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FARFRUMWURKEN
It's twenty-two days since we left Vancouver and here we are in Stockholm, a vibrant city built on 14 small islands and connected by over 50 bridges that stretches across Lake Malaren. We had been pre-warned of the beauty of these islands on the way into Stockholm itself, so I set the alarm for 5:00 a.m. so that I could get up (sun rises at 4:00 a.m.) and photograph the run into the Stockholm pier. It reminded me of cottage country in Ontario. Everyone has their little cottage, the dock, the boats – it was beautiful, as the shots will attest to. Surrounding the city there are some 24,000 islands that are the sight of many summer homes for Stockholm residents. For the next two days in Stockholm it’s my city…. I get to play tour guide so we’ve planned to get off at 10:00 a.m. and get exploring. I yelled down to Tom on the balcony (there are 4 staterooms between us) this morning and he seems to be pretty stuffed up so who knows whether T&J will make it out with us again today.
We got the call just before 9:00 a.m. – Tom was too sick to go off today. Just as was the case yesterday in Helsinki, we packed up and got on a HOHO bus. Today was just amazing – blue skies and a temperature around 65 degrees – just perfect.
I’m sitting here on my balcony – it’s 11:00 p.m. at night and the sun has just set – there’s a lovely red hue in the distance and the lights are coming on in the castles and apartments that are adjacent to the ship. It was an amazing day in Stockholm. I love this city and I’ve only spent a day here. A good friend of mine, Chris La****n lived here somewhere in and around Stockholm – I’m envious that he got to enjoy what is truly a lovely city. We started off the day in the old section – Gamla Stan and worked our way over to the Palace. We wanted to see the changing of the guard, which happens, daily at around 12:15 p.m. While it wasn’t spectacular, it was still nice to see the pomp that hasn’t changed for so so long. From there we headed over to the Vasa Museum. They have this humongous Swedish galleon that sank in the Stockholm harbour some 333 years ago and they have just recently raised it – built a museum around it – it’s simply amazing.
The HOHO is pretty convenient and our deal here in Stockholm was a 2-day ticket for HOHO for the cost of 25Euro per person – can’t beat that – considering that we had a little lunch at the Vasa museum (Deb was ready to pass out) – two ham sandwiches, bowl of soup and two drinks - $55.00 US. It’s kind of hard to understand how they all drive new cars – dress well and a thriving economy with prices where they are. With the socialized government here I guess it pays to have children – all day – everywhere there were families pushing baby carriages – it must get cold in the winter or there’s money in having children because there all over the place here. They even have trams that are just "cafes" – how civilized. It seems that they love the open spaces too – the parks were crowded with such good weather today – they were all out – playing plastic roller ball soccer and segway polo – two games that I guess just haven’t made it to North America.
We’re anxious to get out and explore again tomorrow. It’s now past midnight and it’s still light out – how weird it feels. Not sure hour T&J are as they didn’t show for dinner tonight and we’ve had no word as to T’s condition – Jamie had told Deborah that they were walking around town today but I guess this took all that Tom had as I’m sure they would have been there for dinner as it was a “yellow” shooter night. More on that later.
This has become all to comfortable now after 21 nights away – while we have just 8 days left here in Europe it’s something I could continue for another 21 without breathing hard. I was concerned about 24-days on a ship – could I do it? I’d have to say I’d do it again in a minute. This whole cruise thing is so great – we are on a first-name basis with the casino staff, the BB King band, the bartenders and waitresses. It’s really a great life if you can watch the waistline.
Day number two in Stockholm and the weather is just perfect for shorts. We got off the boat and wouldn’t you know it after we paid for two days of HOHO there were no buses to be found. We got talking to another Aussie couple in the lineup and we agreed to share a cab (48 USD) into town and leave the other two or three hundred standing in line waiting for a bus. We wanted to focus our efforts in Gamla Stan (the old town) and it didn’t disappoint. Such great architecture and photo ops. Knowing that I had some good wi-fi at the cruise ship terminal we did our walk – found an empty HOHO bus and headed back to the cruise. With this travel posting, I’m up-to-date. I'm sitting here in the Cruise Terminal and I think I've discovered a new business opportunity. I can only say that most of the people on this cruise are on the downside of 90 years of age. There are 300 hundred people sitting here with iPhones, tablets, PC's and they can't log on. As I sat here for 10 minutes I've been asked by at least 10 white hairs to help them log in. I'm glad that TravelPod has re-instated my blog so we’re good to go. Tomorrow is a sea day so there won’t likely be any further updates until we get to Warnemunde, Germany which is scheduled for Tuesday.
You guys have been great – thanks for reading this stuff – I’m up over 1200 reads so far.
We got the call just before 9:00 a.m. – Tom was too sick to go off today. Just as was the case yesterday in Helsinki, we packed up and got on a HOHO bus. Today was just amazing – blue skies and a temperature around 65 degrees – just perfect.
I’m sitting here on my balcony – it’s 11:00 p.m. at night and the sun has just set – there’s a lovely red hue in the distance and the lights are coming on in the castles and apartments that are adjacent to the ship. It was an amazing day in Stockholm. I love this city and I’ve only spent a day here. A good friend of mine, Chris La****n lived here somewhere in and around Stockholm – I’m envious that he got to enjoy what is truly a lovely city. We started off the day in the old section – Gamla Stan and worked our way over to the Palace. We wanted to see the changing of the guard, which happens, daily at around 12:15 p.m. While it wasn’t spectacular, it was still nice to see the pomp that hasn’t changed for so so long. From there we headed over to the Vasa Museum. They have this humongous Swedish galleon that sank in the Stockholm harbour some 333 years ago and they have just recently raised it – built a museum around it – it’s simply amazing.
The HOHO is pretty convenient and our deal here in Stockholm was a 2-day ticket for HOHO for the cost of 25Euro per person – can’t beat that – considering that we had a little lunch at the Vasa museum (Deb was ready to pass out) – two ham sandwiches, bowl of soup and two drinks - $55.00 US. It’s kind of hard to understand how they all drive new cars – dress well and a thriving economy with prices where they are. With the socialized government here I guess it pays to have children – all day – everywhere there were families pushing baby carriages – it must get cold in the winter or there’s money in having children because there all over the place here. They even have trams that are just "cafes" – how civilized. It seems that they love the open spaces too – the parks were crowded with such good weather today – they were all out – playing plastic roller ball soccer and segway polo – two games that I guess just haven’t made it to North America.
We’re anxious to get out and explore again tomorrow. It’s now past midnight and it’s still light out – how weird it feels. Not sure hour T&J are as they didn’t show for dinner tonight and we’ve had no word as to T’s condition – Jamie had told Deborah that they were walking around town today but I guess this took all that Tom had as I’m sure they would have been there for dinner as it was a “yellow” shooter night. More on that later.
This has become all to comfortable now after 21 nights away – while we have just 8 days left here in Europe it’s something I could continue for another 21 without breathing hard. I was concerned about 24-days on a ship – could I do it? I’d have to say I’d do it again in a minute. This whole cruise thing is so great – we are on a first-name basis with the casino staff, the BB King band, the bartenders and waitresses. It’s really a great life if you can watch the waistline.
Day number two in Stockholm and the weather is just perfect for shorts. We got off the boat and wouldn’t you know it after we paid for two days of HOHO there were no buses to be found. We got talking to another Aussie couple in the lineup and we agreed to share a cab (48 USD) into town and leave the other two or three hundred standing in line waiting for a bus. We wanted to focus our efforts in Gamla Stan (the old town) and it didn’t disappoint. Such great architecture and photo ops. Knowing that I had some good wi-fi at the cruise ship terminal we did our walk – found an empty HOHO bus and headed back to the cruise. With this travel posting, I’m up-to-date. I'm sitting here in the Cruise Terminal and I think I've discovered a new business opportunity. I can only say that most of the people on this cruise are on the downside of 90 years of age. There are 300 hundred people sitting here with iPhones, tablets, PC's and they can't log on. As I sat here for 10 minutes I've been asked by at least 10 white hairs to help them log in. I'm glad that TravelPod has re-instated my blog so we’re good to go. Tomorrow is a sea day so there won’t likely be any further updates until we get to Warnemunde, Germany which is scheduled for Tuesday.
You guys have been great – thanks for reading this stuff – I’m up over 1200 reads so far.
- comments
Keli lol! Love this!