7-27-2015 – Stockholm, Sweden – Set Sail

We started today earlier than any of the other days at around 8:00. We headed up to breakfast at the Windjammer Cafe. The food selection was good for a breakfast and the bacon was cooked to my liking, unlike the bacon at the hotel which wasn’t that good. After breakfast, we got ready to go back into Stockholm for the lat time.

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We rode the #1 bus into town and stopped at the Cityterminalen (the main train station), the same stop we (accidentally) went to yesterday. Then we wandered around trying to find the dock for the Historical City Boat Tour. We went one direction, but the train tracks were in the way. Eventually we found the way down to the dock, but the boat was full. We got tickets for the next boat (an hour later), but we waited around to see if there would be space on the one about to leave. That ended up being a good bet, as we were able to get on.

The tour took us around a few of Stockholm’s islands and the recorded tour audio explained much of the history of the various sites we were seeing. We found the tour to be very informative.

After the boat tour, we walked over to Gamla Stan again to go into the palace. There were three or four museums in the palace (we didn’t ever really figure that out). We started with the Royal Apartment museum. The area of the palace that we were in is still utilized for banquets and ceremonies. The walkways were carpeted and roped off, and the fine carpets for when guests where there were rolled up. The furniture was also moved out of the walkway. It was very beautiful with a lot of finely decorated rooms. We also went to a museum of the king’s statue collection, which wasn’t that interesting. The other museum we went to explained some of the history of the palace. Somewhere back in the 1600’s, a fire destroyed a large portion of the building, but it was rebuilt. The palace itself seemed fairly defendable (it isn’t now, because the ancient defenses are now under ground) and I didn’t see any mention of major breeches of the defenses.

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By this time, it was about 13:00 I think and we decided we didn’t really have much time to see anything else in Stockholm. We wandered through Gamla Stan and found a stand that was selling ice cream. After eating our ice cream, we headed to the bus stop for bus 76 to Frihamnen (the cruse port). This time, the bus came within five minutes and the ride went without incident. After a little while in the room, an announcement came over the loudspeakers that the mandatory evacuation drill was going to start in thirty minutes.

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I am going to stop now and give some of my impressions on Stockholm, and some on Europe in general.

To start, I’ve noticed that, in general, Europeans tend to pay a bit more attention to fashion. I don’t normally pay attention to that, but my mom just made a comment about how in the past, it was a lot easier to tell the Americans apart from the Europeans because the Europeans dressed much nicer. It is still a bit true today as well, however, with the advent of more global media (the Internet) things have changed. It seems that the Europeans still pay a little more attention to the details and overall are a bit better dressed (for example, I see less basketball/lacrosse shorts). Enough with being a fashionisto (is that a guy fashionista? I don’t know.)

Another thing I’ve noticed is that most everyone speaks at least two languages. I think to some extent that has to do with the proximity of the different languages to each other, but also that English is the lingua franca and it is a necessity for conducting international business these days. I still don’t like that I only speak English, but more on that later.

An observation specifically about Stockholm, their public transportation is amazing. We were able to get busses pretty much anywhere, and their subway system was fairly extensive as well. I really wish that there were more places in the States that have public transportation as good as it is in Stockholm. (Talkin’ to you Denver, Colorado.)

Europe is big on the welfare state but it all comes at a cost. A very high cost. Everything is extremely expensive. A small sandwich could be 50 SEK Swedish Kroner (SEK) which is $5.80.

The last observation is about Asian tourists. The stereotype of Asian tourists taking lots of pictures is true. Now that selfies are a thing it’s even worse. And to add to that, selfie sticks seem popular as well. I’ve given up trying to stay out of people’s pictures.

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Back to the events of the day. We did an evacuation drill, but it was super boring and it was pretty much the same as the one we did on the Noordam (the boat we went on on our last cruise) so you can read about it in previous posts.

By this time, we were rather hungry so we went to get a snack at the Windjammer cafe. When we were done, we played some ping-pong. The teen group came down and started playing on the other table while we were playing so I went to join them. I made it to the finals against a girl named Taylor. I didn’t win, but she was really good and the point differential was closer than anyone else who played against her.

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At this point it was only 15 minutes until time for dinner so Hannah and I rushed back to get ready. It was also formal night and everyone had to dress up nicely (suits and ties) if they wanted to dine in the main hall. We were able to get ready in time and made our way to our new table in the dining room (yesterday mom went to ask for a different table, reason in the last post). We were the first at the table, so we waited for the other people to arrive. Our table mates ended up being two German couples, one from Munich, the other from Stuttgart. The couple from Munich couldn’t speak much English, the couple from Stuttgart knew some English. Since mom speaks German she was able to converse with both of the couples.

Here is where I go on my rant about not knowing another language. Both of my parents know enough German to conduct relatively educated conversations. The decided not to teach Hannah and I though, because “they didn’t know it well enough”. They sure knew it well enough to use it as their secret language though. I told her that if she had at least taught her what she knew, we could be engaging in the conversation. And besides, she could have used the Internet to look up vocabulary she didn’t know or grammar she wasn’t sure on. Unfortunately that didn’t happen, so we fit in with this joke:

“What do you call a person who can speak two languages?”: “bilingual”
“What do you call a person who can speak three languages?”: “trilingual”
“What do you call a person who can speak only one language?”: “an American”

Dinner itself was good and it was nice to not have little kids around.

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After dinner we went to the teen group for a while and then headed to bed.

7-26-2015 – Stockholm, Sweden – Beginning of Cruise

Today we embarked on our cruise. We woke up and had breakfast at the hotel and then had the hotel staff order us a taxi to the cruise port. The ride was fine and went without an issue. To check in to the cruise ship, it’s like airport check in and security. We had to “check” our bags and at a little stand, it was very easy because we’d already printed our luggage tags. Then we went into another line to go through security. It isn’t quite as rigorous as airport security (we were able to take water bottles through) but it still took a while. Then we got in a new line to get our key cards for the ship. After these three lines (in total they took an hour or so) we boarded the boat. Then we waited forever for the elevator. Eventually we made it in to an elevator and went to the 11th floor where the Windjammer Cafe is. (The Windjammer is the lunch buffet.) By the time we were done with lunch our stateroom was ready to be occupied so we went to check it out and drop off our “cary ons”. We then went back into Stockholm for the afternoon.

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We rode bus #1 into town and got off at the central station (I think we went further than we wanted to, but whatever, we did pretty well considering everything was in Swedish). Then we walked to the subway station. It was very confusing getting in, because mom’s Stockholm card was the only one that worked. (The Stockholm card is a pass that allows you to use all of the public transportation and gives you access to most of the major museums.) The lady at the window said that we just needed to be let in manually. I think that maybe kids are free or something, I don’t know. We had to go down a couple levels to get to the correct platform, but we got on the subway without any issue and made our way to Gamla Stan, the old town. It was a very short metro ride (only one stop), but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.

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Gamla Stan is very pretty, almost Germanic-looking in places. I think pictures speak louder than words on this, so here they are.

   
    
   
We eventually made it to the Nobel museum, a museum about the Nobel prize and some about Alfred Nobel himself. Although interesting, it was nothing to write home about. I think that it would be a good museum to go to regularly as a resident of Stockholm to learn about a few people each time. (The homeschooler in me saw a “History of the Nobel Price” class.)

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We then headed to the Royal Palace, the residence of His Majesty the King. Sweden is a monarchy, but the monarch has no political power. The Swedish monarchy is one of the only monarchies to pass to the first born child regardless of gender. As we arrived at the palace, the changing of the guards was happening, so we watched that. Sweden is big on gender equality (we think it’s bad in America, go to Europe, it’s even worse), in fact the LGBT “Stockholm Pride” is going on in a few days. I’m so glad we’re missing that. Anyway, all that to say, two of the guards were female.

We then walked out to the stop for bus #76 which would take us back to the port. Unfortunately a bus was just leaving. Fortunately, there was another bus that was to come in about 20 minutes. Thirty minutes later, no bus had arrived. We decided to try and go to the #1 bus which also goes to the port. As we were walking away, the 76 bus finally arrived at the station we were just at. Fortunately for us, it was coming to the stop that we had walked to as well. We rode that bus for a while but then the driver told us all to get off and go to a different bus because the one we were on wasn’t working properly. After boarding the other bus, things went smoothly.

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At this point it was like 17:50 and our dinner reservation for each night is at 18:00. After franticly getting ready for dinner, we walked down to the dining hall and then wandered around trying to find our table (we have reserved seating so we are at the same table each day). The tables seat multiple parties, and we had another family at our table. The parents were very nice, but their children were, how to say this without offending anyone… annoying. Ok, maybe that offended someone but we aren’t going to be giving that family our blog address so hopefully they never see this. They are a military family (he is a dentist in the army) stationed on a base outside of Munich, Germany. It would have been fine if it was just the parents, but the kids made it… shall we say, interesting. They were 2 and 4, and all over the place. The little girl had an alligator toy and was sticking it in her water glass, both of them were under the table kicking us, it was… an interesting experience. It wasn’t terrible, but we won’t be sitting with them again.

After dinner, we headed to our room to organize the mess we created trying to get ready for dinner. When we had finished, we went up to the teen room, Fuel, to meet the group there. As with the cruise population itself (which I will mention later on as well) the teen group is very diverse. There were two boys who were cousins from Israel, a few Canadians and Americans. The leader is from Columbia. A few minutes after we arrived, we started a game of spoons. I made it to the round of 4. Then, at 22:00, we went to the sports deck to play dodgeball. It was a bit wet as it had rained earlier in the day, but it was good exercise and a lot of fun.

After that, Hannah and I headed down to the room to go to bed.

Tomorrow, we set sail for Helsinki, Finland at around 16:00. After that, we go to a new port almost every day (excepting 3 nights in St. Petersburg).

7-25-2015 – Stockholm, Sweden

Someone didn’t get up until 9:15 today. I won’t mention his name. (Oh wait, I’m the only guy, oops.)

After breakfast in the hotel, we got ready and went out to the bus stop which was about 100 metres from the hotel. We got on bus line 69 which took us straight to the Historiska Museet, the Swedish History Museum.

At the museum, we started out in the courtyard where they had some Viking games and activities. They had “archery” where you could shoot suction cup arrows at a target. There was tug of war and a game where you had to throw “Thor’s Hammer” at some pins to knock them over. We also did an activity where we baked some Viking bread. It wasn’t very good, but it was kinda fun. I found it refreshing to not have to sign a waiver to be able to do anything in the courtyard. They actually expect you to use common sense here.

After the courtyard, we went into the main museum. We saw some old Viking objects, a few skeletons, nothing too interesting. The only thing of note were the rune stones, basically big stones with inscriptions on them commemorating the deceased.

At this point, it was about time for our bike tour around the city. There were about 20 people in our tour group. We went all around the city, I won’t attempt to tell you where because I totally don’t know. It was very nice to get out and see things with someone to guide us. We stopped at a palace (I can’t remember what it was actually for) and the guide mentioned that we might see some weddings going on. We walked in and saw at least 5 different wedded couples having their pictures taken. At one point, we went up to a nice view of the city. It was a bit of a trek for a couple of the little kids and less young people in the group (mom) and a few people had to push. Overall it was a nice bike ride around the city.

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Our next stop was the Nordic museum, a museum about Swedish culture. We first went to the restaurant in the museum and got some sandwiches to eat. One interesting thing about Sweden is that the tap water is readily available. At this particular restaurant, glasses were out on the counter and a faucet was right there in the counter. This is unlike many countries where it’s hard to get plain water period (you have to ask for water without gas in many places or you will get given mineral water (think San Peligrino)).

We then went to get the audio guide. It basically allowed you to go anywhere in the museum you wanted and hear the guide for that area. We started in a life-size Swedish apartment from the 1940s. It was a government home, the socialist government of the time built a lot of public housing with the goal of creating affordable housing for everyone. In the end, it didn’t seem to work because the price of housing in the city is extremely high and it can take up to four years to get an apartment in the center (which, unlike in the States, is the nicest part of town).

We then went upstairs to an exhibit about the history of living spaces in Sweden. I think we went backwards, because we started with IKEA-ish furniture and went back to farmhouses. It was interesting to see the (backwards) progression of decoration trends.

As we were exiting the exhibit, we saw the Cocos, a family that we will be doing some shore excursions with. I will pause my description of the day to explain how we know this family.

Mom uses a website called Cruise Critic to help plan our shore excursions and get to know some of the people on the cruise. The Mrs. Coco organized a bunch of excursions, but wanted another family to do them with to lower the cost. Since mom was very busy dealing with other things, and didn’t have as much time as she would have liked to plan, we decided to join them on their excursions. Eventually, as mom and Mrs. Coco were communicating about plans, they realized that we both lived in Colorado. A few weeks before the cruise, we went up to their house in Evergreen and met them.

Back to the events of the day. We then proceeded to an exhibit about the Sami people, the only indigenous people of Sweden. The exhibit explained their culture and way of life and had a variety of the traditional items. By this time, it was about time for the museum to close, so we headed out. It was beginning to sprinkle quite a bit, but it wasn’t too bad because we went straight to the tram. We took the tram to the center, and then got on bus 69 (the same bus that we rode in on), expecting it to go to our hotel. It didn’t. We arrived at a different stop, and everyone got out. We stayed in thinking that we were the only people going on to the next stop. The driver didn’t go anywhere though, and eventually turned and said “get off here”. We had to walk a few blocks to get back to the hotel. I guess we will just write that off as another adventure.

In the room, we talked to dad over FaceTime and then went to a Subway for dinner. The Subway was really small, and had a limited selection. There were some different bread choices and the guy didn’t speak very good English, so it was a bit interesting. The food was fine though. After dinner, we went to bed for the last time in this hotel as tomorrow we board the cruise ship. (We don’t actually leave port until the day after, but we board tomorrow.)

7-24-2015 – Stockholm, Sweden

We started this day very late. (I’m sure it had nothing to do with some individuals sleeping in till 9:30… oh wait, that was me.) We ate breakfast which luckily ran until 10:30 and then got ready to go.

We walked down to the central tram station and got on the 7 tram which took us to our first destination: Scansen, an open air museum featuring various Swedish buildings and animals. We started out by walking around a reconstruction of a Swedish village around the 1840s. There was a glass blowing shop, a woodworking shop, a factory, a few houses and a school. One interesting thing about school during that period was that the amount of light dictated the amount of school done because they only used natural lighting. In one of the houses we went into, the guy said that it was the house of a middle class family. There were only three rooms in the house, but the room we were in was the one where you would entertain guests. It had a piano, nice furniture, and wallpaper so that you could make it look like you were wealthy , even if you really weren’t. Things really haven’t changed much have they…

We continued on in the park seeing a bunch of different buildings and exhibits. We eventually got to some animals. One of the sheep was baaing really loudly as if to say “come pet me, come pet me”. We then wandered up past more animal exhibits. I was rather tired at this point, and all of the animals were apparently tired as well because we didn’t see any in their exhibits.

We then went to have a late lunch. By that time it was probably around 15:00. Mom and I got terrible burgers with fries. Hannah just got the fries. I am pretty sure McDonalds would have been better.

We probably only saw a half of Scansen which covers ~300,000 square metres. But what we did see was very nice.

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We then headed by tram to the Vasa Museum which was up the street a few of blocks. The Vasa museum is a museum about a boat named the Vasa built in 1628. 1000 metres into its maiden voyage, it sank. I would be able to tell you more, but I was so tired during the explanatory movie that I think I dozed off.

Three hundred thirty-three years later, the Vasa was raised from the bottom of the ocean and the ship was preserved. The exhibits in the museum explained everything about the boat from the preservation to the sculptures to some of the people who died in the tragedy.

The boat itself was huge, from the bottom of the boat to the crows nest was more than seven stories. The main deck itself was 4 stories high. We weren’t able to go inside, but there were a bunch of exhibits explaining various aspects of the boat. One interesting fact was that it weighted as much as 3 jumbo jets.

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On our way back to the hotel, we stopped to get some ice cream. I got chocolate chip. Then we hopped on the tram to the center and walked to the hotel. We went through the pedestrian mall that was really nice. It was like 16th Street Mall in Denver. Then we grabbed a sandwich and ate it in the park outside our hotel.

7-23-2015 – Stockholm, Sweden

We arrived in Stockholm at around 12:30 local time. Unfortunately I did doze off in the plane on our way here for about an hour, so I didn’t succeed in my original goal of not sleeping on they flight. I’m going to try and make up for it by staying up until 21:00 tonight.

Two of our bags took forever to come out, but we finally got them and found the train into Stockholm. We had gotten the wrong tickets (Hannah had a pensioner’s ticket) but the lady was nice and told us that both Hannah and I were free and that we should just ask for a refund once we got to the station in Stockholm. The guy at the station didn’t ask any questions and gave us the refund. It was a good introduction to Stockholm.

After checking in at the hotel, we went out into the town to try and find somewhere to eat. We were trying to find a restaurant with Swedish food, but royally failed. I think we would have found something if we were more awake. In the end we went to a Chinese buffet. The food was good, but the best part of the meal was watching mom try to stay awake. At once point, she dozed off to sleep (I think her brain turned off but here eyes didn’t close, I don’t know). She must have had some sort of a dream because she randomly said “Did you get the right meat?” which had nothing to do with any conversation we had been having. Maybe it isn’t very funny after writing it down, but it was hilarious when it happened, especially since we were all so tired, I think everything seemed funny.

After we got back, we wanted to go to sleep so badly, but it was only 15:00. Mom and I went back out to try and find a SIM card for a phone that we have. We did find one and came back to the hotel. It’s now 20:57, so I’m going to get ready to go to bed.

On Our Way – Reykjavík, Iceland to Stockholm, Sweden

7:26 2015/7/23 Reykjavík, Iceland, 1:26 MST: I am sitting on the airplane getting ready to leave from Reykjavík for Stockholm right now. We have another little kid behind us on this flight. I am hoping to not sleep this flight so that I am closer to Stockholm time (we will be arriving there at 12:30 local time). We will see how that goes.

I think it’s really interesting flying on international flights. There are so many people from different countries speaking different languages, it’s really very cool. In these multilingual situations I think of Heaven. I imagine that Heaven will sound like the UN except not so argumentative. Every tongue and every nation bowing before the throne of the Almighty God of the Universe. It’s gonna be amazing. I can just see a South African Christian and a North Korean Christian glorifying God together with one voice. Obviously the best thing about Heaven is that our Savior will be there, but I think the second best thing about heaven will be seeing all of the people who have virtually nothing in common, united in the only thing that truly matters.

It’s sorta weird, but In these multilingual situations, I feel called to be a witness to the people around me, even more so than when I am at home. I also feel helpless because I can’t communicate with them. Maybe that’s why the burden to be a light for Christ is stronger, I don’t know. All I know is that i want to have this same calling when at home as I do away from home.

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Right now I have made smile-friends with a little boy sitting across the isle from us. It looks like his family is from America (at least that’s my guess since his mom is reading a book with an English title). He looks like he is full of energy. Not so much his mom. They almost had a catastrophe involving a bottle of juice… luckily the container was empty.

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We now have our own food. One interesting thing about Iceland Air is that food isn’t included in the price of the flight. You can buy food, but it’s not included. The cost is sorta offset by the fact that they give you 2 free checked bags. I got a baguette which is surprisingly good for airplane food. I also got 7-up. This time they gave me a cup and a full bottle of 7-up.

 

My Airplane Meal

  
 I am literally typing just to stay awake so I apologize if this is too lengthy. I am determined to stay awake until 19:00 Stockholm time which is a full 9 hours away, so you are probably going to have to deal with a few more posts.

On Our Way – Denver, Colorado, USA to Reykjavík, Iceland

I am on an Icelandair flight right now writing this post. We are about an hour and a half into the flight. We were able to check in online, so we ended up being fairly early to the airport, but it gave us plenty of time to eat a lupper (Lunch/Supper) at Panda Express. We are currently somewhere over the US still but I don’t know exactly because the flight map is not working for me. Right now I am waiting for the flight attendant to come and ask if we would like drinks. Right now she is having trouble scanning a Discover card for the people in front of us, so it is looking like it might be a while before we get our drinks…

I now have some 7-up. Hannah is watching The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies on the seat-back TV and mom is half sleeping, half watching a movie on her tablet. I am writing this using my wireless keyboard which is really nice to have. I’ve been using an app called Byword for writing. I am loving it so far. I have a full review in the works which will be published someday :).

 

Mom and Hannah Sleeping on the Plane

 
We have one or two little kids sitting behind us. One of them is kicking mom’s seat. This is going to be fun… (not)

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Note: unless otherwise stated, all times are in military/24 hr time with either the 3 character timezone code or the city name.

23:19 MST, 5:19 in Reykjavík, Iceland (our layover destination), 7:19 in Stockholm, Sweden (our final destination).

I just got back from taking my contacts out. They were beginning to bother me. I guess I should have waited to put them in until this afternoon right before we left. On well, lesson learned. I’m really glad I had the stuff I needed to take them out them. The other lesson I learned: when flying overseas, just expect to loose a night of sleep.

On another note, I unplugged my iPhone at ~13:30 MST, it is now 23:42 MST and I am still at 35% battery life. I even watched a 90 minute movie, enabled in-flight Wi-Fi, and turned on Bluetooth to use my keyboard. I’ve also been playing music for the entire flight. I’m impressed.

We are now 45 minutes from our destination according to the in-seat TV. I’m setting Music to play my favorites (I love the up-next feature in iOS 8.4) and going to try and stop thinking about how much my bottom hurts.