Scandinavia Day 7

Day 7 started out with breakfast in the hotel and then a trip to the airport.
by the way, here's the hotel where I stayed, right on the water:



And this was my room, which was very simple, but I loved it.





Have I mentioned how awesome the airports are in Norway? I was checked in and was on my way to the plane in about 5 minutes. Security has not changed much through the years. It was quite refreshing.

So I flew in to Stockholm and met up with Julia. This is a city in which she lived years ago, so now it was her turn to freak out about how weird/awesome it is to return as a civilian. We went and checked into our hotel and headed straight for Gamla Stan, or "Old Town."



Unlike in Denmark, where I could read all the street signs because the written language is pretty much the same as Norwegian, in Sweden, I could kind of read them, but would get a little thrown because here the language is just a tiny bit off from Norwegian. But it was fun to try. So, to make sense of the phrase Gamla Stan, I would call it Gammel Sted, which is "old place" in Norwegian.

The first day, we walked around a bit and then went to this museum about medieval Stockholm. Apparently, they were digging up the city to build underground parking and found some ruins and decided to make a museum out of it. So the whole museum is underground, which is sort of cool, especially when looking at skeletons and stuff. This is a carving of the medieval city.



Julia's plan of attack for day one in Stockholm was to wander around Gamla Stan and get a lay of the land, so day two, we could hit all the places we wanted to go.

My BFF Esther has always said her last name is unusual enough that people here in the old U S of A don't know how to say or spell it. It must be a bit more common in the land of her people, because here it is on a sign!



I love the manhole covers.



Looking at Gamla Stan from across the canal...



Walking across the bridge that goes into Gamla Stan, there was a "protest" going on in the city from people demanding a train that goes to their small town (at least that's what Swedish-speaking Julia said.)



Inside Gamla Stan...









I popped in a shop and picked up this T-shirt for my nephew because I didn't find a hat or gloves for him. He liked the soccer shirts I bought in Brazil 5 years ago, so I thought this was a good choice, especially because our peeps are Swedish.





More Stockholm to come...