Stockholm 5/29/04
Anyway...first of all Happy Memorial Day! And to Lauren (both of you since you both not only
have the same name, but also have the same birthday!), hope you guys are having a great day
today!
Wow...this has been one long day. I haven’t slept in a bed for the past two nights. Red-eye flight
followed by overnight train. And now tonight, it turns out there is yet ANOTHER overnight train.
Yup. I’ve done some things thus far that have just made me laugh at myself. First of all, I needed
a place to stay tonight. Everywhere else I’ve ever gone has 2 or 3 star places galore when I get off
the train. I have officially found an exception. There is not a single one!!! Can you believe it??? I
even *gasp* asked about a hostel!!! Can you now see the desperation I was in??? Nope. Not one
of those anywhere near here either. I could take a subway. Okay. Next step… Pull out some
Swedish money...but not too much since this is just a one-day stop. Go to do that. Wells Fargo
card not working. I try the other machine. Wells Fargo card not working. I made sure that I
dumped a good amount of funds in before coming so that something like this would for sure not
happen. For the first time, it has happened. The ATM has denied me and I’ve already been
walking around the streets of Stockholm with all of my luggage for an hour. (Don’t get me
wrong. I could have stayed at a Best Western across the street from the fine train station
establishment. For $250. Yeah, right.) So I did prove to be smart in one category. One that I
NEVER think to do...because my ATM card is always so trusty...I brought a whopping $40 in
USD in case I needed a cab on my way back from this trip. So I changed $30 of it in. Now here’s
where lack of sleep must have affected me more than I was realizing. I thought `Why continue
this hassle of looking for a place with all of my bags when *huge light bulb* I could pay a mere
$5 and put my bags in a locker, get an overnight train from Stockholm to Copenhagen and forgo
getting a hotel room altogether. Seemed brilliant at the time. Didn’t seem so brilliant as I was
about to fall asleep at 3pm today. Anyway, at the time of that brainstorming session between me
and....me, there really wasn’t anyone to kick sense into me. But good news....now I’m totally
awake! Well, maybe not so good since I need to get on a train soon and I got zero sleep last night.
And for the record, I thought about booking a room before I got here but then I remembered
how much of a pain in the butt it is to find the place, etc. so I thought I would wing it again.
Wow...sorry you had to hear about all of that rambling!
Let me just share my first moment in Scandinavia. It was actually in Copenhagen but it´s all the
same. I was sleeping on the flight and felt the landing. I then opened my eyes. The sky was
literally bright red. The whole thing I was looking at. I really didn’t think it was possible--I
thought it only got that way when someone used a red filter on their lens. So I totally had this
mini freak-out session. Which would have been fine if I was with a friend. But it was just me and
the stranger sitting at the window. And I was just blown away saying ´Oh my gosh! Look at
that!? Then these little squirts across the aisle from me start making fun of me. They couldn’t
have been more than 12. Embarrassing. So embarrassing I can’t believe I’m telling you. Oh well.
So...my take on Stockholm.... It’s very pretty and European. Just because everything has to
remind me of something, I would say it actually feels a bit Prague-esque. Before some of you say
´This girl really has lost her marbles with this lack of sleep?...hear me out.... The shapes of some
of their unique buildings and clocks? Prague has ones just like them. And, even more so, are just
the colors of the buildings. You don’t see those colors all together too often. Oh...and the fact
that in both city I have absolutely not even an inkling of an idea of what people are saying or
what words that I’m looking at mean or how they’re pronounced.
I have accomplished quite a bit today... I bought a Stockholm card which gives you access to
virtually everything. Great for a really, really cold day such as the one I experienced today. I
thought I was just going to use it for 2 museums and a boat ride. Well, it actually turned out to
be the use for the Royal Palace/Royal Apts, the Vasa Museum (Kell- don’t get too excited when I
tell you that its a museum built around a real Nordic pirate-looking ship!), Skansen--an open-air
museum that depicts the style of architecture in all parts of Sweden, the boat ride in the Baltic
Sea, the Nobel Museum (actually, extremely cool. They also had an exhibition on Albert
Einstein.), the City Hall (this is where they have the big gala dinner and speeches after the Nobel
Prizes are awarded), some church and a park. That was far more than I was going to set out to
do. But...when the weather is freezing and raining, you’ll try to go inside for ANYTHING.
Hopefully it warms up tomorrow--at least Ill be better equipped with my clothing.
So as a final note...and I apologize for having it take me so long...Sweden is pretty and very green
and very European...especially the old part which is great...but now that I’ve seen it, I don’t think
I really need to come back. Too many other places to go and see. If I had 3 days here, I would
have to have done a daytrip because really, I think you can do it all in 2 days. Not like I’ve heard
any of you on the edge of your seats to go out to Stockholm…but I just wanted to put that out
there. Tomorrow is Denmark! Yay! It just looks so cute! Ill keep you all posted. :)
:) Jen