Fun, Fun, Fun

The past week we've been visiting with friends, shopping, and more. We even met up with Kat, a friend from when I was living in Columbia, MO who happened to be backpacking through Scandinavia! It's a small, small world! After several very expensive drinks at an English Pub in Södermalm (we're talking like $10 a beer!) it was early on Saturday morning (1am), and Jer finally found the perfect time for me to try my first tunnbrödsrullar. This is an interesting delicacy of Stockholm street food consisting of a hot dog, shrimp salad, mashed potatoes, relish, and various other condiments all rolled in a flat pita bread. I have never seen or tasted anything like it!

On Sunday Jer took me to Skogskyrkogården, which is cemetery south of Stockholm that was founded in the early 1900s. It was designed to blend architecture and nature together. It was a misty, rainy, cool day, which was the perfect atmosphere to take in the beauty and peacefulness of this site.

Yesterday we went on a day cruise to Åland, which is an island that technically belongs to Finland, so I can say I've been to that country too! We got up extremely early to meet Claudine, Kennett, and Maxze and drive over to the cruise ship. We all had a great day eating from a traditional Swedish smörgåsbord for breakfast and lunch, sitting on the sun deck watching the outer archipelago and the Baltic Sea float by, and squeezing in some tax free shopping.

Only a few more days to squeeze in final visits with friends, walks, and souvenir shopping for this trip!

Pics from our day cruise to Åland:







Pics from Skogskyrkogården:

Checking Things Off

In the last week Jer and I have been checking things off our list of must-dos while we're here in Stockholm. We also forced ourselves to take a few days off and just rest at home, as I had a nasty cold, and neither of us were sleeping well. The good news is that today my ears and throat have ceased aching completely, and I'm coughing very little! Hopefully, we'll both be able to stay healthy for the last 8 days of our trip! Here's what we've been up to in the last week:

1. Saturday we went to the National Museum, which is the Swedish art museum. They had some pieces by great impressionists that have work in every museum around the world, but they also focused on a few Swedish impressionists. However, I think my favorite part of the museum was an exhibit with marble statues in a room surrounded by windows to let in natural light. They even had a "station" to showcase how various types of lighting can change how you view a piece of art. It was refreshing to see a new take on an exhibition in what otherwise was a traditional art gallery. There are few pics below.
2. We spent Tuesday making the long trek via public transportation out to the country side to visit a former colleague of Jeremy's and her family. Their extended family has a little "compound" of tiny summer cottages built on land adjacent to the Baltic, and it was gorgeous! I would love to have a place like that no matter what country it was in! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to share, but picture tiny two-four room cottages built our of wood and painted read with white trim, very typical Swedish :)
3. We've also been spending evenings with friends for drinks and dinner both out and in our teeny tiny apartment. It's so small, but we were able to cook and serve a pretty good spread for dinner without too much hassle. And it even motivated Jeremy to help clean up a bit :)
4. After recommendations from two unrelated people, we headed to Fotografiska today. It's a photography museum with a few large exhibitions. One was Lennart Nilsson's A Child is Born, which I found very interesting, but I think Jer was a bit wierded out. It follows the journey of a child from conception to birth. We also saw a large exhibition of Annie Leibovitz's work. She's a famous portrait photographer (you know... the shot of Demi Moore when she was pregnant...). I really liked a lot of her professional stuff and even some of her personal family photos. However, the exhibit seemed to be all over the place in it's set up, and I didn't really get the flow. Maybe I was missing something...

I think that's it for now. Here are just a few of my favorites from the art museum:

Midway Through the Trip

The last few days have been a bit more low key than the first week and a half. We spent an afternoon and evening with Robin and his family, having a picnic and playing in the park with his two kids. They were extremely cute and very Swedish with their curly blond hair and pale skin. At two-ish and five-ish, they were full of energy and wanted to impress the visitors (Jeremy and I), but since they only speak Swedish, it was hard for me to understand what they were saying. However, in the non-verbal language of kids... I was in much better shape! We had a great afternoon and evening with them!

The next day we spent almost the entire day at home (besides a leisurely evening walk), as I wasn't feeling well. I've managed to come down with a cold/sinus infections/allergies, which is causing my ears and throat to ache. As usual with me, it is worse at night and completely bearable during the day, but since I can't seem to get much good sleep, I'm not as chipper as I would like to be even during those daytime hours.

After a day spent at home, I was ready to be a tourist again today. We headed to the Vasa Museum, which houses a giant boat built by a Swedish king in the 1600s. It was massive and the decorations extremely intricate! Very impressive, but it's also somewhat ironic that this boat (which sank on it's maiden voyage, and was therefore an utter failure) is now a hugely popular attraction here in Stockholm. There were tourists from all over the world there today, not to mention the line of 200+ people that were waiting outside the museum the other day when Jer and I originally attempted to visit.

Below are a few pics... some of hot air balloons that float above the city nightly, and then of course those from the museum.

Busy, Busy, Busy

We've been busy the last few days! On Friday we took a long trek via several types of public transportation (tram to underground to bus) out to the countryside to spend the afternoon and evening with an old colleague of Jeremy's and her family. They live on a beautiful lake that reminded my a lot of Gram and Gramp's place, only you couldn't see any other houses around the edge. We spent all afternoon talking in the shade on their back porch. I'm happy to report that I was able to understand almost everything said in Swedish between Maryanne and her son, but probably because we were all very relaxed... so unlike the typical conversation I hear on the underground in the city, the pace of conversation was much more relaxed as well.

On Saturday Jer and I explored Skansen, which is a cross between an amusement park and an outdoor museum. They have transplanted lots of buildings from across Sweden from various time periods to this one place and restored them to their original condition. They also have interpretive guides in period dress walking around inside the buildings to answer questions. It was very cool, although not in the literal sense, as the temperature has now risen to above 90 degrees F for the last few days. This wouldn't be problem, except no one in Sweden has air conditioning or fans!

That night we also had dinner with friends, and on our way home via the tram, we were told they would be stopping before our typical station and going no further due to "sabotage." After some probing, Jer found out there was someone with a green laser pointer terrorizing the drive every time he ventured past a certain point, so the infamous "they" had decided to shut down all public transportation to our part of the city. Only in Sweden!

Yesterday the same friends from dinner the night before came to get us and we all drove out to Drottningholm, which is the official residence for the current Swedish Royal Family. It was a beautiful palace built in the 1600s, with expansive traditional Baroque and English gardens. We enjoyed ourselves, but it was the hottest day of the year so far in Stockholm... hopefully it will cool off soon!

Below are some of my favorite pics from the last few days. Hope you enjoy!

Skansen...

Drottningholm...

One Week Gone

I can't believe we've officially been here an entire week! We only have three week's left! We took some time this morning to take stock of where we were, and I was excited to find that we've already hit several of the things I wanted to do while here, a few of the no-fun, must-do things that Jer needed to take care of, and stayed within our budget :)

The last few days have been filled with various things including waiting for two and a half hours to get Jer's Swedish passport renewed. We knew it would be a while when we grabbed our que number and it was 130 down the line from the person they were working with at the time. Luckily, we were able to grab some seats and spent our time playing Scrabble on the ITouch and people-watching as what seemed like hundreds of parents with little children (even lots of itty-bitty babies) applied for or renewed their passports. Jer immediately said, "Welcome to socialism," but it was no worse than waiting at the DMV to get my driver's license in Edwardsville during the summer...

We also scheduled and did laundry in the communal laundry room, explored the Historiska Museet, and continued with lots and lots of walking. Last night we also hung out with a few of Jer's old colleagues, and today we even explored the island of Sodermalm, which we hadn't been to at all yet. Here are a few pics from the last few days. Enjoy!

Treasures from the Historiska Museet...





Sodermalm...






Jer eating a kebab!

Saluhall

We went on a long walk today and Jer took me to the great indoor market full of colors and textures from all over the world. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from Saluhall!