Day 1 & 2
We left Atlanta around 11:00 and landed in Chicago 2 hours later. Since we had about 4 hours before our next flight, we decided to take a free bus to a local hotel/business area that had a Gino’s East, a Chicago-style pizza place, so we could get one last American meal before we left. We got back to the airport to spend a little time in the SAS lounge, which we got free passes to use from Volvo.
Next we boarded the plane. We were a little disappointed to find that the seats were smaller than we had expected/remembered, as well as close to the back of the plane. It was a looong flight filled with 3 crying babies and some annoying people in front of us, one of whom flipped her hair over the back of her headrest and covered my screen. Hair grosses me out something serious anyway, but she was too much. She also reached back and closed my window when I was trying to look out. We didn’t do much sleeping, but we did play a lot of Tetris. We were both pretty restless by the end of the flight! Interestingly, it never got completely dark. We could always see the sunlight on the horizon.
We arrived in Stockholm at 7:30 am local time, but 1:30 am Atlanta time, so we basically lost a night. Customs and baggage claim were a breeze, surprisingly. We were very glad all of our luggage made it here. We then took the speed train to the city. From the train station, our hotel was only a few blocks away. We dropped our luggage off since we were too early to check-in and set off to check out the city. In the rain. The weather varied between a slow steady rain, mist, and a harder steady rain. We were both glad we made the last minute decision to bring our rain boots!
We headed over to Gamla Stan (old town) to see if we could find some breakfast, which was harder than expected, since most places don’t open before 9 or 10 am. Actually, we were given breakfast on the plane, which consisted of a ham and cheese sandwich with lettuce (Ben doesn’t eat cured ham, and I don’t eat sandwiches for breakfast. Or Lettuce.), greek yogurt (we definitely don’t eat that), and some orange juice. Anyway, we wandered around in the rain, indecisive about where to go. We finally decided on Espresso House, where we had some tasty lattes and a pastry. We walked around a bit longer and attempted to go buy tickets for the guided Millenium walking tour that highlights most of the locations from the Stieg Larsson series. Except when we got the museum to buy the tickets, the girls at the counter said it was sold out. They said we could buy a map and do the tour ourselves, which is what we decided to do. By now, it was almost 12, so we decided to walk back to the tourist center to get maps and other brochures. We were almost there when the bottom dropped out. We were grouchy and it was pouring, so we turned off and headed to the hotel.
Once we got checked in, we had to wait for out luggage to be brought up. Ben and I were in a bit of a daze and just sitting in the chairs in the dark. When the luggage man showed up, he informed us that you have to put the key in the switch by the door to get the lights to come on. He must have wondered why we were sitting in the dark, but I didn’t even think to turn on the lights. Jetlag, I guess. Anyway, we decided to take a 2 hour nap. I didn’t even feel bad about it because the weather was so nasty. After the nap, we took showers and went out to dinner. We ended up going to this pub around the corner since it was raining called Pickwicke. We had planned to go to another restaurant, but after determining it was farther than we were willing to walk in the rain and a $15-$20 cab ride, changed our minds. Pickwicke wasn’t too bad. Ben had Swedish meatballs and I had lasagna. We also had a waitress that looked very similar to Pippi Longstocking.
After dinner, it had just about stopped raining, so we decided to do some exploring. We walked through the downtown area of Stockholm, where we visited a large department store that was very nice. Ben was not interested, but I definitely was. I am always interested in seeing how other people do their shopping. There was some sort of festival going on and there were lots of people. We were trying to be very careful about pick-pocketers, and once had a sketchy looking guy get too close behind us. He was fortunate he didn’t try to steal something out of my purse because I was watching him and I had my umbrella ready in my right hand to whack him upside the head.
We then headed back to the hotel, where we reorganized our luggage and got ready for the next day. We also watched a little ESPN America, where we got to watch clips from the Braves. We went to bed about 9:15 and woke up at 6:15, a much needed 10 hour rest
That's all for now! I'll be back with day 3 soon!
