Hey Hey Stockholm!

So I'm finally back in the states again, and this time for longer than mere days... whew! While traveling is wonderful and a huge part of my life, I'm relieved to say I have no big trips coming up (except for WV over July 4th weekend, but as far as I'm concerned, if the flight is less than 10 hours, it hardly counts)!

But this last trip to Stockholm was wonderful... it was a girl's trip with Vicki and Jo, and over a week and a half of London to start with, hopping over to Stockholm for the week, and back to London for a day before heading home (so we could pick up and drop off Jo there, and because airfare to Stockholm directly was more expensive with miles and such).

There's no way I can do a day by day account since I wasn't writing while there (sorry!), but I can give some highlights and post some of my favorite pictures...

In London just minutes away from seeing Sex and the City 2 (a GREAT jet lag fighter)!

The countryside just a short walk from Jo's hometown / village of Witham on the Hill... so picturesque and a perfect English day!



Then off to Stockholm! Stockholm is an amazing city that resembles other European cities, but dropped into an alpine looking climate (minus the mountains) with tall pine trees and beautiful green scenery and LOTS and LOTS of water!

One of our first days was spent touring the Royal Palace, which was especially fun because there is to be a royal wedding next week and the whole city was buzzing with the excitement and anticipation!

Changing of the guard at the palace

Outside the palace in one of the squares

Another favorite activity was getting to see Stockholm by boat! They have both a Hop On Hop Off Bus tour, AND a Hop On Hop Off Boat Tour, so we opted to see the city by sea in the middle of Stockholm's famous archipelago!

The Royal Palace from the water


One of the stops on the tour boat was the Vasa Museum... one of the highlights for me to be sure! It's a museum dedicated to the Vasa warship - a genuine and authentic Man-of-War from the 1600's that sank on its maiden voyage, and thus rested on the ocean floor for over 300 years before it was brought up in the 60's or 70's to be 95% in tact as it was the day it sank... absolutely incredible!

We see man-of-wars in films, and I read about them all the time in my obsession with historical fiction, so to see what an actual warship of they day looked like was impressive. It was absolutely larger than life and truly awesome. The Vasa is the only surviving man-of-war of its kind from that era, and it gave me goosebumps to imagine what it would have looked like in the water (if it hadn't sunk of course - it was top heavy), and to think of what kind of heart-dropping fear it would have inspired to anyone who sighted it on water approaching... wow.



Skansen was another big outing for us as it is one of the more famous activities in Stockholm. It's basically a large park that boasts a zoo of nordic animals, and also a bunch of authentic and original buildings and villages from across Sweden's regions and historical eras that have been moved there for preservation and educational purposes. They have people stationed in each area to tell visitors about life in that snapshot in time, and even demonstrations, and it was so cool and fun to have a wander around this huge park!










We also spent one day exploring the archipelago by boat! We took an hour and a half boat ride out to Vaxholm, a small island that is both quaint and cute, to explore and be there for the Boat Day Parade (I swear we were in Stockholm at all the right moments - all of these wonderful holidays and activities that we were completely unaware of that we got to take so much advantage of)!




Stockholm by sunset on our way back from Vaxholm

The steamships coming in as a boat parade!

A Band playing for the parade in front of the Vaxholm Palace / Fortress

SWEDISH PANCAKES! YUM!

Then at the end of the week it was time for the Stockholm Marathon! Vicki and Jo both did so great, and I had such a good time running all over Stockholm to see them both 4 times before the finish line! The 5+ hours went by actually really quickly, and I was so proud of them... below is a picture of us when they both finished!

A smiling Jo turning the corner of mile 21!

Over the whole course of the trip I found myself going back to Gamla Stan - the old town. It's so pretty, and quaint, and reminded me of Italy so every spare moment I had was spent somewhere on the tiny island...






Us girls at what became my favorite little coffee shop! They even provide blankets to customers, and we had such fun overlooking the square!

One night (a Tuesday, I believe) we landed in this bar with a live music cover band... we had a blast dancing and letting a little loose!







A party "bus" - they were all over Stockholm on Friday... speakers booming music, student age people screaming and yelling, throwing beer and making it fizz on passerbys (you could hear them coming from a mile away so if you were in the line of fire it was your own fault)... we have no idea if school had just gotten out or what, but it looked kind of fun!

I loved, loved, loved this... a huge sphere that was let down for prayerful people and then hoisted up in the back of the church.



Swedish meatballs - YUM!

Love 2010 live music in celebration of National Day and the Royal Wedding. My favorite was Johnossi who sang "What's the Point" - such a great song that I looked it up here on itunes but it's not out yet in the U.S.

So that's Sweden in a nutshell! Will probably go back someday as it was so pretty - this time I'll take Curt with me!