Josh’s 16… I mean almost 19 – trip | Raising Flowers and Skids

Sometimes things line up perfectly, somethings they don’t.

The summer of Josh’s “16 trip” we had a ton going on. He was heading to HEFY in Paraguay, Zach was heading on his mission, and Zandra was heading to BYU-H. It was too much to fit in a European vacation.

Plus – what’s the rush?!?

So we decided to postpone it a smidge.

Then Covid hit and boom – the trip was off the table. For a while.

There were a few windows here and there but none seemed to work.

Then Josh decided to take a Gap year and work/travel. I knew we had to find a way to squeeze the trip in!

I suggested we meet him at some point in Europe – as a nice break, or maybe at the end of his trip in the summer.

He would have none of that bcs that would require too much planning and he didn’t want to be restricted with friends.

So he agreed to go ahead of his buddies with us to Europe and he would meet up with them when they arrived in Europe.

But where to? In the winter?!

The criteria was: somewhere ok with the cold and somewhere too expensive and out of the way that he for sure would not travel to with his friends.

Scandinavia and Switzerland. Obvious choices.

With Covid on the up though it was seriously touch and go right down to the last minute!

We had to cut out our original plan to go to Stockholm due to flights continuously getting cancelled. Plus more countries meant more paperwork headaches. You really do have to do a lot of things to get prepared and safe to go.

So we decided on Copenhagen for the weekend and Switzerland for the week (Zurich, Lucern, Interlacken and Zermatt).

We flew via Portugal – who has a whole lot of paperwork to do just for the very quick layover. The guy told me I was very organized and we made it through but had to race to catch our connection!

I was excited to hit Denmark bcs that is where my brother had served his mission back in the early 90’s. I remember hearing so much about it – so it was high on my list to go. Of course with all the chaos and uncertainty around going, I forgot to even tell him we were going! When we arrived in the city, I took a quick picture of Tivoli (which was closed) and he then shared with me all his recommendations!

Our hotel – Plaza Copenhagen. It had old school charm and amazing breakfast!

Things were relatively open in the city. The museums were closed – but Josh is not a museum guy anyway. The churches were open and there is a ton to do via walking and a canal ride. Restaurants were somewhat open – some where closed so the open ones were busy. We figured it out and made reservations the second night after having to settled for burgers the first night.

We first grabbed some lunch.