Day 1, Boston to Sao Miguel, Azores

The direct flight from Boston to Ponta Delgada on the island of Sao Miguel was a bit under 5 hours; very reasonable time for a flight to Europe! It was the usual overnight flight that accompanies a Europe trip so we left at 9:15pm and arrived on the island around 6am. The flight would have been just a normal good flight with a few bumps here and there, but it became more interesting when my boyfriend and I started discussing the mile high club. Neither of us had every joined but it is always fun to joke about it! I had to pee so we decided that I would check out the lavatory situation and report back. It was actually quite large and would be decent, minus that fact that it was a bit dirty and gross. I reported my findings and then tried to fall asleep, as it was the middle of the night! About an hour later, just as i'm finally falling asleep, my boyfriend says, "I think we should try it." Ha, I said i'm so tired, go to sleep! He started to get a little nervous and kept looking back to see if anyone was standing by the bathrooms. Eventually, no one was there and he says, ok, meet me back there in two minutes! I was exhausted but a few minutes later, I said to myself what the heck, you only live once and I started to venture to the back of the plane. As I was walking back, he stepped out of the bathroom and when I arrived, I asked why he came out of the bathroom, as I was going to knock on the door, because it would make it harder now to be discrete! Well he kissed me and then turned us around and got down on one knee and proposed. I was surprised and said of course, yes! He then said he had a ring and pulled out a necklace he was wearing that he had attached the ring to. He took it off and put it on my finger! There were a few stewards and stewardesses around us who saw and heard the whole thing happen and all said Congratulations and brought us a bottle of champagne, a chocolate gateau and some grapes. We were so excited we couldn't sleep the rest of the flight!

That was only the middle of the night on our first day and with no sleep, we arrived in Ponta Delgada, go through passport control and got our rental car! I thought that we could try to check into our hotel, even though at this point it was 7am and not in a million years did we think they would have our room available, but as luck had it, they did and we were able to drop our stuff off, freshen up and walk around downtown for a bit to find some breakfast and espresso. The city of Ponta Delgada is beautiful, Portuguese inspired black and white stone walkways and streets, old churches, a marina and lots of cafes and places to explore.

After exploring for a couple of hours, we got on the road to try to visit Sete Citades and the viewpoint from Vista do Rei. We also explored a famous abandoned hotel along the way where the views would have been magnificent if it weren't completely socked in with fog! We drove along the curvy, twisty, race course roads in our tiny vehicle, which was fun and car sickening, stopped along the ocean and had lunch in Mosterios (on the western coast). We also tried to visit a viewpoint that I really wanted to hike to, but the fog made it not a viewpoint! Still fun though! After a long day of driving and exploring, we got back to our hotel and then walked around to find a spot to have a quick bite to eat for dinner. We found a great spot and had some wine and a cheese plate for dinner! The perfect end to a super long, but wonderful day!

Azores

The surprise trip to Europe is in fact a group of 9 islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean called the Azores, which are part of Portugal. They had always been on my bucket list of places that I wanted to explore, but I didn't think that they would be up next!

On the way to the airport for a sad and meaningful pilgrimage that my boyfriend was about to embark on with one of his brothers, driving his grandmother’s ashes to their final resting place next to her husband, he called me and explained the following, I am paraphrasing: I wanted this to be a complete surprise, but I need your help and ideas. I want to go on a weekend trip in the next few weeks, but there are some guidelines we have to follow. 1, it has to be out of the country. 2, has to be a direct flight, less than 8 hours. 3, it has to be to a place that neither of us have ever been to before. 4, affordable and where we could possibly use amex miles. Well this seemed to be a tall order as between both of us, we have been to many places around the world. His initial thoughts were for us to go to Brussels as neither of us had been there and we both like beer and chocolate. While he flew to the west coast, I got to work and opened up google maps. The possibilities were endless, yet most of the places that neither of us had traveled to were just a bit too far. While we were on the initial phone call, I mentioned some islands that I couldn’t remember the name of but ones that I had always wanted to go to, so I looked them up and low and behold, they are the Azores and they are a part of Portugal. In the past, the islands were a challenge to get to, only accessible from Portugal and had many layovers. Recently, Azores Airlines has emerged from SATA and now flies direct from three places in North America… Boston, Toronto and Oakland. (random enough?!). I began to get excited, but he was still flying so I couldn’t run the idea by him! I composed a detailed e-mail laying out different options of flights to Brussels, Paris (because, well its Paris, even though both of us have been there), Azores, Casablanca Morocco, and even a couple of places in the US, just in case. Now it was the waiting game until he landed and could read my e-mail.  He said that he had looked at places in the Caribbean too, but they were all quite expensive this time of year.  Was I nuts for suggesting we fly to these Portuguese islands for a weekend and go hiking around volcanos, relax in hot springs, explore tea plantations and eat yummy Portuguese food? Maybe. Maybe I should have just found a city in Europe that we could have explored and not an island?! Maybe we could just go to a beach and relax for two days. What fun would that be?! I may have been second guessing all of my options as this weekend getaway seemed to mean more than just a getaway and I wanted it to be special and a place that if we ever wanted to go back to, we could. Even though he didn’t give anything away and kept a surprise, sometimes you just know!

He safely landed on the opposite coast and was off and driving with his brother. A little while later, an e-mail came in that said the Azores sounds like it’s the winner! Yay! He loved the idea. And off we went planning a weekend trip to the Azores for the following weekend. We also began a crash course in Portuguese so that we could try to understand and say a little bit of something. Between him speaking Italian and me, French, we were hoping we would be able to get by. As soon as he returned from his pilgrimage, we bought our tickets, arranged a hotel, booked a rental car… all booked after quick extensive research, and to Portugal we go!

Last minute trip to Europe!

Planning a last minute weekend trip to Europe for next weekend! Stay tuned for photos, details, advice, and a packing list!

Day 10, 3 flights home

We woke up early to see if sunrise was worth shooting and again, though it was beautiful, there were no clouds! I woke up early anyway, showered and finished packing and then we all went to breakfast at 8, said our goodbyes and thank you to the guides and the owners, and packed up the car and headed out to the airport. Leknes was about an hour away, so we arrived around 10:45 am for our 11:40 flight on our tiny plane. Checked in, went through security, where they made us take out all of our cameras and lenses. What a pita. Our first flight was open seating so we tried to get in line early to get decent seats and room for our large, overweight camera bags. It was a quick 20 minute flight to Bodo where we had a 25 minute layover before our next flight to Oslo. An hour and 45 minutes later we were in Oslo, where we had to get our duffels, check in for our JFK flight and go through security again. It took a while. When we checked in, there was one gate agent who was weighing everyone's carry on bags and we knew that our camera bags were very overweight, so as soon as the woman whom we saw was not doing that was free, we rushed over to her to check in and not have to deal with any consequences of our packs. Whoops! Lol. At security, all of our bags were flagged and they had to be hand screened. All for different reasons which was actually quite funny. I went through with some water in my purse and they didn't even notice that. However in my camera bag, something looked like liquid in the top of my bag and it was a nut bar. Weird!

We had a fairly long three hour layover so we went to Jamie Oliver's restaurant and had a wrap and some pizza, caught up on internet stuff and then proceeded through passport control to our gate right before we were to board. Boarding was free for all and they just announced ok, time for everyone to board and it was a rush! We flew a 787 Dreamliner home. Pretty cool plane part of the Norwegian Air fleet. When our meal came, it was fish or chicken. I'm sure by now you can guess which meal all three of us chose. We had some red wine with the meal too!

We currently have two hours left on our seven hour flight home, but we've just flown over Greenland which was gorgeous to see from above. The few times I've flown over before, it's been dark or cloudy so I haven't been able to see too much! We are close to new foundland now and almost back to the states! We are excited to come home and also sad to leave a wonderful country and end our trip.

More photo adventures will have to occur in the future! :)

Day 9, Skiing and Aurora!

I wasn't sure what to expect with backcountry ski touring in Norway, but it has completely exceeded my expectations and blown me away. So much so that I would love to go ski touring anywhere in the world now. Today will be hard to beat. We drove about half an hour from the lodge today near a fishing village in a fjord. Our skin started with an amazing view and every turn became more magnificent than the next. Let me back up too. We went to breakfast in the morning, had yogurt and granola, and the owner of the lodge came over to us to ask if it was okay if a ski photographer joined us for our skin today to photograph us. We all said, sure. She was really nice and it was fun having her along for the ski.

We skinned for almost five hours today, about 3800 feet total. Aaron was unhappy and in a lot of pain from his blisters, but somehow we helped him push through. This was a first ascent for our guide from this angle so it was fun to explore and learn how he figures out the best way to go. There were steep avalanche parts that we had to spread out just in case, a bit of crusty snow, lots of cliffs, and some areas where my stomach just dropped and I couldn't look down. We skinned over a lake, up couloirs, down little sections, and when we reached the summit were greeted with the most amazing view I've ever experienced in my life. There are just not enough words to describe the view. Breath taking mountains, fjords, ocean, cliffs, little red and yellow cabins below and peace and quiet. Majestic. We stayed on top for a while and refueled, took lots of photos, flew the drone; and I sent mom and pj photos from the top!

It took us about 45 minutes to get down and the bottom was tricky with rocks and rivers. Aaron got stuck in a rock hole and at the very end we had to cross a river with rocks and hike through them. Of course, I recorded all the fun on my go pro.

We were greeted with a gorgeous sunset and reflection on the fjord when we reached the bottom and got to our car. Then back to the ski lodge for waffles, returning gear, sauna and dinner! And would you believe it, whale steak for dinner. WOW. I need a salad. I ate a tiny little bite, but had lots of roasted veggies instead!

After dinner, we helped one of the guides girlfriends with her phantom drone that was new and wasn't syncing for you. Unfortunately we weren't able to help either but hopefully she will get it to work and then the lodge will be able to have one to fly around their beautiful spot! We asked for some wood for our wood stove so we wouldn't be freezing again as the night before, we were all really cold in the cabin. As we were leaving the lodge to go back to the cabin, the Aurora started appearing! Aaron and I were so excited. We got back, grabbed our gear and just ran down to the beach outside our cabin and started shooting. Andy made the fire inside. I thought we were only out for about fifteen minutes shooting, but when things had died down a bit and Aaron and I decided to head back inside, he said we were out for over an hour! It's easy to get enthralled and lost in watching the lights dance across the sky. A magical experience and a wonderful natural phenomenon. It was a great way to spend our last evening in Norway.

Then we organized, packed and went to sleep!

Norway, Day 4, Leknes to Reine

 

As a reminder, I am writing this on my iPad and therefore there may be some autocorrect mistakes and other things that happen when I touch the side of my hand down on the keyboard while typing! Eventually when I return, I will go through and edit all of these posts and also post photos with them. My app is not allowing me to post photos and I haven't had time to figure out why yet! For now, you get writing and I hope you're following along on instagram to see my daily stories! @photographybyrs

Norway. Wow. As bad as wow airlines was, wow is all I can say here. It is just stunning and magnificent! We stayed in Leknes last night and woke up bright and early around 5:45am to head out to shoot sunrise about 20 minutes away. Luckily checkout wasn't until 11 so we could leave, come back, eat breakfast and then pack up! We drove north of Leknes to Uttakleiv to find round rocks, ocean, mountains and a pretty sunrise! We spent quite some time exploring the beach and taking detail shots. There is some kelp here that is long and hard and wiggly... so hard to describe but it's huge! I will take a photo and post it when I can. After sunrise, we drove around a bit and explored the nearby beaches of Haukland and then stopped along a beautiful reflection area where we discovered people were below and they ended up being some photo friends of ours teaching a workshop! Fun to run into them and they are staying a bit further north of us so we will all communicate when the aurora come out about when to get up and Shoot! (Cross your fingers, the kp level is supposed to be high Tuesday though Thursday evenings!)

Back to the hotel to eat a nice breakfast, check out and then venture to the grocery store where we picked up some things to eat for the next few days as we are staying in a Rorbuer cabin with a kitchen so we can make our own food if we want.

If we had not explored or stopped at all, it probably would have taken us about thirty minutes to get here. However, almost every 500 feet we wanted to stop and take photos. It just got more stunning and beautiful every turn we made. We also scouted many locations for other shoots and flew the drone a few times!

It is gorgeous here. We checked into our cabin in Reine, which is situated directly on the water, overlooking fisherman and mountains. We have two bedroom with bunk beds, a living room, kitchen and bathroom. It's fantastic! I'm glad we will be here for three nights!

We had dinner in the next town over and I tried whale for the first time. I was not going to get it as whales are some of my favorite animals and I am very against it, however Iceland and Norway both still participate in whaling and this particular whale is not endangered (yet). It was delicious. I had a few scallops for dinner and some bread.

Back to the cabin and shotty internet, but a couple of hours of relaxing is nice, however we seem to not have any hot water, so a cold shower and some laundry time was what I did!