StOcKhOlm

This past weekend I was in Stockholm, Sweden's capital.
It was probly one of the best trips I have taken, even if it was only for 4 days.
We left thursday after I was done with school. Drove to the Goteborg airport to catch the plane to Stockholm, it was only about an hour flight.
Once in Stockholm we were met by Eva and Mats friend Bapi (the one that visited earlier and who bought me my current phone) he took us out to a really nice italian bistro. I must say the pizza in Sweden is quite different than the pizza in the US.. its really thin crust and there isnt a lot of greaseyness and cheese on the pizza. So, its pretty healthy here. After a quick dinner we went to meet Anton and Linus (the guy who we would be staying with) at the Central Station.
I think Stockholm is a lot like New York, but with older arciture buildings. Stockholm has the same transportation system as NY.. subways, trains, and buses. But stockholm doesn't have as many people in one city which is a good thing or else all the narrow streets would be incredibly crowded. This city is mostly all on water. So it is a bunch of islands connected by bridges and such.
The place where we were staying was on the outside of stockholm so we had to take the train into town each day. It was actually a good way to see more of stockholm.
The first day we went to the castle. This is not the castle where the current royal family lives, but the castle in which the royal appartments are. The royal swedish family consisits of King Carl Gustav XVI, Queen Sylvia, their three children, Crown Princess Victoria (who is getting married in the spring and who will be next in line with her husband who is not royalty, first time in history for that.) Prince Carl Philip, and Princess Madeleine.
In the castle we went on a guided tour, thankfully in english. So we visited the royal treasure room, we were not allowed to take pictures because some of the treasures are still used today for very very very special occasions. We visited some of the appartments, which was where old royal families had lived. there was a lot of swedish histroy that i have learned on this trip. I will not go into too much detail, because it could get a bit boring. But i thought it was very intresting. Now i know about swedish history and i wasn't even in history class!!
We also went to gamla Stan, which is Old Town, we had a cozy lunch, getting inside from the chilly and rainy weather was quite nice.
Mostly we just walked around on friday, just seeing the city and such. There is this building that is kind of like the empire state building, so we got to see Stockholm in every direction. That was one of my favorite parts.
On saturday we had an early tour at the Statshuset, the City Hall. which is famous for the nobel peace prize and the famous balls that are held annually. This tour was in swedish but i got some of the info in english so that was good. We went into the blue room, which isnt really blue, they call it that because the artictet was planning on having that room be blue but instead he realized how beautiful the bricks on the walls and the swedish marble on the floors was, he didnt change it. so there is hardly any blue in that room. this is where you can find the famous staircase that you may see in pictures for the nobel prize dinners. i can now say i was there :). this is where obama will have dinner right before he gets the peace prize award. He will recieve the award in Öslo Norway. We also went into the Gold Room, which is a huge room full of walls painted with small gold sheets. it was a beautiful room and i actually found a little pice of home on the walls, there was an american flag, of course i took a picture, because it is such a famous room!
what is amazing to me is that people actually work in thís building! i would love to work in such an important building with such great and important history!
after seeing this we went and saw the changing of the gaurds. Linus actually used to be one of the guards so he was telling us what the soldiers were doing and why, it was like our own personal tour guide! They had a band playing and there were lots of people and soldiers shouting orders for the changing of the gaurds.
From my friends at school everyone told me that i should stop and the muffins fabrikin while i am in stockholm, so we eventually found the muffin shop, and it was soooo worth it! i had a banana nut muffin and it was soo good! they were huge muffins so we had to use knivies to cut the pieces off. (keep in mind they were huge to swedes, not americans, but still they were pretty big and delicious)
We walked around some more, did some shopping in some of the huge gallerias (shopping malls) then we went and got some dinner. we were in the part of town where most of the working individuals were, so there were many pubs and restaurants. due to me being somewhat irish, mats and eva insisted that we got to the irish pub to have dinner. so we were there for awhile and then we stated talking to the other family sitting next to us. it was a german college student, she was currently studying at stockholm's university with her boyfriend, she was mostly studying biology and sciences. so i got to talking to her and i found that at stockholm univ the classes are in english, and you can get a good education, there is no cost for school either, and it is near the central of stockholm. Its an option that im thinking about, i'm not sure if i could go four years without my loved ones back home.
Sunday would be the day we would head home, it was also the day that there was great weather, go figure. So we went to the central station to wait for bapi to pick us up. while waiting we were by the place where the royal family has their special 'platform' or place to travel. you know this because it was a part of the building that looked different than the rest and it of course had a crown on top of the door, therefore one can note it was for royalty. as you can guess, i just had to get a picture. :) once bapi met us at the station, he said we had some time before the plane would leave lets go to the Drotningholm Palace, which is where the royal family actually lives. It used to be just a summer house, but the current king wanted his children to grow up somewhat in the countryside, next to the lake and forest. With this description, you can just imagine what this place looked like. and on such a sunny perfect fall day, the trees were all different colors in the park and the lake was just beautiful. the palace has a huge garden behind it with the lake off to one side and on the other the park, which is all open to the public. I wish i were royalty and could live in this amazing palace! But, pictures are about as close as i am going to get.
This was our last stop before going to the airport and going back to sweet home varberg. I have to admit this trip turned out to be a lot better than what i thought it would be. i learned so much about the swedish history and stockholm.
i hope to take my parents and the mccormicks here when they come in the spring (everyone says its even more beautiful in the spring). I hope we can!
If there is any chance you are coming to sweden i highly recommend going to stockholm! it is a great city and it explains a lot about swedens history. but make sure to do your research beforehand! there is so much to see and so little time. so plan out the trip ahead of time!
this week in school i think will go by quite fast, its already tuesday! Not too much is going on, im meeting friends for fika and riding Chess. on friday Mr. McCormick will be coming to varberg for a short visit. i cant wait! i look forward to seeing someone from home :)
saturday and sunday is the rotary district conference in alingsås, we will be representing our countries and showing the local clubs a little bit about our cultures.
then i will be staying in borås with my canadian friend amanda, till tuesday. then who knows!
it will be nice to have a week off, but then again i have been so busy the past couple of weeks it just another break for me!!
more blogging next week! :)