01/09: Stockholm Day 1

Just as how when Ryan Air says that they fly to Barcelona when they really mean Girona, when they say Stockholm they really mean Nyköping. So after we landed, we then had to take an hour bus ride into town. We then headed to our hostel, which was actually an old boat just south of the old town. After checking into our digs, we went out for dinner at a Thai restaurant that had a group of loud speaking Americans (or even worse, Canadians), and we called it a night.

We woke up, stepped out of our hostel boat and saw this:


We then headed out to go and see the old town, or Gamla Stan. We went out in search of coffee. Here we found an incredibly over priced place that couldn't understand my flawless Swedish. Needless to say, we didn't go back there again.


I don't look like a tourist do I?!?


Remember in Barcelona how we saw the little reference to George and the Dragon. Stockholm's statue for Göran and the Dragon is much cooler.




The sign in the following photo: "Fem Små Hus" means 5 Small Houses. Hell yeah, my meager Swedish comes in handy ... now if only I knew what this store front or whatever actually did.


Courtney in the streets of Gamla Stan.




We then went to see Sweden's palace and saw an impressive display of Sweden's military might.


Tremble in fear world. Behold Sweden's army! All of Sweden's army.






"Uhh, Blake ... can you give me a minute? I'm on the phone with Laura."


Next to the parliament:


After a quick introduction to the town, we took a trip out to the campus of KTH (the technical university in Stockholm). On the campus of KTH is IVL (If you can't tell, I don't know what any of these acronyms mean), which is where Courtney will be working next Fall (now official)! While she was having fika (coffee break) with her future employers I wandered around KTH's campus:


A cool sculpture:


After her meeting, which went well, we wandered around the city a little more before heading to dinner.


No, the buildings aren't actually slanting like this, I'm just a terrible photographer.




After our walk through Gamla Stan, we headed back to our hostel/boat to relax before going back out heading for dinner and drinks.






We went to this awesome German/Swedish restaurant. We ordered a Swedish sausage dish as well as the herring platter which was surprisingly really tasty. Additionally, we enjoyed a bunch of tasty German brews.




Afterwards, we were off to the Stockholm Absolut Ice Bar. It's a small room in a hotel, probably fits at most 30 people, but everything is made out of ice. The walls are blocks of ice, the bar was made of ice, there was an ice table, and numerous sculptures.


Skål! The cups were made of ice too. Courtney said it best: "You can even take them with you!"






Brr it's cold ...




It was a cool atmosphere. Everyone there was a tourist, and everyone was going crazy with their cameras, so it was easy to meet and start conversations with people from random corners of the world. These two British blokes were having a competition of who could hold their hand to the table the longest.


Here's us with the winner, and I use that term loosely ... this could be an advertisement for Lonely Planet (although fyi, if Lonely Planet says a museum or attraction is free, expect them to be lying).








After that, we called it an early night. This photo was taken walking away from the old town. Our hostel is on of the boats in the water (although it might actually be slightly off camera ... hard to tell).


And thus ended our first day in Stockholm.