Travel Diary

At one point, which seemed like the middle of the night, I opened the window shades and shockingly discovered a lighted sky--daybreak had already occurred--and it was only just after 4am. Ah, I was well into the northern hemisphere now. Finally, I grew tired enough to sleep and rested until breakfast time.

I usually don’t get hotel breakfast when by myself, but I had kronor to spend and I was rather hungry. I paid the money and grabbed a plate. It was pretty nice and fairly tasty--with a lot of options. That said, the eggs were not great. Nowhere in Europe would I have great scrambled eggs (have yet to figure out why this is). The juice machine was neat though. There was an iPad and you’d tap the image of what type of juice you wanted, and it would come out a faucet (hopefully with your glass underneath). Tech is cool! And it was tasty juice, with perhaps even some fruit juice to go along with the ample sugar.

After that, I packed up and waited for Dad and Andy to arrive. When they did, I was ready to explore the town, but hold on a second, cowboy; they needed a chance to shower and change clothes since their luggage had been kept on the plane during the nightly layover. Luckily, I had not yet actually checked out of the room. The room was used one final time.

That being done, I checked out and we stowed our bags there and explored Stockholm. Nothing was too far away, so we walked to the harbor. Our first stop would be the Vasa museum.  The weather was fabulous, containing a mild breeze, making the walk along the water pleasant. I passed by a girl who was selling something that looked like licorice, but I walked on by, questioning my decision to skip buying some.

We crossed over the water and found the museum. The line was quite long but moved fast and we were at the ticketing area after a spell. They had a choice of kiosks or ticket agents to purchase tickets, which helped keep the queue time low. Again, tech is pretty handy. Soon, we were inside. The focal point is a recovered 17th century ship that sunk just after its maiden launch. Sad that it sunk and lives were lost, but on the flip side, the mud preserved it almost entirely and now it’s a great insight into that period in history. The museum offers free guided tours and an informative video explaining the history. It’s well worth a visit should one be in Stockholm.

The time went too fast. The others were ready to leave far before I was, but there wasn’t much time and we had other activities to do. We left around 2pm and walked west again to the older part of town. Along the way, I passed “licorice girl” again and this time, I bought a few pieces. One was strawberry crème. It was pretty darn good. The Scandinavian counties do seem to love licorice, so I indulged a lot. Though after several days of nonstop licorice, my cravings were considerably diminished.

The old part of town resembled the quintessential quaint streets of Europe with little cobblestone streets and many peculiar shops. We popped into a little Irish pub (this would be a theme) and had some bar food and beers.

(Oh, and while “Scandinavia” is usually only for Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, I will include Finland since some do, and as well because...well, it’s just easier than looking up more definitions later.)

At the pub, I went with fish and chips. It sounded tasty. Though sometimes sounds are better than tastes since it was quite over fried. There’s a point in frying fish where it no longer tastes like fish. No matter. Still a good time. We enjoyed our beers and conversing with some folks around us. It’s always fun to talk about the merits of California, especially the weather. Then we headed out again. This time it was back to the hotel to pick up the luggage.

I used my trusty iPhone to summon Uber once again. And lucky for us, there was a driver ready to take us to the ferry port. The car came and got us and held a pleasant driver, although heavily opinionated in terms of people different from Westerners. This was okay for us, but it certainly seemed an unwise way to conduct business. Others may not feel the same way or be as tolerant as we were.

We got our tickets, but were quite early. Only thing to do was rest on benches for a spell to kill time. (Ferry ports don’t often have very much to do and lack the shops that airports have.) Finally, it was boarding time and we got in a long line. It moved slowly but we eventually boarded. And since we had a reserved room, there was no real reason to panic or rush.

The room was cozy, yet pretty cool. I’m used to just sitting on a chair that may or may not recline for ferry rides, so having an entire cabin was a treat. It even had a bathroom and a shower.

Of course I was still dreadfully tired so the main thing to do was sleep. I slept until dinner time. Andy had made reservations at the ferry’s steakhouse restaurant. Thus, I actually ate a decent meal. It was good food (steak) and wine (red).

With the setting sun, I headed on deck with the trusty camera and took what pictures I could. The clouds did their best to hide the setting sun. It was worth a shot. Then it was back to resting again.

Last EntryNext Entry