Day 36, STOCKHOLM!

So today we spent a full day in Stockholm! 


I was so excited about it that I woke up at 4:30 am to the sun shining in my eyes and couldn't go back to sleep... so I decided to work out on the elliptical. That lasted approx. 5 minutes, and I decided I should at least try to go back to sleep so I wasn't miserable in Stockholm. I finally fell back asleep at 5:45, and my alarm went off at 7. We got ready, had breakfast, took Louisa to school, and then was on our way!


We parked in Stockholm around 9:45 am, and we walked to buy tickets to ride a boat over to another island that is part of Stockholm so we could see the Vasa Museum. We got to the Vasa Museum at 10:30, and was able to find an English speaking tour guide. Once she told us all there was to know, we watched a 30 minute video on the Vasa ship, and then walked around on our own taking pictures. 


After the museum, we walked to a cafe on the harbor for lunch. I had shrimp salad with herb cottage cheese that was very good! After we were finished eating, we walked to the subway to get to where the Hard Rock Cafe and the Harley Davidson store was. Then we started walking and making our way back to the middle of Stockholm, stopping at many souvenir shops and other shops on the way to shop and look around. 


We finally ended up in Old Town around 3, where we walked around the Royal Palace. The King and Queen no longer live in that palace, they live in a castle outside of Stockholm. Once we were done looking at the palace, we walked down some of the old alleyways in Old Town and stopped at an ice cream shop where they were making their own waffle cones in the shop. They had vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon, and some other kind of waffle cones. I ordered a chocolate flavored waffle cone with a scoop of pecannut caramel ice cream and a scoop of brownie ice cream. It was delicious! Then we took our ice cream and walked to another small cafe where we could sit down for awhile and Rey and Micke could order a beer, and Karin ordered a latte. 


When we left there, we walked back to the car to put more money in the meter, and then we were going to walk to this huge elevator that you take really high up so you can see all over Stockholm. Well, the elevator was broken, so we took the stairs. Then we found out that there was another small elevator we could have taken.. but oh well! more exercise. After taking some pictures up there, we made our way to another part of Stockholm that was very crowded with tables everywhere where people were eating or drinking. We found a table and had dinner. I had a shrimp smorgasbord sandwich thing. It's very Swedish. It's a round piece of pita bread with boiled eggs, mayo, shrimp, cucumber, tomato, lettuce, and red pepper. It's very good! 


Once we ate and sat awhile longer for the men to have a couple more beers, we walked around some more. Karin and I went into this shop called ginatricot and I found very cute tops! I was excited because before then I hadn't spent any money! and even then Karin bought the shirts for me, but I will be paying her back... we just didn't know how much money I had on the Swedish account they gave me. 


Once we were finished shopping, we walked back to the car. We spent a good 10 hours in Stockholm walking around all day. Needless to say, I'm exhausted and my legs hurt, but I had a great day!!! 


Tomorrow will be another early morning for me.. I'm waking up at 5 am to be at the bakery from 6 -10 am. Then it's my BIRTHDAY! YAYY!! My package from home should be delivered tomorrow! perfect timing! We are having cake around 2 pm tomorrow with some of the softball team, and then grilling out tomorrow night... hopefully fish and smoked salmon that we had at Midsummer that I loved! 


Check out my album on Facebook from today! lots of good pictures! 


I'll talk to yall tomorrow.. a year older and wiser :) GOODNIGHT!