then.

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