1. Schwedentigioruirsok

My most recent adventure took me to my favorite side of the pond (Sorry, USA), for 12 blissful days of travel. I am going to have to write this trip in installments because there were so many different aspects that deserve attention. 

The title of this post accurately describes the Swedish language. I mean absolutely no disrespect or jest in saying that, rather the complete opposite. I spent 4 days in Sweden and still have not a clue as to how to even pronounce the simplest words. It was strangely more related to German than I anticipated... and sounded a lot more like French as well... Kudos to anyone (Corinne) who is trying to learn it!

Stockholm, Sweden: July 24 and 25

Stockholm was added to the Euro-Trip for one main reason: Corinne, my best friend from college. She is doing her Master's work at the Karolinska Institute (see below)

You may have heard of the Karolinska Institute because this is where the committee meets to decide the Nobel Prize in Medicine!

(me with Alfred Nobel, outside the Nobel Forum)

In any case, the first day, I spent walking around Stockholm in a jet-lagged daze. The city is beautiful, though, lots of amazing architecture, on the water, tall, blond people speaking this insane language. The church pictured below was one of my favorites, although you couldn't go inside. It was founded as an abbey in the 13th century and has been the burial place for Swedish kings for at least 4 centuries. It is located on an island (well, really all Stockholm is a collection of islands) called the "Island of the Knights." 

We also just happened to walk up to see the changing of the guards - completely by chance. Perfect timing!! It was not horrendously exciting, some guys in royal blue dancing around with really big guns. 

On the second day in Stockholm, we went to visit one of the archipelagos. There are three layers of archipelagos (the islands in the Baltic Sea surrounding Stockholm), inner, middle, and outer. The outer archipelagos require ferries to see them. We took a bus to one of the inner ones and visited the town of Vaxholm. The weather was perfect and the town was really quaint and cozy. 

On my next trip to Sweden, I would like to buy a boat pass, which allows you access to all the ferries in the archipelago for 5 days. You can turn it into a tour, camping and archipelago hopping.

Two days was not enough in Stockholm for future reference. I would like to go back there.

Coming up next: Installment 2 - Trelleborg and the Southern Coast of Sweden.