We stayed in the Nordic Sea Hotel in Stockholm and it was everything a four star hotel should be. The lobby was very well decorated and modern, and the rooms were amazing as well. A little small, but that's sort of the trend in Europe. Plus, it even had a BATH TUB! Yes, a bath tub. You have no idea how excited I was when I found out... I've been missing bubble baths for the entire two and a half months we've been abroad. Needless to say, I made good use of both the tub and the complimentary bath salts.
Since we arrived so late on Friday, we didn't really do a whole lot. We went on a short walk to scope out our surroundings and then hit the sack so we could be up bright and early the next morning.
Saturday the sun was shining as we stepped out on the streets of Stockholm stuffed from our delcious "complimentary" breakfast at the hotel. (Just a little side note here... does it bother anyone else when they call it "complimentary"? Because it definitely rubs me the wrong way a little bit. Don't get me wrong, it was hands down one of the best hotel breakfasts I've ever had... but you and I both know that it was NOT free. Okay sorry... I'm done now.) Moving on, Saturday we hit up the Stockholm Tourist Center first thing to buy our Stockholm Cards. Basically, you pay a flat rate for either a 24, 48, or 72 hour pass that allows you free admission to over 80 museums and free public transportation. It's a pretty darn good deal.
After that, we took a trolley to another area of town to start our sight seeing.
First up... The Vasa Museum! It's a museum showcasing this really old ship that sank on its maiden voyage in the harbor of Stockholm some 300+ years ago. The ship was pulled up from the water about 50 or so years ago and put back together. And a majority of it is the original wood, too. They have this nice little video running constantly in it's own theater there that tells the whole history of the ship and how it was reconstructed. The exhibits throughout the museum talked about the time period of the ship, the ornate carvings and paintings throughout the ship's exterior, and re-creations of what the interior was like. It was a very unique and cool museum.
After the Vasa, we mosied on over to an aquarium nearby to see some sharks. It wasn't the most modern or best aquarium I've ever seen, but Ryan really wanted to see some sharks. So we spent a good half hour trying to get a decent picture of the sharks as they swam around in their tank. I guess they didn't really understand that I wanted them to slow down and pose for my camera, silly sharks. In the end, I got managed to get a couple pictures that weren't too blurry. The darn things are too fast!
Next up was the Nordiska Museum. Normally, this museum just shows the history of Sweden and different aspects of its culture over time. The weekend we were there, however, they had their annual Chocolate Festival. Talk about chaos! The line just to get in was never-ending! And the noise once you got inside was deafening. But it was SO worth the wait and the crowd. The entire main corridor was lined with booths of chocolate factories from around the world showcasing their unique chocolates complete with more free samples than your stomach could handle. Talk about heaven! Ryan and I ended up purchasing over two pounds of different chocolate bars. Yum! After we pushed our way through to get our fill of free samples, we explored the rest of the museum with an audio tour. The exhibits were less than thrilling to say the least, but the architecture throughout the whole museum was truly stunning.
By the time we pushed our way out of the Nordiska Museum, we were done with people for the day. We headed back to the hotel for a little bit to rest up before taking the subway to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner.
Sunday was another beautiful day. The sun was almost TOO bright...I feel bad saying that, but you start to feel that way when you only see it a couple times a week for a few hours per day. Haha. We took advantage of the nice weather by walking into Old Town. Here we visited the Royal Palace, Stockholm Cathedral and Nobel Museum all while walking through authentic cobble stone streets and checking out some shops.
The Royal Palace was enormous. And of course the decorations and furnishings were elaborate and expensive looking. You weren't allowed to take pictures, but Ryan and I managed to sneak a few when the security people weren't looking.
We made it to the Stockholm Cathedral with just enough time to snap a few quick photos and be pushed out the door. Apparently there was some sort of concert going on later that day that they had to get set up for? I don't know, my Swedish is still a work in progress and the old man who kicked us out obviously didn't speak much English either.
The Nobel Museum was interesting, but definitely not worth paying for if you didn't already invest in the Stockholm Card. A majority of the museum was taken up with an exhibit about peace where artists from different countries tried to portray the 14th Dalai Lama. It was interesting, but quite strange. It was kind of neat to be there so soon after the awarding of this year's Nobel Prizes because they had a small exhibit about this year's winners and their prize winning work. But overall, as a whole, I was very underwhelmed with the museum.
Sunday night after wandering through the streets of Old Town all day, we relaxed by having a drink at the Absolut Icebar Stockholm in the lobby of our hotel. It was sooo cool! (Get it, because they keep it at a temperature below freezing?!) Hahaha sorry I was pretty proud of that... but seriously, it was a lot of fun. The cover charge to get in was just under $20/person and that included one mixed drink. It was a little spendy, but totally worth it to have the experience. They even gave you these parkas with attached gloves to wear inside so you didn't freeze while you were holding your glass made entirely of ice. Ryan and I chose to indulge in a traditional Swedish drink made with lingon berry juice and Absolut 100 vodka. Delicious! After the Icebar, we walked over to the Casino Cosmopol to do a bit of gambling. Ryan played blackjack and came out about even. I played a slot machine and ended up winning just over $200. It was a fun night!
Monday we ate our last "complimentary" breakfast at the Nordic Sea Hotel, checked out, and headed to the Skansen Museum. It's a very unique museum because it's mostly outdoor. They have probably twenty different mini museums like a replica Old Town, a tobacco museum, a Swedish army history museum and a zoo and aquarium that cover acres of land. It was probably the most memorable part of our trip to Stockholm ... because I almost died of a heart attack on multiple occasions. I'm not even joking. Hear me out here...
We got into Skansen and walked around a bit before coming to the aquarium/zoo. We walked through the gift shop filled with all sorts of stuffed animals to enter and then went out a door to a very large cage. There were gigantic trees in this cage with a wooden path and wooden railings wandering through this cage... but I couldn't see any animals. And then I looked to my right, and saw this line of stuffed lemurs. There were probably a dozen or so of them... and I thought to myself "Oh that's neat that they put out stuffed animals for the fall and winter to replace the real ones so that kids can still see what they look like..." But as I approached said "stuffed" monkeys... Ryan said to me as calmly as he could... "Christina, I think those are real..." And no sooner had he said that....and they turned their heads towards me! All of them! And they stared at me with their beady big eyes! When I was like less than a foot away! OHMYGOSH!?! I screamed. Bloody murder. And ran as quickly as I could back inside.
Don't get me wrong... I like animals. My mom has instilled in my a great appreciation for watching monkeys at the zoo. They are always her favorite. And I like them too. But I like them a heck of a lot more when they are in a cage and I'm not inside the cage with them! I just don't think that they have things like that in the states! Sure, they might have a cage that you can walk through and get closer to the monkeys, but there would be some sort of fence or barrier between you and the monkeys. We don't just leave it up to chance whether or not these angry monkeys are going to treat us humans nicely or not on a cold October day. And believe you me, they were angry monkeys. They were fighting with each other for who got to be in the middle of their little warm huddle... and that's exactly why I didn't stick around to see if they wanted to share my scarf with me! Yikes.
So... first heart attack endured. Next, was onto the aquarium. And sure enough... what is the first reptile I see? An anaconda. And not just ONE anaconda... but three! Gross... Normally, when I saw something as repulsive and creepy as a snake that's twice the size of me in an aquarium, it wouldn't really bother me. But seeing one so soon after finding out that they don't keep all their animals a safe distance from me, it made my skin crawl. I kept lifting up my feet and looking around the floor to make sure that I wouldn't be eaten alive by some slimy reptile... after all, I wasn't going to be taking any chances after the lemur incident... I had no sooner assured myself that I was safe and that all of the super creepy crawlers were behind the glass, when something fluttered right above my head and squawked! They had parrots flying around freely! In the snake area! What kind of sick joke is that?! OHMYGOSH!?! AGAIN! It's not that I'm scared of birds (aside from the general fear that they're going to poop on me) but I couldn't handle trying to look at snakes while they were startling me... so I high tailed it outta there real quick-like. Phew... two near heart attacks in less than twenty minutes is too much for me.
Now to all of you reading this that don't find this either horrifying or at least comical, please keep that to yourself. I guess maybe you had to be there in my position to feel the life threatening danger or in Ryan's position to laugh at his scaredy cat wife.... but next time you are in a zoo in America, you remember how fortunate you are that we have health and safety regulations there! We don't just put up signs that say "Careful, our fish bite.." and leave a pool of fish open for small children to splash in... God bless America, people.
Well, that was pretty much our adventure in a nutshell. We stayed in the Skansen until it was time to grab our bags from the hotel and take the Arlanda Express to the airport. And then it was back to our home here in Lulea for a week full of studying for exams. Thank goodness those are done now!
I took wayyy too many pictures on this trip to even think of posting them all on here, so instead I uploaded them to Photobucket. I only added the best ones, but there are still over 80 photos for you to browse through... Here is the link to the album, hopefully it works. Please let me know if it doesn't or if you have trouble figuring out how to work the site!
Click Here to see the photos from our trip!!!
Our next big adventure will be starting this Wednesday already! Exciting, I know. We are embarking on a 5 day road trip to Gothenberg, Sweden and Oslo, Norway. Ryan and I are renting a mini van with our three friends from Nebraska and hitting the road Wednesday after lunch. It is about 16 hours from Lulea to where we want to go, so there will be a lot of driving to do, but we're really excited to see Norway. It's the only country in Scandinavia we haven't explored yet! Plus, it's special to both of us since we have Norwegian roots...
Well, that's all from across the ocean.I hope that everyone had a safe and enjoyable Halloween weekend. Ryan and I skipped the dressing up, since that isn't as big over here... but we did consume mass quantities of candy compliments of my wonderful Mommy and Nana. Who doesn't love caramel apple suckers, right?
Happy Monday All!
-The Bogarts
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