Stockholm, Sweden - August 21-27

(Victoria)
Stockholm is a bustling, diverse city, both of which immediately stood out to us after having been in the much more sedate and border stringent and less liberal Norway. It felt a little strange as we have not been in any thing this large or crowded in weeks.

Stockholm is a lovely city that traverses over bridges and between thousands of islands…some even claim over 20,000 make up the archipelago that eventually crumbles into the Baltic. It is hard to get a true sense of this city in just a few days as each area has its own distinct personality. In fact, within mere blocks the personality of the area seems to change. We spent most of our time on the peninsula of Skeppsholmen where the park-like atmosphere houses several museums and overlooks the marina; Gamla Stan or Old Town which is now filled with hip stores and restaurants; and the lush island Djurgarden which is home to Skansen, a huge open-air museum with a fabulous little zoo. And, we spent one day walking the entire city.

One of the highlights was definitely Skansen. I got to touch a reindeer's antlers (fuzzy) and a baby reindeer licked my fingers!!! I have mixed feelings about zoos, but there were tons of baby animals so I took that as a healthy sign. The baby reindeer walked right up to me and let me touch his downy fur. He was adorable. We also got to witness the feeding time and saw brown bear with three cubs, lynx with kittens, and even moose, much closer than when we saw them in the wild in Norway. It was a really fun way to spend a drizzly day.

(Bill)
We took a plane from Bergen to Oslo (1 hour) and from Oslo to Stockholm, Sweden (1 hour) - two more of our cheap airline finds within Scandinavia. Stockholm is a huge city built completely on islands. There are literally more than 10,000 islands that make up Stockholm. The city was definitely the largest and most diverse we have been through since leaving New York City in early July. For me it was kind of strange to be thrown back in the middle of a busy city after having spent many weeks in relative seclusion in Norway. But in a way, it was nice to feel the energy of a real cosmopolitan city again. I wouldn't say Stockholm was the cleanest city we have been through and there is definitely a noticeable pollution price being paid by the environment to keep all of the people moving from island to island throughout the city.

The weather was noticeably warmer in Stockholm compared to Norway and Denmark with highs in the mid-70's and a little rain.

On our first full day in the city we took a wonderful 5 mile self guided walking tour from island to island through many of the main parts of Stockholm. From the city center of Kungstradgarden with men playing chess on life size chess boards next to a large, sunken public meeting square, through the long, touristy outdoor shopping mall, along the water and over a bridge to Stadshuset and the large church-like town hall, back over a bridge to Gamla Stan, the oldest part of the city with tight, stone laid streets lined with shops, galleries, and cafes, over a bridge and past the impressive royal palace, over another bridge and another bridge to Skeppsholmen dotted with museums and parks, back over many bridges to the hip, young area of Sodermalm where we stayed.

On another day we took a ferry 15 minutes to the island of Djurgarden. The island has a large, Coney Island style amusement park, which we avoided like the plague, and many museums and parks. We went to Skansen, a huge outdoor park filled with traditional Swedish homes and buildings and an impressive zoo. The zoo was extremely interesting as it housed some animals we aren’t accustomed to seeing in zoos - moose, elk, reindeer, and wolves to name a few.

Bill and Victoria's Russian Visa Fun - Stage 1:
So, this was an experience that I will NEVER forget. First, decide you want to go to Russia because you are going to be in Helsinki, which is mere hours from St. Petersburg and you think how easy it will be to get there, look in the guidebook and realize you need a visa but assume that will be an easy enough process (why would any country make it difficult for us to visit), book a hotel in Russia, prepay for the hotel in Russia, do more research on the visa process and realize it may be a bit more involved than you first thought, print out the Russian visa application for US citizens from the Russian consulate website, call the hotel in Russia and get an invitation and voucher faxed to your hotel as the visa application requires, have the hotel tell you they will fax an invitation and voucher application to your hotel, wait for fax, wait for fax, call the Russian hotel because the fax doesn't come, have the hotel email it to you instead, wait for email, wait for email, get email, print out invitation/voucher application, fax completed application to Russian hotel, go have passport photos taken to accompany visa application while waiting for Russian hotel to send official invitation and voucher, spend lots of time filling out the Russian visa application, spend lots of time making copies of all of the forms, find out where the Russian consulate is, take a bus to the consulate, be very proud of yourself for pulling all of this together, get to the non-descript Russian consulate, find out the Russian consulate is only open 9-12 Monday through Friday, look at your watch, realize it’s 3pm on Thursday and you are leaving for Russia on Tuesday, say lots of things that shouldn’t be repeated, get back on the bus, go back to hotel, have a glass of wine, breath, go back to the Russian consulate the next day, this time early in the morning, have the scary Russian guard buzz you in to enter the consulate building, take a number from the funky circa 1960’s electric number machine thing, wait in old stale waiting room with 20 other people, be nervous, very nervous because you think the Russians are going to take you away forever for no reason, notice that the three visa interview rooms with smoky glass doors and images of people behind them remind you of an old police interrogation chamber, wait, wait, wait for one of the scary interview rooms to buzz with your number over the entrance, go into the visa interview room, close the smoky glass door behind you, become one of those images behind the doors, look at the scary visa application lady behind the bullet proof window who you think may call the scary Russian guard over to take you away forever for no reason, be told by the application lady that the form you downloaded from their site and spent hours filling out is the wrong form, say lots of things to yourself that shouldn’t be repeated, be given a new form by the visa application lady, go outside and fill out the new forms, go back inside without waiting and get good vibes from application lady, think to yourself that this may actually work, have the application lady look at your departure date and tell you that Stockholm doesn't do express visas which you need because you are leaving for Russia in five days and have already paid for your hotel, say lots of things to yourself that shouldn't be repeated, start to feel blood boil, go home with tail between your legs, pout, pout, pout to your wife, ponder Russian trip, receive email from Russian consulate in Helsinki, Finland indicating that they do same day visas, decide not to give up and rather put yourself through more visa fun! Oh, don't think we would stop here. We're committed and determined. They can't keep us out. To be continued...see Helsinki, Finland for Stage 2.

(Oddities or Things We Noticed)
Greeting: "Hey"

Swedish sounds much softer, more Latin-based even though Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish are all pretty much the same.

Apel = Orange; Epel = Apple.

Coffee by George, Coffee by RCoffee, Coffee by Wayne...Coffee by just about everyone.

Frapino = I was once again able to get my blended iced coffee sans ice; it was more a cold foamy coffee, but my addiction can be met.

Very hip fashion here - like L.A.

Ah, fresh salad!!! An avocado, a real avocado!