In The Land of Meatballs!

Ok, so I’m a week late posting this again and I’m sorry... but it’s just not easy traipsing all over Europe on the weekends and then facing three whole days of school afterwards :)

Anyway, so last Saturday (the 30^th) Shelby, Danko and I boarded our Ryan Air flight to Stockholm. We started the trip off on the right foot by playing “spot the serial killer” at the airport. It was awesome, and I recommend the game to everyone – all you have to do is look around you and find someone who looks somewhat sketchy (it’s pretty easy to do) then make up some kind of story about them, explaining why they are a serial killer. So much fun. We found the best possible serial killer (his head was waaaayyy too small for his body... he therefore had a lot of pent up anger and took it out on people by chopping their heads off) and, just to make the evening complete, Danko had to sit next to him on the plane. He made it out alive, in case anyone was wondering!

When we arrived in Stockholm, we headed for our hostel. We got one with a really excellent location, so we were able to walk to it from the train station. When we walked in, there was an arm wrestling (or “broken arm” as it is literally translated from Swedish) competition going on in front of our room. As it turns out, the arm wrestling champion of Sweden (yeah, they have one!) is a nineteen year-old boy who likes to party in Stockholm on the weekends. He was teaching his roommates the proper technique for arm wrestling. It was wildly entertaining to watch, mostly because of his awesome accent and the fact that his elbow was bleeding all over everything and he just kept saying that it was an “occupational hazard”.

When we finally got over watching the competition unfold, we went out on the town. It was already pretty late, so we just had dinner, then bought a couple of beers to bring back to the hostel. On Sunday morning, we went exploring. Stockholm is actually an archipelago, so there are tons of bridges around and more than enough waterways to keep me thoroughly lost the whole time. We walked around all day and saw lots of cool stuff – the world’s largest royal palace, the changing of the guards, a tower bridge with an excellent view of the city, and about a million fancy schmancy streets that reminded me so much of Paris. We were also pretty thrown off by the fact that everyone, everywhere, greets you with “Hey Hey”. In Swedish, Hej means hello, so that’s how they greet you in restaurants, shops, bars, hostels, etc. I realize it’s a different language and it shouldn’t freak me out so much, but it did. It was just too weird.

There was also a fair amount of hilarity to be had. Sweden is famous for some pretty ridiculous things... for instance, Pipi Longstocking (who knew?). Her cute little ginger head can be seen in most shop fronts, on anything from dolls to t-shirts to backpacks. Then there is ABBA, of course, and I’d say that an ABBA babushka counts as pretty frickin’ funny! IKEA is another big one for Sweden, but I have to say we were pretty disappointed on that front. Sure, all the furniture we saw was from there and we saw the special “IKEA bus” which just shuttles people from downtown to IKEA, but otherwise, not so wild. Finally, there are the world-famous Swedish meatballs. All I have to say is Mmmmmm... they were absolutely delightful and worth every last penny we spent on them (not that they were that expensive, but alas).

On Monday, we did much the same as Sunday – that is, wander the streets aimlessly taking photos of every single last thing we saw and taking notes for our future castles. We also went on a boat tour of the main canal, which was mildly interesting and rendered all the better by the fact that I didn’t throw up! Whoop whoop!

That’s about it for the Swedish adventures... but I did save the best for last. The Vikings!!! Yes! They were also everywhere. Giant Vikings in store windows, Vikings on pins and magnets and, of course, Viking hats for all to try on (and photograph) at all the tourist shops along the way. It was hilarious and wonderful. So, I leave you with one final though – Where would we be without the Vikings?

Next adventure - Kristelle in Europe!! Whoop whoop!!!

Steph :)