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We had arrived on our first day in Sweden. We were disgustingly sweaty and exhausted from the 2 separate flights to get here, which together took 9 hours. I hadn’t traveled internationally since 2019, so it was kind of an adjustment, especially with jet lag, but not that big of an issue. The first thing we did was check into our rooms, and take a shower. After we were all clean, we had the notion of going out and exploring Sweden, since it was my family’s first time, even my parents who have been to a lot of the Scandinavian countries, so we went out to explore.
The first thing I noticed about Sweden was that even though we were in Stockholm, which is a city, there was next to no trash or litter on the streets. You could practically smell the cleanliness of this whole city, and later on we learned that Sweden is one of the most environmentally friendly countries in the world. It was relatively quiet where we were walking, I think because we were on the outskirts of the main downtown, but it was kind of nice. As it started to get later, we expected the sky to darken but strangely the sun still never went down. We went back to our hotel to take a quick nap because we were all so exhausted, half expecting for the sky to turn to night when we woke up so we could go to dinner, but unfortunately the sky was still bright, albeit not as bright as midday, but not nighttime. Luckily there were blackout shades in the hotel, and my mom told us that they were for blocking out the sun, since Sweden is really far up, the sun doesn’t go down until like 1 in the morning.
Once we all woke up from our naps, we were really craving Asian food so we went on a search for it, but only about 20 minutes into walking did my parents come up with the idea to use google maps, of course! Anyway, we found a Thai place on google maps, and little did we know it was straight across from our hotel. So, on our search for a great restaurant, we actually started where we were supposed to be which is ironic. The Thai restaurant from the outside looked sort of sketchy, or bland you could say. There were no other customers sitting outside or even inside, so we were skeptical at first. My dad ordered and not even 10 minutes later came out these beautiful plates of pad thai, fried rice, chicken and vegetables, and thai curry. It was the best Thai food I've ever had, and Thai food is my favorite cuisine, so that really left an impact on me. I never knew that the best food I would have so far would be in Sweden, nonetheless Asian food in Sweden.

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It was a rainy Sunday when we arrived in Vermont. We unpacked our bags from the car to bring them to our hotel. Where we were staying, in Stowe, was a quaint, small little area of town where there were few cars passing by, and the hotel had a great view of the fall foliage starting to happen on the mountains of trees. We had stayed in Stowe, Vermont before but never at this hotel.
This hotel felt like you were entering somebody's house, and the sounds of people chatting by the bar filled the space. Our parents went up to the rooms to put our stuff away, and me and my siblings started to make hot cocoa in the lobby.
After we were all settled, we went for a little walk around town and came back to go to the hottub. It was in a small pergola and was really cool to see the views that seemed like they were straight out of Gilmore Girls. It was really relaxing. We made our way back to the hotel to take showers, and then got ready to go to dinner. By then, the sky had darkened and it was now lightly raining. Instead of Gilmore Girls, it seemed like it was a scene out of Twilight this time at night. Across from the hotel stood this ski lodge sort of place, but it was actually a restaurant. It took a 45 minute wait to get in, but it was worth it. I had really good buffalo mac and cheese, and my family had burgers and fries. It had a classic diner feel, but homey too which is also a perfect way to describe Vermont, for me.

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Our vacation to Turkey started off not so good. After having spent a week in Sweden, we were on our way to Turkey which took two flights. The jet lag was not too bad, but the drive up to get to our Airbnb was very stressful. When my mom had booked it, she didn’t realize it was literally in the mountains and not just overlooking the ocean. That drive was one of the scariest experiences I’ve ever had, because at times it felt like our car was going to fall off the actual cliffs. To be honest, it was really pretty overlooking the mountains and sea once you forgot about the bad parts. Luckily we got to our Airbnb safely, but of course the air conditioning wasn’t already turned on, so now we were in the sticky, humid Turkey heat waiting an hour and a half for the air conditioning to turn on. My siblings and I decided to go and take cold showers since it was nighttime and we were getting ready for bed coming off of the plane, and fortunately once we got out, the house was cooler.
The next day, my mom fell ill, and at that time we just thought she had some sort of cold from traveling, but we later realized at home that she and my dad tested positive for Covid. So, while she was resting in her room, my dad and my sisters and I went out to explore this beach/mountain town in Turkey, since we all had never been except my mother. We went to see the beaches and restaurants that were situated right onto the beaches. Natives would swim in the ocean and then take two steps to eat when they wanted to. The roads were really windy and narrow since it’s hard to build them properly into mountains, but still there was a tiny grocery store and other normal stores you need on a daily basis. It wasn’t a town persay, but a quaint village which was different from anything I’ve seen before.
We stopped at this random sandwich shop, which this local family owned. All of the people there were really friendly and welcomed the tourists. We ordered kofta meatball sandwiches, and honestly they were really delicious. You could tell all of the ingredients were fresh and not just from a brand name grocery store. See, from first glance I would never have thought that these different places would exist in these different parts of the world, but discovering them opened my eyes to what else is meant to be found.