Day off in Stockholm - Jan. 3, 2014

Up early this morning to fly off to Stockholm.  The kitchen had bag lunches for us, ready when we came down for the bus.  They were huge - a bunwich, juice, muffins, coffee, orange, apple, and yogurt.  Needless to say, far too much to eat, so we ate a bit, and left the rest.  It was very good, and a nice gesture.

We bused to Copenhagen to check in.  Our flight was on a Norwegian Air 737-800, a nice little jet. The flight took an hour to get to Stockholm.  Interesting about the flight, they had WiFi which was free, but if you wanted a water or coffee, you had to pay.  I worked on my iPad for the trip, and Dawn tried to get some sleep.

Steeple - Old Town

When we arrived in Stockholm, it was a matter of getting our group organized, finding our guides and boarding the buses.  We had about 80 people in all.

Narrow Walkway

First we drove from the airport for about 40 minutes until we reached Stockholm.  Then we drove around a bit in Stockholm, ending up in Old Town.  From there, we went on a walking tour of Old Town, looking at the castle, the main house of government, some of the magnificent architecture that was built 3 and 400 years ago.  Wow.  It is just spectacular, especially when thinking of the huge amount of work that had to be done, without our modern equipment and machinery.  It must have taken years to put one of these huge buildings together.

We did get some free time to walk around in this area, after our tour guide had shown us the spots they were planning to show.  Some very narrow streets, yet some vehicles still drive on them.  There were also some very narrow sidewalks between buildings, and some that were a little wider, although we had to walk single file, sometimes, when meeting other groups of people.  All the walkways and roads in this section are cobblestone.  Again, it is hard to imagine the work of laying all those cobblestones.

Eva-Victoria in front of Palace

Eva-Victoria, our guide, said that Stockholm usually has snow at this time of year.  However, there wasn't any visible here, the same as Malmo.  I wondered what it must be like to walk down those cobblestone streets and walkways if there was snow.  It seemed to me like they must be very slippery. They were wet because there was a bit of rain and mist, but not slippery to walk on.

After this, they took us to lunch at a small restaurant in a small museum.  They had things ready for us, and we only had an hour before we had to leave to our next venue.  The lunch was light (salad, baked chicken and potatoes), and quite tasty.

Carved Figures from the Ship

TheVasa - 98% restored

Then, we had to walk to our buses and head off to our next spot.  This was the VASA Museum.  Vasa is a ship that had been built for the King of Stockholm, about 500 years ago.  It was the biggest warship at the time.  On its maiden voyage, after travelling less than a kilometre, the problems with its construction became apparent as it did not have a deep enough keel, and it sank in the harbour.  400 years later, it was found, raised, and has now been restored and is kept in the Vasa Museum.  It is a spectacular story.  We were there for about 2 hours, viewing the historical artifacts, and watching a video about it.

Then we were off to another museum.  This one, the ABBA Museum.  We were there for about 2 hours also.  It was spectacular.  There were stations where you can tap on a button, and a recording about that part of the exhibit plays on this small phone that you were given on entry into the museum.  We had a great time, and it brought back many memories of when we were much younger.

After that, off to find our hotel, another Radisson Blu in downtown Stockholm.  Our room was on the 6th floor, and it was the smallest of the 3 hotels we stayed at in

Mixer

At the end of the tour

Sweden.  It was a nice room, but we were happy that we didn't have to spend the whole tournament with this room as our base.

We didn't go to the ice bar with many of the others, and decided to get supper at a nearby restaurant. There was one across the street from the hotel, so we decided to give it a try.  It was similar to Moxies or Milestones back home.  We got seated after a 10 minute wait, at a small table, near the front door.  Not the best seats, but we didn't want to wait any longer.  I had ribs, and Dawn had a chicken breast.  Unfortunately, I didn't understand the portions, and when he asked me if I wanted XXL, I said yes.  Well, when it came, it meant 2 racks of ribs, which was a lot.  I toughened up, though, and ate all of it.  ;-)

Then it was back to our room, read a bit, watch a bit of TV (Dawn found the Edmonton-San Jose game on TV (in English), so we watched a bit of that.  Then to sleep because it was going to be another early morning to head back to Malmo.