Stockholm, Sweden

We arrived in Stockholm early in the morning. Right off we got to see how friendly and helpful the Scandinavians were going to be. We met Joakim in the tourist center and he made us laugh and wake up from our long travels. He had a dry sense of humor and was totally game when we asked him to take pics and even be in the photos with us! He said, "you better not tag me in those on facebook"…so Alison memorized his name...and we totally found him…we're friends now!! Small world!

Bill arrived shortly after us and we took the train into the center of town. We knew we wanted an overview of the city and to see the Viking ship at the Vasa Museum. We hopped on the double decker bus and the trip started! The weather was chilly with ice and snow on the ground…but bundled up it was a perfect day with a gorgeous, sunny sky!

Our first stop was to see the famous Vasa that sank on its maiden voyage…actually, this majestic boat never even made it out of the harbor! It collapsed under the weight of its sail. It was built in the 17^th century…after sinking it spent the next 333 years at the bottom of the sea. It was pulled from the bottom of the sea in 1961 and restoration is still in progress. This museum is awesome! There are school-style diorama projects that will blow you away with mini scaled version of a cross section of the ship, how it was built and how it was rescued from the sea floor.

Next, we hopped back on the bus, some of us took a little power nap prompted by the sun beaming into the bus. We then stopped at Old Town to walk around and grab a bite to eat. Alison had found a coffee shop that was supposed to serve the thick hot chocolate, like we had tried in Ljubljana…and we actually found the place! We all got a hot meal and warmed up from the chilly weather outside. The food was great and the white and regular chocolate was delicious.

From there, we walked the pedestrian area of the Old Town, found a few little tourist shops with Alison's snow globes and crystals for her nieces and a few Swedish items for my family. I even found a keychain with 'mormor' on it!! I was always the only kid with a mormor, so it was pretty cool to see it pre-printed! J

We then walked back to the main area of town. There were lots of shops and the city seemed to come to life in the afternoon. It was very quiet when we arrived at 10ish, then it was totally bustling later in the afternoon. We stumbled on an open air market, took in the flowers, fruits and vegetables. There was a man from Persia at one of the stands that sold nuts and dried fruit. We chatted with him for a while…I think he is the only person in Europe I've met that liked George W…crazy dude! J We bought some corn nuts to snack on thru the trip and I got some for my mom too.

We looked at our map and debated what else to do with our day. We all had achy feet, so we decided to try to catch an earlier flight. We got back to Arlanda Airport and no luck. But, we did have a nice time relaxing in the Prez Club (stocking up on more snacks) until we took off for Oslo.

We arrived in Oslo right on time at about 9:30. Normal landing…then the fun began. After touching down, we didn't even break stride, I looked out the window and commented, "wow, we're still going really fast!" We had to have been doing at least 50mph, thru turns and all. We screeched up to the gate and everyone popped out of their seats…faster than Alison, Bill and me…that NEVER happens. All of a sudden the back door opens, the jetway is open and people are pouring out of the plane and hauling to the terminal. We all look at each other stunned at how fast everyone is moving. Are we missing something here…is there some huge line coming up for immigration? We move up to the walkway in the terminal and everyone is still practically running…Alison is elated and we're all convinced she MUST have Norwegian roots. We run/walk all the way to baggage and head for the train. These people just move fast and it's awesome!

We took the train to our hotel. The Radisson SAS is connected to the rail station by a sky bridge. It was chilly out, but little did we know, the real cold was going to be the next day!