Stockholm Sweden
"I'm on a boat!"
That's right, folks! We're on a boat! It took us pretty much all day to reach this point, but I'd have to say that it's pretty exciting! So let me begin, as this is really a story of triumph through some pretty rough times.
So naturally, we were up early for the 8:30am tablet-making lab experience that we had this morning PLUS we had to check out of the hostel this morning. It was an especially hard morning, as we had to carry our valuables with us (which are unfortunately heavy), and we left our bags with our clothes behind at the hostel until we made our way back by en route to Central Station.
We ate a quick lunch at Jalla again. We got the pizza I had the other day, and Josh got an order of French fries. We did this partially because I get stuck on things I like and partially because we couldn't decipher much else on the menu. Swedish is difficult to translate without a translator or a phrase book. Note to self...
I may have also gone by H & M and gotten a scarf...or two =) I'll model those for you later!
After that, we stopped off at the hostel to pick up the rest of our stuff and mosied on to Uppsala Central Station where we caught the SJ (the Swedish train system) to Stockholm. Once there, we went to war with the SL access cards. For those of you traveling to Sweden next year, you're going to want to talk to me about this. Otherwise, I'm going to skip that story as I'm really too tired to tell it. Suffice it to say, it can be difficult when you don't know Swedish, even when the instructions are also listed in English...thankfully everyone speaks English, so you can usually figure out a way around your issues.
Once equipped with our SL access cards loaded up for a week of Stockholm travel which we hope will get us to everywhere we need to go for rotation with a few bonus sightseeing trips here and there, we hopped on the green line Hasselby strand and got off at Odenplan. From there, we walked several blocks over to Sveavagen to the Hotell Vanadis. I'm going to stop at this point and say that this place smelled like a giant WC (that's bathroom for you Americans out there). So after much searching and a lot of help from Joseph Pandit (my hero!) regarding my Skype account...
...we relocated to the lovely isle of Gamla Stan. Actually, we might be on another island by the name of Riddarholmen...or is that a part of Gamla Stan...well, actually, let's be honest, we're not really ON any island perse...we're in the water on a boat off of Gamla Stan/Riddarholmen!
And let me just tell you that the view from here is absolutely spectacular! Our room overlooks the water, you know, as opposed to the dock. The dock isn't the prettiest view for sure. They've got a lot of construction going on around here, by the way.
Anyhow, let me recap my favorite things about this boat:
1. It's a boat...but we don't sway with the breeze or anything. I'm sure I'd get seasick if that was the case, but considering how awesome this is, I'd stick it out.
2. It's got a fantastic view of the water.
3. It's got a fantastic view of Gamla Stan.
4. It's got a fantastic view of Sodermalm.
5. It's got a shower and WC all our own =) =) =) although, I will say that this shower and WC is not as nice as the ones that were at our hostel =/
6. It comes with a complimentary hair dryer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The past few days I borrowed one from a Dutch girl in the room next to ours at the hostel, and it made my whole day...
7. It has closet space.
8. It has floor space.
9. There is a desk.
10. We can open a porthole to let in the breeze. The place we came from was windowless (with complementary bathroom smell...). The hostel had lovely windows. But this is cool just because it's a porthole!
11. There is a restaurant on board!
12. plus some observation decks, or so Josh tells me. I'm going to check them out tomorrow.
13. free breakfast--this is pretty typical. we're hoping it's a good one based on the quality of our accommodations.
14. We have so much space because there are bunk beds in this piece! woot!
Okay, I have now been awake for 22 hours. I think it's time for bed. I'll do some photo stuff tomorrow. Today has been a very long and tiring day of traveling.
Goodnight!
<3 Sara "T-pain" Bliss
Addendum: So I forgot to include our photos from our dinner this day. I will now add them here as they were most delicious and should not be forgotten! I had a cheese and tomato panini-type sandwich. Josh had a ham and cheese panini. They each came with a little salad on the side which had green olives and an excellent balsamic vinaigrette. Yum!
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