Day 2 – Traveling around Stockholm: Monday, October 31, 2011

On a bridge in the City of Stockholm

            Today we spent the day traveling around Stockholm. It is a beautiful sight to see and the weather is making the traveling even more enjoyable. The weather here is about 11 degrees Celsius, which is about 52 degrees Fahrenheit! Just warm enough to still go outside and bundle up in my sweatshirts! All we did today was explore Sweden and I am falling in love with the city! We started our walk towards the harbor where ships dock. Walking around and seeing the beautiful structure of the buildings is so breath taking. Words cannot describe the experience that I am already having!

A Wolverine

On our adventure around Stockholm, we went to the place called Skansen. It makes me think of the state of Wisconsin! Skansen was so beautiful. It reminded me of a miniature settlement for the Swedish culture. We saw houses that were made out of logs, people dressed in Swedish clothes, and the Norwegian animals. We even saw a lady reading a story in Swedish to the kids in a tent. I thought it was interesting to see the culture of the Swedish. While visiting Skansen, we toured the Scandinavian animal exhibit and it was different seeing the kinds of animals throughout Sweden. They had bears, wolves, wolverines, moose, seals, and owls. When you hear the term wolverine, you think of a wolf, but when exploring the exhibit, the animals looked just like a badger! (See the photo I took of the wolverines) I find it very interesting how we have terms for animals in the United States that are completely different than the Swedish.

Grey Owl

            Here is a little more about Skansen: Skansen is the most popular tourist destination in Sweden. Founded in 1891, the museum offers visitors a unique experience of life in Sweden in the earlier times. Skansen is home to Scandinavian animals such as bears, wolves, lynxes, and wolverines! If you ever have a day to travel to Sweden, I highly suggest going to Skansen, it was such a fun tourist place and it only cost us 70 Kronor (which is about $10.87 United States Dollars).

The Vasa

            Another exhibit that we went to visit today was the Vasa Museet (Vasa Museum). On August 10, 1628, Vasa set sail on her voyage and sank in the Stockholm harbor. The wreck was salvaged in 1961 after 333 years under the sta. The reconstructed vessel (95 percent original) is splendidly adorned with hundreds of carved sculptures. Today, Vasa is one of the world’s foremost tourist attractions and offers a unique insight to the early 17^th – century Sweden. This was another attraction that I found unique! It was a museum of the Vasa ship that sank only sank 2 kilometers (1.242 miles) out into the harbor. The museum has the ship displayed and you could smell the aging of the wood on the ship. Some parts of the ship had been replaced due to water damage, but most of the ship was in its original form from being pulled from the water! It was really cool to see the ship, the design of the ship before it sank, and learning about an important part of the Swedish history. P.S. No one really knows the true reason the ship sank and about 30 to 50 people died while sailing on the ship.

Learning the history of Stockholm, Sweden is so interesting! So much to share and I am taking so many pictures! Our plan for the morning is to see the Palace where the king and queen work, and then it is off to Gothenburg, Sweden for a few days!

Day 1 - Traveling to Sweden: Sunday, October 30, 2011

            Today I left home to for an experience of a lifetime! I cannot wait to see what this adventure of traveling to Sweden has in store for me!

            I woke up this morning anxious and ready to go, still packing my last minute items and making sure I had everything I needed!  Finally after making sure I had everything, I was ready to go!

            I arrived at the airport, met up with the other girls I am traveling with, and we made it through security just fine. We waited for our plane and at 3:45 p.m. we started boarding the plane! At that point, I knew the adventure was just starting to begin! It was a long plane ride to Stockholm, Sweden. We were on the plane for seven hours. We were fed dinner and breakfast on the plane. The food was not bad at all. For dinner we had chicken and rice in teriyaki sauce, “a salad” which only had lettuce, pinto beans, and corn, some rich cheesecake, and bread.  For breakfast, they gave up a ham sandwich, which had cream cheese on the bun, cheese, ham, lettuce and cucumbers. I do have to say, that was an interesting meal for breakfast! It also included some Greek yogurt. While on the plane, we had the opportunity to watch different movies at your own pleasure. There was a T.V. screen on the back of the seat in front of us! We also could watch the moving plane on a map to show us where we were in the sky. None of the girls I was traveling with got any sleep on the plane ride, which made it a very interesting morning for us!

           

            Finally at 6:35 a.m. we arrived in Stockholm, Sweden. We were all very excited to be off the plane and actually able to move around. The only problem we had was the plane arrived early to the gate and we could not get into our hostel until 2:00 p.m. We were all exhausted and made our way to the hostel by the Stockholm bus. The hostel we are staying at is called "City Backpackers” and it is one of the nicer hostels in the areas. There are three bunk beds in our room and it feels just like staying in a dorm room! Since we had to wait almost five hours for our room, we decided that we were going to walk around Stockholm for a few hours. What an experience!

            As we arrived in the city of Stockholm, we started seeing differences from home. First, everything is in Swedish, some things are written in “British” English but it still makes everything very difficult to understand Swedish. Good thing I have my handy Swedish dictionary! The street signs look different. For example, the speed limit signs are a circle with a number in the middle. Very different than home! We also have to pay to use the public bathroom!  Even though I have the Swedish background in me, I did not fit in very well. I was wearing a sweatshirt with a pair of comfortable pants and tennis shoes on the plane. All the Sweden’s wear nice boots, skinny jeans, and nice dress shirts. I felt very undressed and wished I had traveled in a better outfit.

The scenery in Sweden in beautiful, the trees are turning colors just like the leaves turning color at home. It makes me feel like I am right at home! Well, it’s off to bed for the night. We are going to continue our adventure through Stockholm bright and early in the morning.