UK & Scandinavia Mega-Trip

Two and a half weeks across northern Europe. Started in London — Hammersmith, Stonehenge, Windsor, the Tower. London happened to be in the middle of a record heatwave, and the Airbnb didn't have AC. I bailed and booked a hotel two days in. Even most of the restaurants didn't have aircon. The Tube stations all averaged ten degrees cooler than the streets.

I went to the Changing of the Guards. The horses got moved to the side of a building for shade, which the tour guide said she had never seen in ten years of doing tours. The pubs were all empty inside and packed with people on the sidewalks.

Then over to Copenhagen for a few days (Christianshavn, Freetown Christiania, the long bike ride along the harbor). From Copenhagen, the trip became a road trip. Up through Helsingborg in southern Sweden, across to Gothenburg, then north into Norway — Oslo, Trondheim, the long quiet drives through the fjord country. The summer light at those latitudes is its own kind of attraction; the sun barely sets, and dinner at 10pm feels like late afternoon.

Ended in Amsterdam at the 24-hour McDonald's in Dam Square at 2am, where literally everyone was visibly high. There's a street where you walk down and the booths on each side openly sell weed and you're not allowed to take pictures.