July 22, 2003
I am now in Stockholm, Sweden at the train station having a Diet Coke with ice, life is good!
This morning Laurie and I went to Usuit. The computers weren't working so we went to the hostel to have breakfast and pack up. With our backpacks we walked to the library to try to use the internet before we caught the train. We had to wait for a half hour to get a computer. We had only about 15 minutes to spare before we had to get to the train station. We got the train to Stockholm at 11:27. It was a good thing that we made reservations because the train was full. This is the first time that I have been on a full train. Most trains we have taken may have only been half full or less. The train we took was on of the speed trains. I don't know if I noticed much difference, just bouncier.
The train was about 45 minutes late getting to Stockholm. It was due to thunderstorms and also because of a train in front with mechanical problems. We arrived in Stockholm about 5:00.
It was raining, but that's OK. We weren't doing anything much.
We found our hostel. The day before I made reservation. I called several before this one and they were full. So I took this one as the last resort. We didn't know much about it.
Our room consisted of 4 bunks of eight beds in a very small room. There was only about a 3 foot aisle. All the beds were taken with young women. They had their stuff pretty spread out and we didn't have much room. At least our beds were by the window.
There reallly wasn't much of a place for us to sit down and plan our days. So we walked to the train station. They had a large place with tables. There was also a food court. Since the hostel didn't have a kitchen for us, we had to eat out. Eating out really changes the expenses for the day. Things aren't as expensive in Sweden, compared to Norway, but it is more than the states.
Laurie and I spent about three hours there. We planned our days for about the next week. Then we had dinner there. It was about 10:30 by the time we got back to the hostel. When we got in our room, the lights were out and everyone was sleeping. Well, I am glad they aren't late partiers.
July 23, 2003
After our breakfast, Laurie and I did errands. Our big search was for phone cards. I thought the woman at the information center told us that we could get a card that we could use in any country. We found out that was not correct. We found a card that we could use in the Scandanavian countries, so we decided to get that. The only problem was we couldn't use it at the phone booths. We had to buy another card just to use there. It is a real hassle to make calls. We have our ekit card, but found out that it was really expensive to call within countries. We are hoping that this will be less expensive. We did mess up, though, on using the phone booth card and the card was used up real quick. We had to go buy another. I guess it's all a learning process.
After we got that sorted, we went to look for this park. There was going to be free music there. There is suppose to be a jazz festival starting on the week-end. Having the bands here in the park was to help promote it. We stayed for awhile and then left. We walked around a bit and then went back to the hostel. I read and took a nap.
I got up about 5:00. We were going to go to the old section of Stockholm called Gamla Stan. There was a choir concert at a German church there.
Gamla Stan is a neat little area. It has 3-4 story old buildings built in the 16-17 century and they are attached and line the narrow cobblestone streets and allyways. There are neat little chops and restaurants, lots of people filled the streets. Luckily, cars weren't able to travel down most of them.
We found the German church. We arrived there a little late, but we could get seats. It was a free concert. I believe the choir group was from England. I don't know a lot about music and choirs, but I thought their voices were beautiful and that they were very good. I though the chois director was very enjoyable to watch. She was very dramatic in a graceful way. I thought of her as a dancer, but only her arms and hands were moving. I thought maybe I should go back to church just to hear people sing.
We had to leave a little early because we were going to do a guided walking tour of the old section. We met in a square for the English guided tour. It was nice because it pointed out things that one never really sees unless it is pointed out. The guide explained certain architectural differences between the 17th and 18th century.
Gamla Stan is one of the 14 islands connected that make up Stockholm. There are 24,000 islands and inlets that protect Stockholm ____ islands. After the tour, Laurie and I walked back to the hostel for the evening.
July 24, 2003
Laurie and I were out of the hostel by 8:00 or so. We wanted to go to the train station and put our backpacks in a luggage locker. We then had to do a few things before we walked to the pier where we were catching a boat.
We were taking a boat to Birka. It was a 1 3/4 hour boat ride through the islands. We sat on top and had a beautiful ride. There was a guide who spoke while we were riding. She told us some history concerning the islands. The boat was a little crowded.
Birka is an island where they have been doing archeological digs since 1995. They have been finding artifacts used during the Viking period and of a settlement from this period. The Viking period is from about 750 AD to 1050 AD, which I think the guide said was also part of the Iron Age.
On the island there is a small museum with some original artifacts that they have found. Most of the items that they have are copies. The theme was about food; the food they ate and the feast that they held. They also had a model of what the settlement appeared to be by their findings.
