Stockholm, Sweden

We arrived in Stockholm at about 7:30 a.m. so not much was open yet. We also had not quite planned on where to go or what to do first. Our normal first stop in a city is the Information desk. We searched for that for a while until we found Information computers set up. These were just as good as any person at a desk because it gave us ideas of what to do, times things were open and prices as well. A free map of the city was also right there, so we definitely found the right spot to plan our day. We wanted to sight-see, but it was not going to be easy with our large backpacks with us. Another helpful point of the train station was the lockers. We shoved all of our stuff into one locker (to save cash) and made our way out into the wild Swedish megalopolis. Our first goal was to find the Hard Rock café (to get a pin for Aunt Sarah) but we didn’t find it. Panic struck our hearts. We decided to turn around and search to see if it moved to another location in the busier part of the city. There we did not find the Hard Rock, but we did find four H&M stores within shouting distance of one another. All were in close proximity of either a 7-11 or a McDonalds. We also found there a used/old bookshop. They had books both in English and Swedish. We mostly looked at the English books. They had a few interesting older books, like old Lutheran Catechisms, Kierkegaard works and C.S. Lewis books (okay, interesting to me at least), but all we bought was the DaVinci Code for Mandy. Crazy thing is that she has never read it, it was only $3 and she forgot to bring along a book to read, so it worked out pretty well.

Our Stockholm stay would be another couchsurfing experience, so we walked to the T.G.I. Friday’s at noon to meet our hostess for the evening, Amy Lindgren. She took us to a coffee shop where we bought a pastry known there as Lent Buns. They were amazing and chocked full of calories I’m sure. A good bit of Swedish culture. Amy headed home while we hit up a few more Stockholm sights like Skansen. Skansen is out on an island and is kind of like Greenfield Village with a small zoo attached. They had actual old Swedish buildings from the north and the south areas where people were sitting and would tell us about what life was like back when the buildings were contemporary. Most sights revolved around the farming culture of southern Sweden. All of the people spoke English there too, which made it really easy for us. After the historical bits we ventured to the animal areas where they hold some animals native to Sweden. We saw a wolverine (which looked like it would be ferocious, but any Spartan would kick it’s butt), some wolves, a lynx, seals, otters, elk and an owl that was super close to us (objects in the picture are closer than they appear here). We also found an old Swedish Horse (made of wood and painted) known as a Dala Horse, which Mandy climbed on (after a couple of tries) and got her picture taken with. It started to rain so we left there and headed back to the city center. As we were walking, the rain turned to sleet and the sleet to wet snow. It was about a 2km walk to this island, so we were not having the best time walking in the slush, which started to seep into my shoes as well. Dinner and warmth were in order by this point, so we found a fast food joint called “Max” which we thoroughly enjoyed. It was about the cheapest meal we could get in the city, and all for the low price of about $17. They had excellent burgers, free coffee/tea with the meals, and free bathrooms though, so it was worth it to us at that point. We then purchased a 24hr. metro ticket which would last us until we left Stockholm and headed out to our “couch” for the evening.

We met Amy and Jonathan at their house south of the city. Amy is originally from Alton, IL and Jonathan studied for a year at St. Louis, University, so we had good times chatting about Sweden, the States and the St. Louis area. We got along with them really well so it was another wonderful couchsurfing experience. The next morning we slept in which we needed after sleeping on the train the night before, and we set out to see what we could for the rest of our Stockholm stay. Once again we lockered up our bags at the train station and set out on our tourist duties. Several convenient souvenir shops in the Old Town section of the city proved to be helpful in Mandy’s quest for a Dala Horse of her own (smaller than the one at Skansen). Our next stop was to the Swedish Parliament building. Jonathan, whom we stayed with, is a political secretary for the Kristdemokraterna (Christian Democrat) party. It is the smallest majority party in the Swedish parliament. A party needs at least 4% of the vote every 4 years to hold this, and keep their offices in parliament. There are 7 majority parties, and his party is the most conservative of these parties. They even have a communist party in their parliament, but of course they don’t call themselves communists. Jonathan had us meet him after lunch at the building and gave us a personal tour of the place. That was a very fun and one-of-a-kind experience. Following this we walked back to the island where Skansen was and we visited the Vasa Museum. The Vasa which sailed it’s maiden voyage in 1628, for about 25 minutes, sank, and sat underwater for 300 years. In 1959 it was found and raised back up above water, so that you can see it in the museum today. 90% of the ship we saw is original which is amazing after 300 years. It is one of the most popular attractions in Europe, and well worth the visit with an entire museum dedicated to this one ship. The Hard Rock Café was elusive, but we finally found it to pick up the coolest pin we have found yet. We needed dinner before we went back to the train station to catch our next night train, so we stopped where we knew the food was good, “Max” again. We tried different burgers which were equally good and we took advantage of their free Wi-Fi to send a few e-mails and check up on some travel details. The free coffee/tea was good once again, and we went back to the train station to collect our luggage to get ready for our next train. We arrived about an hour early, seeing everything we needed to see in Stockholm. We passed the time by playing cards. We then boarded our night train to Copenhagen for another semi-sleepless trip in our coach train seats.