After getting off of the boat, it still felt like we were still on the boat. We met Rasmus and he took us to his car and drove us to his house. It wasn’t too far from the harbor and he gave us a nice tour of Stockholm as we were driving. Rasmus parked the car and took us to his home. It was a really nice house and from the beginning gave us the keys and told us we had full range of his kitchen which was really nice.
I should explain that Rasmus and Marie are relatives of Fred and Susan. Fred and Susan are Peace Corps Volunteers in Armenia who came in the year after us. I had mentioned on day at the office that we were going to Sweden and Finland and before we knew it, we had a nice place to stay there which really helped us out.
We ate lunch at McDonald’s…again.
After that, Mike and I walked around trying to find a print shop so that I could print stuff for my application to a certain school. We couldn’t find the one print shop that was in all of Stockholm, at least it felt like it was the only one in all of Stockholm. Later on, after we found the tourist information center, Mike said just to go to the Sheraton. That is what I did.
I went up to the Concierge and told her that I had been spending hours looking around the city for a printing place to send very important papers, by post, to the US. I tried to make it sound very important and very official. (In actuality, they were very important papers and I had a deadline). The lady said no problem, recommended some places, but said that I was more than welcome to use the hotel’s computers to print my papers out. That is what I did. I printed out all 17 sheets of paper, for free. As I was leaving I thanked her. (In Finland, it would have cost 50 euro cents per page at this particular place I was trying to get them printed).
Then we passed by a shipping store and I asked how much an envelope would be. The man asked if I just needed one. I said yes. He just handed it over for free. It was that easy. Sweden is fantastic.
I went to a post office and bought stamps and sent off my papers.
On the boat, we bought these cards called the “Stockholm card.” This card was 57 euros and turned out to be the best investment I had made in a long time. It got us into all the museums in Stockholm for free and gave us access to ride public transportation for free, including boats. This basically turned out to be a steal. The card can be bought in increments of 24,48,72, and 5 day passes. We got the 48 hour pass and it starts the second you use it for the first time. We went to the following museums:
Vasa Museum – Museum of a boat that sand during her maiden voyage because it was much too heavy and the hull was not wide enough. Really a museum worth going to.
Nobel Prize museum – We then took the subway to the nobel prize museum. Not that interesting. We learned more about Alfred Nobel. They had some notable facts here and there, but overall not worth the money they wanted people to pay.
Modern Museum of Art- I am not artsy. I see something that I like that looks like it took lots of talent to create and marvel at that. I don’t see piles of trash, in piles as art. It’s not. Neither is paint thrown onto a canvas. Not a huge fan of “modern art either” unless its of Picasso or Dali. You look at these and see something that was created. Something that takes talent. We saw advertisements that this museum had Dali and Picasso. It did. The brochure mentioned only of those two artists and one other. In the whole museum, there was only one Dali painting and three of Picasso. Although those paintings were really interesting to see, I feel like I was fooled into going there. If I didn’t have the Stockholm card, I would have been irritated that I paid that much to go to this museum.
To give you an idea of how much these museums are, each one is about 14 dollars to enter, some more, some less. Factor in transportation and it comes out to a huge bargain.
We became hungry so we found the next best thing to Taco Bell which was, I don’t know because I forgot the name, but it was decent. Lots of food, but expensive. Much like everything else in this town. So we took the Subway back to Rasmus and Marie’s but forgot which exit to take. We just got out and walked around. We found a supermarket and bought turkey, bread, cheese, mayo, pistachio nuts (at 2 dollars for a half kilo-which is a steal), and some other things. We were going to make our own lunch from then on.
We got back and met Marie. Wonderfully kind lady. They were both incredibly nice. We tried our best to stay out of their way. We did have tea and coffee with them the first night and talked until maybe midnight. It was a lot of fun. We talked about Swedish history, food, culture, things we had to see. They were both very insightful about Sweden. Their English was amazing. There were several times I forgot they were Swedish. They spoke in a very upper class British accent. When they spoke Swedish, every time it threw me off.
Day 2
They have a dog and the next morning, we got up and took Liza out for a walk. That was great because that was the first time I had interacted with a domesticated dog other than Jason and Elvira’s long ago. Liza (like Liza Minnelli) is a Portuguese Waterdog. Rasmus told us that it was the same dog that Obama has and apparently is called so because way back in the day, the dogs were used to catch the fish that fell out of the fisherman’s nets. They were trimmed in such a way that you could grab their hair to pull them back out of the water. Anyway, it was nice walking her around. She is 4 months old. They live right next to the river so we walked on the bike bath down to a good spot and sat down, looking at the ducks.
I took her back and Mike and I made turkey sandwiches to take with us on our walk around Stockholm. That day we went out to the Palace. Mike thought all the parts were in different locations in the city and planned the whole day around the Palace. It took us 2 hours to do what he had planned a day for…
Again with the Stockholm card, we were granted entrance to the treasury, which was small but interesting. It had all the emerald and ruby encased swords and crowns locked in a really thick safe. The safe door was what really intrigued me because it was about 18 inches thick.
We continued onward to the Palace Apartments. I feel like they should have a better name for guests to stay than “apartment.” It doesn’t sound all that regal. I think by now Mike and I were tired of seeing Palaces…
The King’s collection of Greek statues was pretty cool to walk around. Not exactly his collection but it was interesting to read about the different goddesses and gods and what they did. Some of the heads are not the originals for the body. Don’t know why though.
We also went to see the basement structure of the palace. Not that interesting either.
At 12:15 or so, we saw the changing of the guard which was nothing like the one in England or the one in Greece or the one in DC. Those were pretty subdued and simple. This one had a band, horses, about fifty soldiers and was about 30-40 minutes long. I got tired of watching, but was pretty cool nonetheless. It was a lot of commotion just for the actual changing of the guard, which was less than 90 seconds long.
We ate our sandwiches and walked to the Stockholm Cathedral which was really nice. This is where the Crown Princess and her husband got married.
Then we headed over to the other side of the island and went to the photo gallery which was interesting(?). Better than the art museum, I thought. If I had my pamphlets, I would tell you who the photographers were (I am currently writing this on the flight from Stockholm to London before we switch over and fly to Tel Aviv). One particular exhibit was really nice to see.
It was titled “The Invisible Man.” A 37 year old Chinese artist was speaking out against the Chinese government shutting down an art school where he and several other colleagues of his worked. The Chinese government, for one reason or another, didn’t like modern art. The “invisible man” wanted to do something about it, so her would go to several well known areas in China, like the Forbidden city and paint himself into the landscape. It was amazing because the works look like a water droplet in the shape of a person standing in front of an object. Clear, but a bit distorted. There were quite a few photos of this. My favorite was a picture of a soldier or policeman holding onto the invisible man. I would have paid to see that.
After this, we grabbed some Chinese food for dinner and went back home. We were really tired but Rasmus wanted to take us to some vantage points overlooking the city. It was totally worth it. We went to two spots looking over different parts of the city and came home. Mike and I were really tired and soon thereafter, we went to bed.
The entry for Sweden is really long, so I am going to break it up a little bit...
Until next time...
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