Stockholm!

It's officially been 2 days in Stockholm.

It's beautiful here and still. It's so quiet here because most of the locals have gone on vacation.
It's just tourists, but even the normal buzz of traffic and newly experienced sites have remained a murmur; almost as if not to disturb the beauty.

Day 1 was a day of walking and sleeping.
Reed, Chris and I arrived and found our hotel (which is fantastic and right in the middle of downtown). It's bohemian chic. Very very cool and completely out of our generation's mind. We dumped our stuff and took a walk down to the water to explore. It didn't take long before we wanted to stop for a bite and just sit, watching the water. There were *plenty* of cafes along the water so we were able to select cafe by location, couch comfort and cuisine selection.

We settled on the comfiest couches with fish/chips for Chris and Reed/I splitting nachos.
Surprise, surprise, nachos in Sweden ain't so good. haha.
Served us right.
Warning to others...don't even attempt it.
But the view was beautiful and it was officially our first act in Stockholm.

After a bit, we headed back to the hotel to wait for Crissy to arrive.
Showers and quick naps were the plan and we broke for our rooms.
5 hours later, Reed and I woke up.
Crissy had arrived earlier and joined everyone in their nap.
We all woke up 9:00 pm.
Oopsie poopsie, but we were ready for dinner.

We were refreshed and ready to explore.
It was a perfect evening, where all we needed were flipflops and light wraps.

We searched FOREVER for a perfect place to eat.
Nothing was either priced right or was pretend American food.
We had a fantastic trek around the downtown islands and got lost in Old Town.
Cobblestones, dala horses, H&M, we saw everything!
We finally settled on a quaint 1/2 Swedish and 1/2 Italian.
A great meal later, we headed back to our hotel.
Or we thought we were.
In our attempt to find our perfect square meal, we had traversed the city a BIT out of our comfort zone. We walked for ever looking for the way back. The nice thing about Stockholm, you never mind the walk.
We laughed about our wrong turns, teased each other about our directional sense, and somehow continued to cross bridges we never saw. HAHAH On the plus side, we saw the random bar/club nightclubs which blasted Journey, Chris Brown and Lady Gaga.
We saw a wedding reception that was out of control in one of the most beautiful buildings.

Swedes love our music. They love MTV (there are 3 mtv channels out here). They have more McDonald's than I've ever seen (they call it the American Embassy here, haha) and their 7-11s are super impressive!!! They actually have fresh food and good stuff!

Day 2 - Crissy and I woke up at 5:30 am and were starving!
We waited as long as we could and then finally headed to breakfast at 8 with the boys.
They put on a really nice spread and we ate breakfast for about an hour, laughing over the night's adventures and missteps.
Soft/hard boiled eggs, proschiotto, granola, muesli, tomatos, cucumbers, yogurt, toast, rolls, juice, coffee and tea.
De-li-cious!

We left to grab the ferry to see the Archipelago (collection of Stockholm's islands) and spent 2.5 hours on the water. I fear that I'll use the word 'beautiful' too much in my descriptions. But I just have to. The water was beautiful and the weather couldn't have been more perfect.
Saturday was about 22' C and today was probably closer to 24-25'C.

We met a nice girl named Nicole from Switzerland and she joined us for the rest of the afternoon.
The boys and her went to a local club soccer rivalry match.
Crissy and I headed to the Vasa Musuem, a boat that sank in 1628 and made it 20 minutes and less than a mile out of it's maiden voyage before sinking in the Stockholm Harbour.
333 years later, they were able to resurrect in and have a created a musuem over it's preservation. They built the actual building around the entire boat and the 3 masts stick out of the roof. The ship is almost in perfect condition since the water isn't salty and their weren't saltworms to help its detoriation. It was absolutely incredible. The detail was so vivid that you truly thought you were looking at a model or a recreation. It's one of Stockholm's most famous musuems and it only opened in 1990.

After the musuem, we joined the sunbathers on the nearby grassy hill and sat in the sun talking.
We headed to Gamla Stan and Old Town by way of the Royal Palace.
The Royal Palace has its own guard, much like England; however unlike that English guard, this guard could look other directions, move and wiggle. Which he did. Not in a funny, 'I'm going to entertain the crowd' sort of way. More like a 'I'm so bored and have too tight of underoos on' manner. It was very peculiar. But then he would morph back into guard-mode and straighten up, sping his gun with a CRAZY bayonnette, walk 10 paces and rest again. The bayonnette looked like a cross between a chef's butcher knife and a sharp harpoon. It was long and wide but incredibly sharp at the tip. Case of the wiggles or not, I would not mess with this guy.
Last observation, he looked like a Latvian rather than a Swede. Thought that was interesting.

We then journeyed to Old Town and stopped at the (no joke) store named "Probably the Best Souvenir Store in Stockholm". How humble of them. In America, every store or restuarant claims "City's Best/Favorite". Here in Stockholm, they probably are the best...or so they've heard. It was hilarious.

We laughed over gelato and retraced our steps from the night before.
Cracked up over how incredibly close we had been, several times over!
If we had just made one right here, or a left, or crossed the street...
It's all in the journey :)

We met back up with the guys and Nicole, heard the tales of the soccer match and headed to dinner. In our normal trek, we arrived at restaurants and then left again over price or selection.
We skipped through about 6 restaurants before one of us finally said "NO! Not again" and we went back to one of the previous cafes for a light dinner. Everyone was exhuasted from the lack of naps and headed to bed pretty quickly.

Reed and Crissy and I came to play cards and watch a movie; however, by the time I finished emailing our CouchSurfer, they were both OUT, sprawled on the bed.
So I be chillin' and another day is coming.

Things to note:
- Yes, everyone here IS blonde
- The legs out here are incredible from all the walking
- Swede style is very chic but beachy. Blousey but casual, light weight and sandals galore
- Ice cream every 30 feet
- They have a store that makes Whole Foods look like Walgreens.
- People can own their own mini-islands
- Everyone speaks English and I love it
- Water is not free and it's practically cheaper than alcohol

Tomorrow, hopes to be another beautiful day - they say it's been the best 3 days of weather they've had all summer and it wasn't supposed to be this warm.
I'm enjoying every bit of it.

Hope to get to Finland and then we meet up with our Couchsurfer, Pierre.
http://www.couchsurfing.org/profile.html?id=1EJ26SU
Yay! Let the CouchSurfing begin.

Hope all is well at home!