Europe Trip 2015: Week 2

EUROPE TRIP 2015: WEEK 2

Tuesday, August 25th

Good evening everyone! It is 11:20pm on Tuesday, August 25th, and I am finally settling in for the night! I just got done folding my laundry after helping Matilda proofread her U of M application for the Spring 2016 semester—keep your fingers crossed for her! (Oh, and on a super random note…instead of just beeping when it’s done, Matilda’s washing machine sings a cute little song! It totally made my day.)

Today we visited Matilda’s mom, Liisa, in Kisa, Sweden! I will start from the very beginning. 

Waking Up

Matilda and I were under the impression that the furnace technicians were going to be here at 7:00am to continue their work on the furnaces in the apartment, so we set our alarms accordingly. There was some slight miscommunication, because we found out they weren’t coming back for another 3 weeks. Whoops! We both decided to get a little more sleep before we had to catch the bus to Kisa around 10:55am. I woke up a little after 9:00am, straightened my hair, and then walked to the grocery store down the street to get a cup of coffee. 

Good Morning, Coffee

On my way to get coffee, I decided to put what little Swedish I knew to good use and said “god morgon” to a man passing by. He smiled in understanding and replied “hej”. I was so excited by this extremely brief Swedish conversation that I decided to try it again. An elderly lady was walking my way, so I smiled and said “god morgon” as we passed each other. In addition to returning the smile, the kind old lady started talking to me in very fast and fluent Swedish, which I was not expecting or prepared for. The conversation only lasted a couple sentences, so I was able to get by with smiling in agreement and saying “ja” to whatever she was saying, which I’m about 93% sure had to do with the weather and the fact that I was wearing flip flops, because she pointed towards my feet and then up towards the sky. I just kept smiling, saying “ja” in a “silly-me-for-wearing-flip-flops-on-an-overcast-day” kind of way, and then continued walking, praying desperately that I didn’t offend her. It’s safe to say that I kept my mouth shut after that!

Lunch at Liisa’s

The bus ride to Kisa took around 55 minutes, and we made the short walk to Matilda’s mom’s apartment from the bus station. Matilda’s mom, Liisa, was very nice and welcomed me with open arms. She was busy in the kitchen making lots of delicious homemade food for us to eat when we arrived. For lunch, she made meat patties and boiled potatoes with a chanterelle mushroom sauce to pour over it (Matilda’s favorite), and she also made a batch of Swedish meatballs for Matilda and I to take back home! Despite the language barrier between Liisa and I, I feel that I was still able to communicate my appreciation for everything she was doing for us. After we finished lunch, Matilda and I went and walked around the town and took some pictures before visiting their summer house in the countryside! 

Blueberry Picking at the Summer House

Blueberry Picking

Blueberry Pie 

We traveled through some beautiful countryside on the 30 minute car ride to the summer house. I love the countryside here, especially the hay bales! Sometimes the hay bales are wrapped in white, and they kind of look like jumbo marshmallows, so, naturally, I call them marshmallows. When they are unwrapped, I call them toasted marshmallows. Ha! Anyways, we arrived at the summer house and then headed out to pick wild blueberries! Most of the blueberry plants in the forest near the house were picked over, so we drove to a lake a few minutes down the road (and a little ways off the beaten path) to find some more. It was a very peaceful, secluded area down by the lake, and there was no shortage of blueberries there! Spreading across the forest floor as far as the eyes could see were bushes upon bushes of blueberries, as well as some lingonberries and the occasional raspberry bush. There was something so magical about being surrounded by berry bushes in the woods; I felt like I was in a fairytale. We were enjoying the experience while also trying to capture the moment with photos, so we didn’t collect too large a quantity of the tiny blueberries, but we gathered enough to be satisfied. It was overcast and starting to sprinkle, so we made our way back to the car. We stopped at a couple more spots on our way back to the house to gather a few more blueberries, and Matilda and her mom also hunted for more of the chanterelle mushrooms used in the delicious sauce we had for lunch. It began to rain harder, so we reluctantly got in the car and returned to the house. Matilda and I sat atop the porch steps, watching and listening to the rain fall, while Liisa whipped together a blueberry pie with a whipped vanilla topping on the side. The blueberry pie was more like what we would call a cobbler in the U.S., and it was amazingly delicious! It was hot and fresh out of the oven—the perfect way to warm our tummies on a cool, rainy summer afternoon. The blueberry dessert was the cherry (or should I say blueberry) on top of our visit to the summer house, and we headed back to Liisa’s apartment a short while later. Matilda and I needed to catch our bus back home, so Liisa packed up ALL the leftovers from lunch (plus the meatballs) for us to take back home with us. We hugged, said our thank you’s and goodbyes, and walked back to the bus station.

Packing & Goodnight

Upon returning home, I threw in a load of laundry and then hung out with Matilda in her room; we booked a couple of our train rides for our trip Italy and worked on her college application. Once my laundry was done a couple hours later, I said goodnight to Matilda and went to my room to finish packing for our road trip to Dalarna in the morning. 

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Wednesday, August 26th

Early Morning 

It was an early morning for us today! My alarm went off at 5:00am, and I got up to shower and pack the rest of my things for our road trip to Dalarna. Our early departure was scheduled around the time Mikael and Saow needed to be at the train station to go to the airport for their flight to Thailand. We were borrowing Mikael’s vehicle for our trip, so he drove us to the train station and then handed the keys over to us.  We barely fit in the smaller European sized vehicle with 2 giant suitcases, 4 carry on suitcases, 2 comforters, 2 pillows, 1 backpack, 1 cooler, and some other odds and ands, but we made it work! We arrived at the train station, unloaded the correct suitcases, and said our goodbyes. I thanked Mikael and Saow for their generous hospitality and wished them a fun trip to Thailand. Matilda doesn’t have her drivers license, so she handed the keys over to me and we hit the road. 

Drive to Dalarna

I must admit that I was a little intimidated by the thought of driving in a foreign country, but I got used to it very quickly, as it’s very similar to driving in the U.S. The biggest differences here are the road signs, stop lights, and paint patterns, kilometers per hour vs. miles per hour, and getting used to all the round-a-bouts. That may seem like a lot of differences, but I got used to it in no time at all. Thankfully the vehicle is an automatic, driving is still on the right hand side of the road, and about 98% of the drive was through the countryside and/or highways with minimal traffic. Matilda turned on some good tunes (Måns was obviously included), and we settled into our 5 hour drive. We made a total of two stops along the way to go to the bathroom and get food, and we arrived at our cabin in Leksland around 12:15pm. 

Leksland Strand Camping & Resort

The Leksland Strand Camping & Resort is on Lake Siljan, which is a very beautiful area. There are lots of different cabins scattered around the wooded area, The cabin area also has an adventure golf course and a little water park, both of which unfortunately closed for the season last week. We got settled into our cabin and then got ready to go to Nusnäs to visit the Dala horse making factory!

Drive to the Dala Horses

It was about a 45-50 minute drive to Nusnäs to see the making of the Dala horses. We drove through some narrow back roads of Leksland before making our way to the main road, which was my favorite part of the drive. This area is scattered with little red homes, farm houses, and buildings that have such a unique charm to them, I can’t even put it into words. All I know is that they make me feel all happy inside and bring a smile to my face. The two most memorable parts of this magical drive include seeing one little red building with sunflowers growing up the side of it, and spotting a small flock of black sheep in a tiny pasture in front of someones house. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a black sheep in person until this trip, and I must say that they are very cute! Words will never be able to fully capture the adorableness of this little area that I have fallen in love with. I was brought back to reality when we hit the main road and finished the remainder of our drive to Nusnäs. (*Note: There were other areas in this region with the charming little red buildings as well, not just the one small area I described above; they seem to be the norm for this area of Sweden.)

Making of the Dala Horses

Carpentry Building

We arrived in Nusnäs and followed the signs to “Dalahästtillverkning”, translated to "Dala horse manufacturer," which was located in an area with more of those charming red buildings. The town was very tiny, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think you were in the wrong place. We parked the car and began our Dala horse adventure!

The first building we went into was the carpentry building, which is where they carve the horses. We were greeted by the strong smell of wood and the buzzing of the wood saws, as two men were busy working at the sawing stations. This building had lots of information about the 6 step process of making the Dala horses, the history of the Dala horse, facts about the workers, and more. There were boxes full of plain wooden horses randomly scattered around the room, and also a couple tables with little gifts/knick knacks for sale. We spent quite a bit of time in this room before moving on to the second building. 

Painting Building

Our next stop was the painting building where two women were painting the horses. It smelt strongly of paint as there was paint all over the building (floors, walls, and probably the ceiling), and there were both plain painted horses and boxes of plain wooden horses waiting their turn to be painted. This building was quite a bit smaller with less information (as they covered most of it in the carpentry building), but it was still very fun to see!

After our little self-guided tour, we made our way over to the first gift shop, Grannas A Olssons Hemslöjd AB. There was a lady in their painting the detailed designs on the Dala horses and also doing personalizations. In addition to the huge assortment of Dala horses that came in all different colors, shapes, and sizes, there were also hand painted clogs, some clothing items, kitchen items, handmade soaps, and lots of other souvenirs and knickknacks. I spent a lot of time in this shop contemplating what to buy, and I ended up buying the smallest Dala horse in the original red color, along with a cute keychain for myself and some other small items as potential gifts. 

Dala Horse Hugs

We poked our heads into the second gift shop across the way, Nils Olssons Hemslöjd AB, just to see what they had. It was a lot of the exact same stuff, only made by a different company/people. We noticed that the red Dala horses at this shop were not as vibrant as the ones at Grannas, which I thought was interesting. We left without buying anything, and after taking a few pictures with the large Dala horse in front of the shops, we returned to the car and headed back to the cabin. 

*Here is a video I found on YouTube video of the Dala horse making factory that we visited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQI3TsjKnbU

Night at the Leksland Cabin

Enjoying the view of Lake Siljan

Lake Siljan

We stopped at the grocery store on our way back to the cabin to pick up some snacks for later and veggies to go with the leftovers we brought with us for dinner.  Dinner was leftovers from our lunch with Liisa, which we ate while watching One Tree Hill on Matilda’s laptop. After we ate, we took advantage of the intermittent sunshine and walked down to the dock on the lake. We sat on the dock and enjoyed the cool breeze, the beautiful views, and the peacefulness of the wilderness. We decided to try and take some pictures, and the way some of them turned out provided us with lots of laughs! Throughout this trip, we’ve discovered that we can both make some pretty incredible looking faces, half the time without even trying! We made many wonderful memories sitting on that dock overlooking the lake, being our goofy selves and living in the moment. The memory making continued as we stopped at the playground on our way back to our cabin. This playground was unique, as it had a little miniature town made up of colorful wooden buildings, along with toy tricycles to ride around on. Naturally, we both hopped on a trike and pretended we were little kids again, playing make believe and pedaling all around the town. I think it’s safe to say that we set a new record for the number of times we’ve laughed in one day! We parked our trikes, waved goodbye to the tiny town, and made our way back to the cabin. We grabbed our snacks and treats, got comfy on the couch, and watched a couple more episodes of One Tree Hill before turning in for the night.

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Thursday, August 27th

Morning at the Cabin

I woke up around 7:30am, but I didn’t get out of bed until closer to 8:00am. I got up, straightened my hair, and grabbed my container of quark and an apple from the fridge for a quick breakfast. I was originally planning on going for a walk around the camp area and down by the lake, but it was raining pretty steadily, so I worked on my blog until Matilda got up instead. We spent the morning gathering our things and cleaning the cabin before we checked out at 11:00am.  

Rainy Drive Home

The rain really put a damper on things, as it made it very difficult  (and not so desirable) to do anything outdoors. We made a small detour to take some pictures (although they didn’t turn out too great in the rain), and then made our way back into town. We stopped at a grocery store so Matilda could pick up some medicine, as she seemed to have developed a small cold overnight. We made one last stop at a gas station so I could get some coffee for the long drive home, and then we hit the road. To pass the time, we listened to music, took some online quizzes, and played Mad Libs on Matilda’s phone, which made us laugh until we were crying at times! The rain made driving a little stressful, especially when we hit a few sections of torrential downpour, but we made it back safe and sound. We decided to stop at Maxi (a store close to the apartment that is similar to a Walmart Supercenter) to use the ATM, pick up some food, and look at a phone case that I was interested in buying. By the time we got to Maxi, the sun had actually come out, and it stayed out the rest of the evening! We finally arrived back home around 6:15pm and unloaded our things from the car. We continued our tradition of eating dinner while watching One Tree Hill, and then we spent the rest of the night unpacking from our trip and re-packing for our trip to Stockholm the following day. 

Dalarna Recap

Overall, our trip to Dalarna was so much fun! It was nice to experience the wilderness of Sweden and be away from the city for a while. The sight we drove so far to see may seem small, but it held a lot of meaning which made it worthwhile for me. Matilda and I made so many great memories on this trip, and it may be my favorite part of the trip so far! 

We have spent the last few days enjoying the countryside, and the next few days are going to be spent exploring the big city of Stockholm!

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Friday, August 28th

The Early Bird Gets the Worm

It was another early 5:00am morning for us today. I woke up, took a shower, finished packing my things, and then walked to the gas station to get coffee. I was able to find a decent looking protein shake when we were at Maxi, so I added it to my coffee to make my beloved “proffee"! Even in Swedish form it was delicious and made me feel all warm and happy inside! It was around 6:45am when we grabbed our bags and headed out to catch the bus that was taking us to the train station. We arrived at the train station, found our boarding area, and waited for our double decker train to come and take us to Stockholm!  

Stockholm 

Our train arrived in Stockholm around 9:30am and we made our way to our hostel in Old Town. I love the charm of cobblestone, but it made our trip a bit more difficult; rolling suitcases and cobblestone just don’t mix. We arrived at our hostel but couldn’t check in yet, so we changed our clothes and got ready in the bathroom before checking our bags and heading out into the big city. 

Changing of the Guards at the Royal Palace

Guards at the Royal Palace

The Mounted Music Band

The first thing on our agenda was meeting up with Matilda’s friend Frederick at 11:15am. Frederick is a guard at the Royal Palace, and even though he wasn’t on duty today, he was kind enough to meet up with us to be our guide. He (obviously) knows all there is to know about the guards, the mounted guards, the Royal Palace, the ceremony, the best place to stand, etc., and he was kind enough to answer the many questions I had. It was so cool to have the “inside scoop” on the event, and it was fun when the guards (his co-workers) would come up and talk to him (I think he got teased a little bit for being at work while he wasn’t on duty…haha). We made our way to the courtyard early to ensure that we got the best spot to watch the ceremony from. We had a bit of a wait before the ceremony, which is when Frederick answered more of my questions and filled us in on other tidbits of information that no one else knew. The ceremony began around 12:15pm and lasted for about an hour. Frederick filled us in on what was happening and why, and he helped cue me when something was worth recording. The Changing of the Guards isn’t always done with the mounted music band (members of the band playing their instruments on horseback) and mounted guards (guards on horseback), so it was such a treat to have both of them there for the ceremony this day! Right when the ceremony was complete, we weaved through the crowd and went around back to meet up with where the mounted band brings their instruments to be taken back to their home base by bus. Thanks to Frederick, I was able to meet and get a picture with the director of the band and his horse! Overall, it was a very fun and unique experience!

Fun Facts

1. The lifeguards unit, life battalion, and the unit on foot is one of the oldest units in the world, dating back to 1521. 
2. There are only three mounted guards in the world—Sweden, England, and Denmark.
3. All the guards are employed through the military.
4. The columbines the guards wear across their backs date back to the late 1800’s.
5. There are only two mounted music bands in the world—Sweden and the Danes (?).
6. The members of the mounted band are not military contracted, but rather civilly contracted. 
7. The uniforms are made of wool (which get hot in the summer!). 
8. If someone in the mounted band falls off their horse or plays a note when they shouldn’t, they have to buy the entire band a shot of whiskey. 

Shopping, Hostel Check-In, Dinner

We walked with Frederick to the subway station and goodbye, and then Matilda and I slowly made our way back towards our hostel. We had a an hour or so to kill before checking in, so we took our time and bopped into some shops along the way. We arrived at the hostel a little before 3:00pm, checked in, and then got settled into our room. The room was co-ed and had around 16 beds. Each bed had its own lamp and curtain, which was very nice! We only rested our feet for a few minutes before heading out to explore, shop, and eat dinner. We ate dinner at Max, which is a Swedish burger place, and it was quite delicious! A giant burger and fries totally hit the spot after being on our feet all day. We decided to head back to our hostel after a quick stop at the grocery store, which turned into a few stops at some other stores along the way. One thing about Stockholm is that there are tons of people, stores, and attractions everywhere. It was quite overwhelming at times, which I found increased my indecisiveness and made it hard to feel content with anything. We managed to finally make it back to our hostel and discovered that more people were in the room at the point. Some of the people were open and willing to chat, and others kept to themselves. We met a guy from Holland (whose stuff really smelled—yuck), a guy from Washington, D.C., and a guy from Hawaii, who we chatted with briefly. We did learn their names, but Matilda and I found it easier to call them their location instead (i.e. Chris from Hawaii, turned into just “Hawaii”). After going through introductions and condensed versions of everyone’s reason for traveling, we changed into our comfy clothes, grabbed our treats, and watched two episodes of One Tree Hill before turning in for the night. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to sleep in a room full of random people with more noises and lights than I’m used to, but I was pleasantly surprised to find myself so exhausted that I couldn’t even keep my eyes open, and I drifted off to sleep in a matter of minutes.

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Saturday, August 29th

Goodmorning from Stockholm

It was around 8:00am when I woke up today. I decided to get up, straighten my hair, make a PB banana sandwich for breakfast, and do a little blogging until Matilda woke up. Today was our first (and only) full day in Stockholm, and our agenda for the day included a trip to the Vasa Museet (Vasa Museum) and the Kaknäs Tower. We left our hostel and started our adventure (on foot) a little after 11:00am.

Vasamuseet

Vasa

Our first stop was the Vasa Museum, which was about a 30 minute walk from our hostel. The Vasa Museum holds Vasa, a warship that sank in the middle of Stockholm harbor after sailing barely 1,300 meters into her maiden voyage in 1628. She then sat at the bottom of the ocean for 333 years before being salvaged. The line to get into the museum was quite long, but it moved at a pretty steady pace. The first thing you see when you enter is the majestic Vasa herself. She’s pretty hard to miss, as the ship is HUGE and the museum isn’t that large. There was a guided tour in English starting just as we arrived, and although the tour guides English wasn’t very good, we decided to follow along. It’s very dark, crowded, and noisy in the museum, as there are multiple tours in different languages going on all at once, but I was still able to hear most of what the tour guide was saying. After the tour, we took some pictures, walked around, and then watched a short video about who was to blame for the sinking of the Vasa Ship (spoiler: no one was convicted) before heading out to our next destination. Overall, I found the Vasa Museum to be very neat! It’s incredible to think that a ship that sat on the bottom of the ocean for 333 years is still in tact and sitting in a museum for everyone to see! 

The Kaknäs Tower

View from the top of the Kaknästornet

We decided to walk through Kungsträdgården (the Royal Garden) on our way to the tower, which took a little longer, but the pretty scenery made it worthwhile. A race called “Tough Viking” was happening in this same area of Stockholm today, so we were actually able to see some of the obstacles that the runners had to endure, and even some of the runners themselves! After a 40 minute walk, we finally arrived at the Kaknästornet (the Kaknäs Tower), which is a tower overlooking the entire city of Stockholm. We paid a small entry fee and then hopped on the elevator that took us about 30 stories up to the top! We stepped off the elevator into the café, which held an assortment of sandwiches and delicious looking desserts. We were having trouble taking good pictures through the glass, so we were very excited when we found a staircase that led us to a lookout point. The lookout point was completely caged in, which made taking pictures slightly more difficult, but we did our best to make it work. The raging wind at the top didn’t make things any easier; it felt like we were in a tornado! We spent a bit of time outside before the wind got to be too much, and then we headed back inside. I was craving a piece of the carrot cake that I saw earlier, so I treated myself to a slice which I ate while overlooking the beautiful city of Stockholm from the top of the tower. After using the bathroom (this was the first time I accidentally went into the wrong bathroom this trip—whoops!), we said goodbye to the beautiful view of Stockholm and began our 45+ minute walk back to the heart of the city. 

The Rest of the Evening

We arrived back in the city around 5:00pm, did a little bit more shopping (Matilda wanted to buy a pair of Nikes that she saw the day before), grabbed dinner, and then made our way back to our hostel. We watched an episode of OTH while we ate our dinner, and then decided we wanted to see if we could go out and catch some good pictures of the sunset. Unfortunately, we were just a few minutes late and only caught the tail end of the sunset (which is my favorite time of day), but it was still very beautiful. We did some more exploring and picture taking as the sun sank lower and lower into the sky, casting a golden glow on the beautiful buildings all throughout the city. Once the sun was nearly gone, we walked back towards our hostel to see if we could take any good photos of the city lit up by the water. The city lights weren’t as majestic as we had hoped, but the moon was a different story. We watched as the clouds parted, revealing a nearly full moon glowing brightly in the sky above the water. The moon, the city lights, and the noises of the city at night made for a very beautiful scene, which made me feel a bit more at peace and content with the city than I had before.

We made our way back to the hostel where we met a few new roommates, a girl from New York, a guy from Germany (who looked like he could be on the cast of Jersey Shore), and two girls, one of which was from Eagan, MN—small world! Matilda and I ended the night as we usually do with our treats and an episode of OTH. During our show, Mr. Germany, who was very nice, offered me some Digestive biscuits. It wasn’t until after I bit into the first one when thoughts of the biscuits being poisoned or tampered with crossed my mind. Because I couldn’t say anything to Matilda with Mr. Germany standing right there, I jokingly messaged her on Facebook asking her to tell my mom I love her if the biscuits ended up being poisoned or roofied. Thankfully, the biscuits were fine, and I ended up liking them quite a bit! Mr. Germany and Hawaii asked us if we were going out later that night, to which we replied that we had walked all day and were settled in for the night. I wished them a fun night of partying, and we finished our show before turning in for the night.

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Sunday, August 30th

Last Morning in Stockholm

Happy Shopper

I woke up around 7:30am today, which was a little earlier than I would have liked, but we needed to be up and ready to check out by 10:00am anyways. We spent the morning packing our things and getting ready for our last day in Stockholm. There was a possibility that Matilda’s cousin was going to take us sailing, but sadly, those plans fell through. We checked out, left our bags at the reception area of the hostel, and then decided to do some last minute shopping before meeting up with Matilda’s sister Malin, her husband Peter, and their friend Emelie at an amusement park in Stockholm called Gröna Lund around 1:00pm. We made a stop at one of my favorite stores called “Nordic Design”, which has a lot of cute and unique merchandise that I thought would make good gifts. Matilda called her sister to find out the details of the plan for the day while I was putzing around the shop, and after she hung up she said that her sister had recommended a good store to buy a bag, as I have been wanting to buy a slightly larger purse. I was actually able to find a few things to buy while Matilda was on the phone, so I purchased my items (which made me feel productive and happy), and we left to check out the bag store. The bag store was similar to a Younkers, but much larger and much fancier. The bags were mostly name brand purses that were way over my budget (like hundreds of dollars over my budget), but after hunting through the entire store, we were able to find a small black Björn Borg purse that fit the bill. It was still a little pricey for my liking, clocking in around $57.00, but I bonded with the purse and loved the fact that it was a brand unique to Sweden. I purchased the bag and basked in the happy feeling I had from buying a new Swedish purse—I felt so fancy! We decided to check out another mall nearby, but we didn’t get very far before receiving a phone call from Malin telling us that they were almost ready to head out to the amusement park. We walked back to the hostel to drop off my shopping bags and then we began the 30 minute walk towards Gröna Lund, which was over by the Vasa Museum.   

Fun at Tivoli Gröna Lund

Jane, Emelie, Malin, Matilda, & Peter at Gröna Lund

We arrived at Gröna Lund around 1:00pm and sat on a bench to rest our feet while we waited for Malin, Peter, and Emelie to arrive. Our main reason for going to the park was to do the Pentathlon (aka: 5-Kamp), which is a competition where you choose five games to play against each other, tally the scores for each game, and see who is the overall winner at the end. Since there were five of us total, we each choose one game to play. 

1st Game: “Woody”—use a club to thump the stumps as they come out of the holes. 

2nd Game: “Can Alley”—a garbage can opens and closes and you have to toss as many plastic balls inside as you can before time runs out. 

3rd Game: “Vattenpistol” (water pistol)—use a water pistol to shoot one of the three lit up red dots on an alien’s head as they change back and forth.

4th Game: Basketball (my choice)—make as many baskets as you can before time runs out.

5th Game: Bulldog—whack a button with a large club to make plastic balls fly up into the bulldogs mouth.

View of Gröna Lund from the ferry

Not surprisingly, I ended up in dead last, and Malin was the overall champion! The winner doesn’t win anything except for bragging rights, which people seem to take pretty seriously! We ate lunch between games four and five and saved our two ride tickets for last. We all spent our first ticket on the Lustiga Huset (Walk Through Fun House), and then everyone but me used their second ticket on this crazy spinning ride. I decided to take the extremely tame route and use my second ticket on the Cirkuskarusellen (Old Carousel), which was quite underwhelming (the animals didn’t even move up and down, sadly), but it was fun to feel like a kid again for about 45 seconds. After the rides, we left the park and took the ferry back to the other side of the harbor. We had one hour before our transportation ticket expired, so Matilda and I walked quickly back to the hostel to collect our bags and then walked quickly to the subway station to meet up with everyone else. It was about a 10 minute subway ride followed by a 15 minute walk back to Emelie’s apartment just outside of Stockholm, and we were exhausted by the time we got there; our feet had had enough for the day! Malin and Peter packed their things from their stay with Emelie over the weekend, and then we loaded their car with all of our belongings. We made a quick stop at a grocery store for snacks for the drive home and then we hit the road. We kept ourselves entertained with more Mad Libs fun and good tunes. We arrived home around 9:30pm and retired to our rooms shortly after that. 

Overall Thoughts on Stockholm

My favorite part of Stockholm at sunset

Overall, I found Stockholm to be a very beautiful, yet busy city. My favorite parts would have the old architecture, the cobblestone streets, and the water; my camera never seemed to be able to capture the beauty of the city that I saw through my eyes. As I mentioned before, I found the largeness of the city to be a it overwhelming/overstimulating, and I couldn’t help but feel pressured/obligated to do everything, even though that isn’t possible, especially in a matter of three days. We covered quite a few of the main attractions that the city has to offer, and although there are some other things I might have wanted to do if we were their longer, I am quite content with our time spent in Stockholm! I don’t think I’d ever want to live there, but it’s definitely an exciting and worthwhile place to visit!

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Monday, August 31st

Why Am I Up This Early? 

After a long three day weekend in Stockholm and going to bed fairly late (11:30pm), I thought for sure that I would sleep until at least 8:00 or 9:00am this morning—wrong! My body/mind obviously had other plans. I first woke up at 6:30am, again at 7:30am, and there was no falling back to sleep after that. I begrudgingly got out of bed, made some breakfast, and took a much needed shower. Matilda was working until 3:00pm, so I had the morning/early afternoon to myself. I spent the morning blogging, took a coffee break around 11:30am, and then walked into town to do some last minute shopping before our trip to Italy tomorrow! I purchased two tank tops on sale at The New Yorker (this seems to be my lucky store this trip!), grabbed lunch at Subway, and then stopped at the grocery store to buy snacks for our trip before walking back home. 

Italy Preparation

Matilda and I got home around the exact same time, and we created a plan of action for the rest of the day. We checked into our flight to Italy and then biked into town (we were both tired of walking) so I could get Euros for Italy, and to also find a luggage scale and travel sized bottles for our shampoo/conditioner. It was a successful trip, and we headed back home to hash out more Italy details, do a bit of packing, and watch OTH while eating ice cream. It’s been a quiet, yet productive and enjoyable day. 

It is now 11:38pm, and I am definitely ready for bed. Our flight to Italy doesn’t depart until around 8:00pm tomorrow evening, but we need to leave by 1:45pm to catch the earlier bus to the airport, so we will have a busy morning of last minute prep and packing! 

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This concludes the excitement from the second week of my European adventures. Again, I hope you enjoyed the read! Stay tuned for a post next week documenting my third and final week of my trip to Europe—tales of Italy await! 

♥ Jane