Bork Bork Bork!

WE'VE BEEN TO STOCKHOLM!

Hey hey! I spent the last few days exploring the far north. My sister was a missionary in Italy about 15 years ago. A woman that she taught married a man from Norway about a year ago and they planned to be sealed in the Stockholm Temple (for more info www.lds.org/church/temples/why-we-build-temples?lang=eng) this week, so I accompanied my sister and year-old niece on this expedition to territory previously unknown to any of us. This is what we found.

After we attended a local LDS church service, we did some touring of the cathedrals in the city. So tall.

Stockholm is a city of islands, bridges and lots of bike lanes.

I'm not sure where this goes, but it's pretty!

Mooring here must cost a pretty penny.

One of the islands is basically all museums and gardens. This is the Nordic Museum. We didn't go in, but I'm sold on Vikings just from seeing the outside.

And who wouldn't be delighted to see a statue of Orpheus just hanging out in the fall leaves? Lots of great statues all over town.

We did go to "one of the world's foremost tourist attractions!" The Vasa Museum is...wow. The Vasa is a naval ship that was built in the 1600s - the biggest, the best, sort of a Titanic kinda deal - and on the maiden voyage she capsized and sank when a bit of wind blew her over. She was a bit top-heavy. Anyway, the ship was under water in the harbor for 333 years before being raised, rinsed and restored (although it's 85-90% original). Then they built a museum around the ship in the drained dry dock. AMAZING! Have a read. www.vasamuseet.se

The Stern.

Back out into the city, with not much time to explore....

For how ornate the rest of the city is, you'd think the Stockholm Palace would be....a little more gaudy.  But it's quite beautiful.

Me. Palace. Crown. Too bad we didn't get the guard in the picture - his bayonet looked threatening.

To the left is the some of the palace. We just thought this was great square with a great view down into the harbor.

Sarah's a little in awe (or terror) of the Gamla Stan (Old Town),  a little island that contained all of Stockholm back in the day. Stockholm was founded in 1252. So, it's like 600 years older than Portland.

Lovely Synagogue right in the midst of downtown. :)

All the lovely rooftops come to a point.

Little cutie. The Temple's Guesthouse has a little playground. This horse is like the  traditional highly decorated Swedish horses...which I can't tell you anything about.....cuz I don't know.

Stockholm Temple...kinda the reason for the trip.

New friends! Elisabetta and Hans-Petter (right) were just sealed. Han-Petter's parents, the Jacobsens, traveled with them from Norway. Wonderful people!

And now for a couple Sweden Musts. I was only slightly bummed that our rental car was not a Volvo, BUT it was a wagon, as were 90% of the other vehicles on the road. We ate Swedish Meatballs and Swedish Fish. And we bought a tube of Bacon Cheese - it's incredible. If we weren't so busy, we may have done some furniture shopping...

Who goes to Sweden without visiting IKEA?! Us, actually, cuz we ran out of time.

This was a marvel of Scandinavian efficiency, if I've ever seen one. It's our hotel room. The panel on the right is a fold-down bed. At the head of the other bed is a flat screen TV. Around that corner is an armchair. The bathrooms in the house in Germany are bigger than this entire room. We were living in a closet! But the most comfortable, chic closet I've ever lived in.

Sure it rained and you may have to mortgage your house to buy lunch, but all things considered, I'm thoroughly impressed with what we were able to see of Stockholm and wouldn't take much convincing to go back again anytime. Just the layout of the city is so intriguing. Everyone speaks great English. The population is incredibly cosmopolitan. Everything is absolutely beautiful - my jaw hit the floor every few minutes. Bad bad writing. I just want to make this available to you, so you'll want to go to Stockholm too! It's been a pleasure!

P.S. I killed a pigeon. Darn thing saw me coming....just didn't get out of the way. And probably 100 people were on the sidewalk to witness this. But the thud of the tire and the shocked faces of two girls probably my age was enough to make me feel a little sheepish.