Woke up to rain this morning. Once again our timing is good. The week before we left, the weather was code a rainy, yet by the time we got here, it was beautiful. After two gorgeous days in Rovaniemi, we leave when it starts raining.
Flew to Helsinki and had less than 2 hours to collect our luggage, go from the domestic terminal to the international terminal, check-in on a different airline, go through security, and get to our gate. At least our walking the last few days was good training for our sprint between terminals. To make things harder, it was the first day of a month long school break for Scandinavia and the eticket kiosk was down, so the line was packed. I have to admit, I was getting stressed by the time we made it on the plane. But I have to add a cool thing about the Helsinki airport. You know when personnel move around in our airport, they use those golf cart thingies that beep annoyingly? Well in Helsinki, they use scooters (like razors, but more like 7-10 inches wide). It was funny to see these adults in their dress uniforms pushing themselves around on the scooters.
Then we reached Stockholm, took the train into town, and ran into the mass chaos which is central station. We tried to find somewhere to stay, but all the ticket agents had were expensive hotels (>$200). The kiosks had places to stay, but were not real descriptive as to whether the double was one bed or two. In the end we stored our baggages and walked the few blocks to the central information desk. They were great and got us into an unusual place. Our room is extremely tiny (basically two beds, a small refrigerator, a small armoire, a sink, and a narrow walkway between. But our few is fabulous, overlooking a park and then the main city, with the canal in between. Also there is an Internet and some basic kitchen facilities we share with the 10 or so other rooms. We also share a bathroom and shower.
Walked over to the main city island and had corn on the cob from a street vendor for dinner. Sat in a park that was small, but crowded with everyone temperatures of almost 80. Took a boat tour of around a few of the islands (Stockholm is built on 14 islands). It was a great day for it. Then we walked around Gamla Stan (old town), where the palace is as well as the original town of Stockholm. The streets are narrow and wind around, but the buildings are cool. You can also see where the harbor used to be, until they reclaimed some land and added a couple of more streets before the harbor.
First impressions of Stockholm:
* people, people, and more people
* parks, parks, and more parks (there are ~1000 parks in the city)
* expensive! (very little costs less than $10 - $50-$100 for dinner, $50 for the train ride from the airport- luckily Sun has a 2 for 1 deal, and $1 to use the bathroom at McDonald's
* beautiful people - everyone is gorgeous, tall, fit (likely from all the walking and biking), etc.
* they know how to relax - lots of people sitting or walking in the parks, canoeing on the canal, riding one of those boats you pedal, or sailing a boat (an estimated 7% of the population own a boat).
That's all for now. Tomorrow we go to the Vasa Museum - the Vasa is a boat that sank in the canal within 20 minutes of launching. Then who knows what else.
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