Passport Update: Munich, Germany + Bavaria -- a surprise birthday adventure!

Once upon a time in a faraway land there was a tiny kingdom, peaceful, prosperous, and rich in romance and tradition."

Those are the opening words to the classic fairytale, Cinderella.  As a little girl, my "princess phase" lasted about 7 or 8 years before I discovered that wearing dresses in an upstate NY winter was neither comfortable nor practical.  After that point, I traded in my dresses for jeans and pursued bike riding, tree climbing and snow fort building with my brother in a vain attempt to win and keep his attention.  I was never super girly in high school or college and I'm still learning how to apply makeup in a semi-competent way.

First grade Halloween party, 1990

But sometimes, old, forgotten about wishes DO come true.  Dave and Joann were in town in April to celebrate Calvin's second birthday when another gift bag comes out of nowhere and Jon tells me to open it.  Inside was a Cinderella DVD and a card telling me to pack my bags because we were headed to the castle that inspired Walt Disney to create his own Cinderella castle.  What?!?! Really!?  I was floored!  I had added Neuschwanstein castle to my "hope to see it someday" bucket list a few years ago after one of my Facebook friends posted pictures of it to her profile.  It's a beautiful, if not crazily inspired, castle nestled within the Bavarian Alps in Germany.  Since it isn't the easiest place to get to, I figured that it was one of those places that I would just never get to see (sigh).  Not only had my wonderful husband planned an amazing trip, but we would get to travel toddler-free (i.e.,  much faster and easier).  Dave and Joann would get some great bonding time with Calvin and we would have a few romantic days to ourselves.  What a great surprise 30th birthday present!

We hopped on a quick plane ride to Munich and rented a car to set out for Bavaria.  Jon was the first to drive on the Autobahn and was a little nervous with the high speeds.  We haven't driven in over a year so getting behind the wheel again on a highway with competent, high performance drivers and vehicles, was a bit daunting.  

A First Birthday for a Little Viking

I think he matched the picture dead on!

I had been brainstorming Calvin's first birthday party for what seemed like months.  I even blogged about it previously here and detailed out the decorations and various ideas.  Sweden doesn't have any "big box" stores like Toys R Us, Target, Walmart, etc, so finding decorations and simple things like paper plates and cups turned into a 4 week scavenger hunt around Stockholm.



To complete the viking theme, I needed some blue and yellow streamers, plates, and a Happy Birthday banner (in English).  We also needed to find appropriate viking helmets, swords and a dragon.

Super cute dragon and defensive gear

Jon wanted to make sure that Calvin wasn't the only viking in town, so we headed to Gamla Stan to find him an accompanying Viking t-shirt that was befitting a proud papa.  I think we were successful.

I did order the Knight's Castle Play Tent but we decided to make a venue switch at the last moment and hold the party at the nearby park since the weather was so beautiful (~50F and sunny).  It ended up being a good switch since the kids were able to take a nap in their strollers and Calvin was able to convince his Pepere to take him down the slide once or twice.

Cute castle that never left our living room

3 little vikings and their mammas

Slaying dragons is exhausting! 

Eyeballing the slide...

Alessandro was ready to party!

 The only real hiccup, if you can even call it that, was that Calvin decided to take a nap halfway through his own party.  This kind of ground the festivities to a halt as you can't cut the cake until the birthday boy has made his first birthday wish.  Some guests had to leave early as you can't wait forever for a one year old to wake up from his nap, but I made sure that everyone looked at the famous dragon cake before they left.

The cake came out better than I could have planned.  This was mostly due to the obligatory "practice" cake that Jon had requested earlier.  During Sam's visit, we scouted out all of the best Swedish candy substitutes for an American recipe and I had her smuggle in some Fruit Rollups for the dragon wings and flamed tongue.  Thankfully she thought ahead and also brought some food coloring or I would have had to conjure up a DIY food dye.  Joann was also on hand to help me frost the dragon which was really helpful since I had forgotten much of what I had learned from the first dragon.  *Note, the cut sides of the cake should face down on the plate to avoid getting crumbs in the frosting.*  It's things like this that you learn with practice.  Fortunately, I'll have many more birthdays to hone my skills.

It was a beautiful day and Calvin was ready to smash into some cake once he woke up from his nap.  He played with his buddy Alessandro for a while and then we all went home to play in the knight's castle.  I couldn't have asked for a more perfect party for my special boy.

Planning a Viking Themed Birthday Party

Since we live in Sweden, we thought that a Viking themed 1st birthday for Calvin would be super fun.  There are tons of viking gifts and souvenirs in Gamla Stan so finding the right supplies shouldn't be too difficult.  This little cute hat is available at Etsy.

Calvin's birthday is also a very special time of year for the Swedes.  It is Walpurgis Eve and all of Sweden celebrates the coming of spring by lighting huge bonfires and singing.  Winter is really long and dark here, so the warmth and light of the fire takes the chill out of the night air.  Everyone has May 1st off from work as a national holiday and continue to celebrate the coming of spring and the King's birthday.

My sister-in-law gave me the great tip to check out blogs for 1st birthday themes.  However, either viking themed parties aren't that big or nobody blogs about them.  The few blogs I did find had great ideas for older kids (5-7 years) and not too much for babies.  I know that Calvin will just look and crawl around the house so there is no need to plan activities, but I can't help but get caught up in the glitz and glamor of planning his party.

For location, since it'll still be chilly out, I think we're going to host it at our house, clear out the living room of extraneous furniture and decorate the room with a Knight's Castle Play Tent, Inflatable 30-Inch Dragon,viking ship and blue and yellow streamers.

I also found this great website to make a fire breathing dragon cake.  The instructions look fairly easy and I might be a fool into thinking that I can actually do this.  I'll post pictures of my dragon cake when it's finished.  Naturally, Jon is insisting that we do 1-2 practice cakes first.  You don't want to attempt a dragon cake on the first go-round!  I'll also make a smaller cake for Calvin to smash!

Do we need utensils?  I don't think the vikings did!  If you have any other cute ideas, feel free to send them my way!