Excellent Adventure - Day 2 (Stockholm)

It sure helps to have a full night's sleep. What a difference! Too bad there really is no way to avoid a red eye flight for trans-Atlantic flights heading east.

Picking hotels in foreign countries is a bit of a gamble - even after research, it all pretty much comes down to trusting the reviews. The reviews on this hotel (Hotel Rica) were pretty much on target - it was reasonably priced (for Stockholm), the location is perfect (the center of town and walking distance to a lot of things), and - most importantly - the breakfast is *really* good. Seriously, every single review ranted and raved about the free breakfast (unusual for a big city hotel). And they were right! An amazing array of foods, some of which I had absolutely no idea what they were! Andy made himself a waffle, and I had three different kinds of yogurt and something that was labeled "omelet" - only it came in square pieces. Whatever. It was all very tasty.

First on our list of things to see today was the Vasa Museum - the museum is built around a 17th century Swedish  war ship that sank right in the port on the day it was launched. It lay buried for 300 years, until it was found and raised in the early 1960's. Here's a couple of photos:

Side view:

The towards the bow:

Pretty darn cool.

After lunch, we went to the park across the street called "Skansen". 

Dubbed "an outdoor museum", we didn't really have a clue until we walked and saw - All. Those. Children. Lots and lots of little blonde children. Hmmm.....

There were rides for children, craft activities for children, lots of playgrounds for children...ok, then, perhaps if we had realized this was really a children's thing, we might have done something else. 

We were able to figure out that that the "outdoor museum" part was the collection of very old original Scandinavian buildings - some of them hundreds of years old.

But the best part was the zoo - of course. Though no elephants, it was still pretty cute. There was this rather aggressive squirrel:

who proceeded to jump on people trying to take photos. Not me, though - I stared right into its beady little eyes and threatened it with my walking stick!

By the time we were done with the park, it was late in the afternoon and I was about done with walking for the day. We took the tram back to the hotel - during Stockholm's rush hour, woohoo!

With no desire to schlep anywhere far for dinner, we randomly picked a restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel. 

And now we're sitting in the hotel lobby (where the wifi signal is strongest), catching up on email/facebook/blogging while watching the Olympics in real time. Hmmm, to spoil or not to spoil, that is the question....

GO USA!

Tomrrow: Andy goes for a run and tries to stick to his chosen path, we have one more shot at the great breakfast here at the hotel, then pack up and grab a cab to the port. MS Eurodam, here we come!!

Hej, Hej, Hej from Stockholm!

AND - we're off!

Per the plan, we drove directly to JFK. We were at the gate sometime after 3:00 (?). A rather uneventful flight, though I was not able to scrape together as many sleep-bites as I was hoping to. I need eye shades. I could not effectively block out the flickering of the movie monitors.

I knew I was officially on vacation when I asked for a Diet Coke and got "Coke Lite" instead. Tastes like "Tab", for anybody out there who admits to remembering it.

Though I was surprised to see this on the Coke can:

Wait, what? Israel is *next* year's trip!

The airport in Stockholm was eerily quiet - not too many early morning flights on Sundays, I guess. We randomly picked a cabbie from the taxi stand and off we went. I kept dozing off during the 30 minute ride. Good thing it was a fixed price, because the driver had a hard time finding the street. Which in hindsight is a little odd, because Kungesgatan is actually a huge street.

As expected, when we arrived at the hotel right around 9:00 a.m., our room was not ready. We stored our big luggage and headed out.

We wandered through the old town a bit:

Per recommendations from various sources, we decided to take the "Under the Bridges" boat tour - besides the fact that we heard it was very good, we could also (good news!) sit down for 2 hours. And then afterwards we could go to lunch, then go back to the hotel to check in and pass out for a bit.

The tour is indeed very good - though I don't remember much of the content of the audio guide. Bad news! sitting in a gently rocking boat is not a good idea when you are already having problems staying awake!.

This is the Vasa Museum - we'll be going there tomorrow after a good night's sleep:

At lunch we began to decode Swedish, beyond the few phrases we had looked up on the internet ("hej" is "hi", "jah" is "yes", "nej" is "no", etc.). "Kyckling" is "chicken", "ost" is "ham", and "kyklon" is turkey. "Tack" is thank you and "Vars se god" is "you're welcome".

Finally back at the hotel and checked into our room, I wanted to charge up my phone before passing out. Only to discover the power adapters that worked just fine in Italy and Spain do NOT fit Swedish outlets. Arg. Brave Andy went out to a nearby store and got another one - but in my complete brain-deadness, I forgot that the computers have 3 prong plugs. Arg Arg. But at the very least, my phone and camera are charged up. My computer *should* make it to Tuesday when we board ship and have access to US power.

After passing out for a couple of hours, for dinner we found a recommended restaurant, but our luck - it was closed for vacation! Nevermind, we ate at Jensen's Bofhouse (ah HAH "bof" = "beef", add another word to our vocabulary list.

Ok, so even with a 2 hour nap, we're about done for the day.

Tomorrow: The Vasa Museum

On the boat again....Excellent Adventure 2012 Edition

Well, it's that time of year again! Andy and I are within a couple days of our next Excellent Adventure - Holland America's "10-day Baltic Jewels" cruise.

Stockholm, Sweden (board on July 31)
Tallinn, Estonia
Helsinki, Finland
St Petersburg, Russia
Berlin, Germany
Hamburg, Germany
Copenhagen, Denmark
Amsterdam, Netherlands (disembark on August 10)

Can we say "Excitement!". Yes. Yes, we can.

This year, this blog is dedicated to my mom, Agnes Adler, who passed away last November at the ripe old age of 97. It was from her that I inherited the Travel Itch - she who wanted to join the Navy during WW II to hop on a ship and "see the world". Which didn't happen - she found out that women weren't allowed on board ship (this was 1942), so she joined the Army instead. And ended up in Indiana. And Washington, DC. Not what she had in mind.

Even though she eventually went to Israel (twice - her first trip to Israel was the first time she ever flew), Mt Saint Helens and the Grand Canyon, she never did get to "see the world".

I started blogging with our first cruise to Alaska in 2008. Since she never did quite get the hang of the concept of "click on the link", I would email her a copy of my blog post every single day (using a REALLY HUGE FONT so she could read it). I did that every day for each cruise for the last 3 years. It was great to hear her say, "It's just like I was there with you!!"

Though I won't be sending those daily emails this year, this is still for you, Mom.