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
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