europe part I... the short version - SWEDEN!

I know this is *technically* a blog for my kids, but occasionally I throw stuff in here that I want to remember for myself. This is one of those. :) 11 days away from my husband and kids, and I'm happy to say I survived, and actually enjoyed myself - most of the time. It was incredibly scary to leave like that. Seriously, during take-off on the flight that left Minneapolis (to Amsterdam), I had a knot in my stomach like I'd never felt. To be that far away from everyone, everything, just plain scary. The travel time itself was just absolutely exhausting. On the way there, it was about 16 hours. I was so tired by the time we made it to Amsterdam (and still had a 2.5 hour flight left to Stockholm), I sat in the Amsterdam airport lounge and blankly watched CNN-Tokyo for 2 hours.

So I'll try to hit the highlights. Stockholm first - and by far my FAVORITE. I've always said London is my favorite city, and it still is, but as a country, Sweden wins. Holy cow, what a great place! So much to see, great weather (and yes, I'm aware it gets very cold there, but I love the cold and snow/ice), and it was just CLEAN. I didn't feel crowded constantly like you do in the other major European cities, and it was incredibly safe. The downside to Sweden? EXPENSIVE. Seriously - far worse than the UK, which I had always thought was break-the-bank expensive.

We spent the first evening just walking around, checking out the Old Town area, which is a ton of restaurants, shops, bars, etc. Our hotel was actually right off this area. We walked around the King and Queen's palace, and walked down by the water. The second day, we were on a client site all day, but spent the late afternoon /evening walking again, seeing lots of history, more shops, and my highlight - the ICE BAR! Oh yes, it was totally made of ice. The bar itself, the cups, the walls, the benches, tables, EVERYTHING. The funny part of this was that you have to pay before you even go in. They tell you that your cost covers the price of one drink, and you can stay 45 minutes. I was miffed they were telling me how long I could stay, and that my drink had to have vodka in it (not that I'm a big drinker anyway, but can't I pick my own liquor??). Ha! Well, they give you this huge poncho with gloves, and send you in. After about 5 minutes, I was so cold I was numb, and sucked down my vodka drink faster than I thought possible and was ready to hightail it out of there. :) Oh well, cool experience! The next morning (Saturday), we went to the Vasa museum, which is a huge museum built around a Swedish battle ship that sank 50 yards out in the harbor in the 1600's (obviously not the most sea-worthy of ships). Anyway, they pulled it up in the 1960's, and it was very well preserved due to the cold water temperature. The museum was very dark, so my pics of this suck, but very cool.

The alleys were incredibly narrow - and Stockholm was VERY hilly. So much so that my legs were sore after walking about 6 hours one day...

The Ice Bar

This was a very cool square with a very interesting bit of Stockholm history. Apparently at one point several hundred years ago, the rulers tricked a few hundred people (who were creating somewhat of an uprising) into coming into this square at the same time, and killed them all... The first night we ate dinner in this square... Mildly creepy?

The King/Queen's palace, but as I understand it, they actually don't stay here much. They have a "summer" home they like much better. :) It's a rough life I guess.

Stockholm City Hall...

By far my favorite pic - the view from my hotel room, looking out at Old Town. I considered crawling out on the little roof you see at the bottom of the picture, but decided that getting arrested in Stockholm probably wasn't my best bet...