Stockholm Bound

This morning's view out the window was not so breathtaking.

 

However we slept well and that's what counts, other than the three kids sitting right outside of our window at the picnic table talking and laughing till after 1:00 in the morning. And, I couldn't even spy on them as I couldn't understand a word of it, but the laughter was nice.

A quick word about showers here. There is no guard around the showers floor. 

The water from the shower goes down a drain in the floor, but the water can spread all over the little bathroom. Then they give you a squeegy like a window cleaner to push the water to the drain and clean the floor. It works but can get kind of wet.

Also, most of the beds in every hotel room are twin sized. Some are pushed together and some have a table between.

  All are pads on a stand wrapped in a sheet. Then the blanket is in a kind of sheet envelope or duvet. I like it as it is very clean and you are not touching some stranger's blanket. It's a good system.

We had a nice sunny breakfast buffet in the hotel dining room with a view of the park and church across the way.

 It was very pleasant and a better impression than that of the night before.  We walked over to have a look at the church and the wooded park at the back that had many walking trails.

Behind the church there was a stone circle.

We were told it was very old, but couldn't read the signs. 

We walked into the little town and poked through a very nice sporting goods store. It is much nicer to walk around town than to try to drive these crazy, narrow, curving one way roads with no parking. We went into a bank to get money as the ATM machine made us nervous. The machine wanted to read our card's chip, which we don't have and we couldn't read the signs to figure out what to do. We took a number and sat on a comfy couch and waited our turn. It was all very orderly and civilized. The clerk explained that the machine would take our card with no chip and there was a button to chose English. A pretty, young assistant offered to come out and walk us through their process. They were very nice and now we have money! No more Wasa Bread and cheese! 

We loaded up and headed to the airport early to make sure all was in order. The Kiruna Airport is surprisingly nice and modern. I was sad to leave our beloved black Volvo behind. We really enjoyed that car and the freedom it gave us. It took us a while to figure out we just needed to park the car and go on into the airport. There was no paperwork or anyone to talk to. I guess they just trust you.

We sat at a table in the nice airport lounge as I was going to work on the blog and then we heard a very nice little 21 year old lady speak with an Australian Accent. She was traveling alone and we immediately hooked up. She seemed as happy to see us and we were to see her. We had the greatest conversation and it made our wait fly. She would one day like to do travel planning for people and started sketching out a trip for us to New Zealand and Australia. Maddy had been visiting an old family friend in Kiruna and was off on a real adventure traveling the world with work stops along the way. 

We are of course, Facebook Buddies now and we both invited the other to have a visit in the future. We hugged as we parted. What a nice young lady!

We had a calm, short flight and landed in Stockholm with no problems 

and then...confusion! We asked several people for help in the crowds on our walk to the train to take us to the city center. 

We finally managed that and had to watch carefully to get off at the right place. Then it was like herds of rushing people closing in all around us rushing for the subway with us dragging suitcases and backpacks and my purse across my shoulders as the loud speakers warned of Pick Pockets. We hurried along in the sea of people tightly clutching everything not even knowing where we were going. I let Bob break the way and just stayed behind him with my head down watching his feet. It was crazy! I am not a city girl for sure. We finally made it to what we hopped was the right train and had to stand balancing suitcases and holding on to a pole for the jerky ride. But, we did it and got off at the right place. The street signs were very confusing and we must have walked another 1/2 mile before a very nice young lady pointed us in the right direction.

Our hotel room was beautiful and up on the sixth floor. Dinner and breakfast were included. We settled in, enjoyed a very nice dinner and decided to crash. Night life was not on our minds tonight! 

 

We have two days to explore and enjoy Stockholm and then...can you say Taxi? We are having a taxi, at least to the city center and the train, for the trip to the airport and that's final!