Stockholm

The trip started Friday night, when we boarded an overnight train to Stockholm. It had been snowing all day Friday, so Lund looked cool. When we got onto the train, the conductor put the four of us in our group in our own cabin, so that was nice. The train arrived in Stockholm at 5am, but the let us sleep til 6:20, wanting us off by 7. We got off the train and walked out into Stockholm. It was a surreal feeling walking to the hostel. The city was still asleep, probably sleeping in, and the snow was coming down quite a bit. Once we got to the hostel, they didn't let us in for a little while, so we loitered in the next door 7-11. When they did let us in the hostel, we found some maps and planned our day.

We made our way to Old Town (Gamla Stan). On the way we walked along one of the many rivers in the city, and came across the city hall. It was a very interesting building, and its where they hold the Nobel Medal Awards dinner. To enter Old Town, you walk between the parliament buildings of Sweden, and right next to the Royal Palace. At the Royal Palace, we watched the changing of the guard. The guards being relieved of their post looked thankful, because it was very cold all weekend.

After we left the Royal Palace, we found a nice little Christmas market in front of the Nobel Museum. After wandering around the streets of Old Town for a while, looking at all the small shops and narrow streets, we went to the Nobel Museum. It turned out that for Saturday only the museum was free, which was nice. It was an interesting museum, but it was too small to be worth the 50 kr entrance fee normally charged.

Once we were finished with Old Town, we made our way back towards more central Stockholm. We found a Thai buffet for lunch, ate a lot, then made our way towards the Kulturhuset. Around the Kulturhuset, we found a ton of shopping centers, and proceeded to wander around there. Once Maciej and I got bored with shopping, we let Sophie and Aga shop somemore while we checked out the Swedish Medival Museum. It turned out to be more of an exibit, but thats ok, because it was free. After we met back up with the girls, we went to check into our hostel. At this point, it was dark, but it was only about 3:30pm. Once we checked into the hostel, we took a nap, because we were exhausted.

When we woke up, we made our way over to the Absolut Ice Bar. Everything inside the bar is made of ice, the bar, chairs, walls, celling, chandalers, and even the cups. Since it was very cold inside, they gave us funny coats to wear. They kick you out after 45 minutes, since its a very popular attraction. We went to Burgur King for a gourmet dinner, then started looking for a club to go to. We wandered around half of Stockholm looking for a good club, and eventually found one 100 ft away from the BK where we ate dinner. The club was a famous jazz club called Fasching, though the night we were there, they had a DJ playing soul music.

The next morning (sunday) we checked out of the hostel and went to Subway for lunch (not my idea). Today we planned on going to Skansen, an outdoor museum of old buildings, kind of like The Henry Ford. To get there, we took a ferry from Old Town to the island that Skansen was on. In Skansen, we watched glassblowing, saw and toured old swedish buildings, saw elk, wolves, wolverines, seals, and reindeer. Once we felt like we had seen enough of Skansen, and were sufficently freezing, we went to the Vasa Museum. In the museum is a huge sailing ship that they pryed off the Stockholm harbor floor in one peice and put in the museum. 95% of the boat is original parts and wood. Its a really cool museum, and I kept humming the Pirates of the Carribean theme song in my head while I was there.

After our sightseeing, we took the metro to Aga's friend Hannah's apartment. She was nice enough to let us crash there Sunday night, so we wouldn't have to pay for another night at a hostel. We met Hannah's friends and went out to a bar with them for a little while, then headed back to the apartment to sleep.

Monday was pretty layed back. We left the apartment in the afternoon and wandered around southern Stockholm. When it was time, we took the metro to central station and caught our high speed train to Lund. Overall, we had a great time in Stockholm, and I would recommend it as a must see city in Scandinavia.

PS: The first couple pictures are in Lund, as it was snowing.