Alaska Chat III (cost, shops, ticket)

[gobrien]

Housing is non-existant in the ND oilfields and the employers have been cutting back on hiring people with no experience. I like to read the ND forum, interesting to see what has been going on. But it is true that many people have left ND or are planning to wait for spring so they can sleep in their cars.

[Rance]

It doesn't cost us any more to fly to Sweden than it does to fly from AK to the east coast. I use a local well known travel agent that shops for deal etc well in advance. Once in Europe, you can travel by rail for pretty cheap to many different countries. The rail system ties them all together. You can get a 10 day EuroPass which allows you to get off and on in many different places and countries as you wish, traveling for 10 days at a set price. Renting a car is pretty darn expensive at least here in Sweden.
I've never been one for the big cities, but Stockholm Sweden and Oslo Norway are very interesting to see. Each has central gardens and the one in Oslo leads right up to the kings castle, on higher ground that allows you to overlook the city. Stockholm is built on 14 islands with castles, stone bridges, museums, restraunts, window shopping, historical buildings, ships, man it is never ending the stuff to see.
My family generated from both Norway and Sweden, and a couple summers ago I got to meet the relatives in Sweden. They still live on the family farm where the two brothers that immigrated to the US grew up back in the 1800's. The wife's father is a historian and he took her all over the country into every nook and cranny so she is quite knowed up on the history of many places and things here. My visits here have been very educational as well as eye opening to how others live day to day in other countries.
Visiting the other half of the globe is very obtainable. Plan ahead, save a little money, and bring a camera. Warpt was able to make a visit a couple years ago to Europe as well. I think through some schooling he took. It can be done if one sets their mind to it.

[1stimestar]

Wow this is page 1000.

[warptman]

Originally Posted by Rance

It doesn't cost us any more to fly to Sweden than it does to fly from AK to the east coast. I use a local well known travel agent that shops for deal etc well in advance. Once in Europe, you can travel by rail for pretty cheap to many different countries. The rail system ties them all together. You can get a 10 day EuroPass which allows you to get off and on in many different places and countries as you wish, traveling for 10 days at a set price. Renting a car is pretty darn expensive at least here in Sweden.
Visiting the other half of the globe is very obtainable. Plan ahead, save a little money, and bring a camera. Warpt was able to make a visit a couple years ago to Europe as well. I think through some schooling he took. It can be done if one sets their mind to it.

I did a three week backpack class through the college in 2008, they do them every two years. The Rail pass is what we did, well worth the money. It is a lot cheaper than one thinks to fly there. You can fly from Anchorage to Frankfurt for a little over a grand round trip. From there get a rail pass and you can go anywhere!

If you love to travel, go see the old world!

We got ours through Rick Steves.

http://www.ricksteves.com/rail/

It was a three week trip out of a travel backpack and and smaller Northface pack. Travel light!

[Frostnip]

Originally Posted by ShipOfFools42

Frostnip, if you'd care to share, on here or in a PM if you'd like, I'd love to hear some of the ways and means you have used to enable you to travel so much. I think it would be really neat to get some sort of work program over in Scotland, where I could live there and earn my keep and have a bit of spending money to explore the countryside (which would necessitate having a car, at least for the kind of exploration I'm talking about). One thing that I would also like to do is brush back up on my French, get fluent again, and go to France for awhile, and work in the countryside. Working at a vineyard would be particularly cool.

But yeah, I'd be interested to hear about it, if you care to extrapolate.

Sure, drop me a PM.

[Rance]

Playing with the Mrs macro lens this morning. Didn't have a tripod which would help, or off camera lighting. But the lens is cool. A whole new world in photography.

[ShipOfFools42]

Thanks for the words of advice, guys, and will drop a PM to Frostnip.

Rance, that's a really cool lens. I can't shoot true macro shots like those with my new camera yet due to lack of appropriate lenses for those kinds of shots, but even with the kit lens that came with it I can shoot some awesome close up shots of things like flowers. I took a few of this orchid over at my friend's house that came out great, and an old wilted rose. These DSLR's are sweeeet!

[Лютый]

Originally Posted by Rance

Playing with the Mrs macro lens this morning. Didn't have a tripod which would help, or off camera lighting. But the lens is cool. A whole new world in photography....

Fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing it Can I take yours pics to show it to my friends?

[naturesdreams]

Rance.. thank you for sharing the Swedish traditions.. so very interesting and Ship... don't ever let anyone discourage you to dream and talk about things you want.. you are still so very young and have so many years to follow many of those.. with help from those who care here in CD.. you know you can rely on the advise because many have "been there, done that".. keep an open mind and a strong hold on the pocket book and many of those dreams will definitely come true. I too dream of many places I would love to visit... Ireland for one... Italy another... with your dreams you create adventure!...

[Rance]

Originally Posted by Лютый

Fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing it Can I take yours pics to show it to my friends?

Of course you can! Make sure you tell them it was my first attempt and with no tripod or off camera flash!