We have left Sweden

Caught the 8:10 boat, got us into Stockholm's harbor at around 11am.  Pictures from the boat ride back to Stockholm are in the slide show below. Remember, to see each picture slower and bigger, just click on any picture and then you can see them one by one.
When the boat was approaching Stocking and since we weren't exactly sure about drop-off points, we got off at the first place it docked which turned out to be wrong, we could have gotten off at its next drop off point.  So, we were farther away from our bus stop which meant a whole lot of fast walking so that we could catch the bus at the time we wanted to catch the bus.  We made it to the bus stop, made it to the metro station and got off in Kista at a good time.  BUT we noticed, as the metro was pulling into the Kista station, dark clouds and that heavy rain was very near and we actually saw a lightning bolt!  Well, by the time we got out of the station, the rain had started.  We had very good luck with weather up until that point.  So, we walked back to the apartment where our luggage was being held for us in a light rain, thunder and lightning and even some very small hail!!!  Nothing like excitement!

We got our luggage from Magdalena's place, said our goodbyes to her and got in a taxi for the trip to the airport.  When our plane took off, we said "so long" to Sweden, where we had been for almost one month.  We will miss Sweden for sure. Our flight from Stockholm to Barcelona was good, although we were very disappointed to find that Norwegian Air has different luggage weight requirements so we were over on my green suitcase by quite a bit! We tried to juggle things around but with their lower weight allowance, it didn't do any good. So, we had to pay. Once in Barcelona, we checked into our hotel which turned out to be in a great location - right by an Al Campo store which usually has a little mall-like thing attached to it. So, we had everything we needed right by the hotel. That night we decided to spend two nights in that hotel, instead of taking off the next day. So, that evening we wrote the rental car company by email stating we wanted to pick up our car one day later than previously agreed.

July 14th
The next morning we were dismayed to see an email from the rental car company saying that since we didn't pick up our car at the agreed upon time that morning, that our account was being charged anyway.  So, we had no choice but to go to the airport and pick up our car since even when we explained about the email we had written last night and everything, they said we were still going to be charged for that day, even if we don't take the car!  Oh well, we drove the car back to the hotel and after getting over it, spent the rest of the day sending inquiries to apartments to rent.

July 15th
Took off fairly early this morning.  We had a nice drive and saw some really beautiful scenery along the way. We were in "looking for a place to live" mode though, and spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to do that in each interesting city we visited.  Here are some pictures along the road to a town called Anso, where we thought it would be interesting to live for a little while.  Didn't find any place to live, but we thought the drive there was really nice.

We liked that hole up in the mountain there.

Some homes or apartments in the town of Anso.

Leaving Anso

We kept on driving through some really beautiful country and by the time we got to the town we thought we would stop at for the evening, the countryside had become a lot plainer.  Too bad - it would have been nice to stay in those mountains we passed through.

Anyway, we got to Vitoria Gasteiz and right away saw a sign for a hotel so we headed for it.  Turned out to be a big mistake because we never did find that hotel and not sure where that sign REALLY points or if that hotel is even still there.  So, we ended up driving around in circles and the crazy thing is, there weren't any OTHER hotels in all our circling that we could have chosen from.  NONE!  We thought it was the weirdest thing to not see a single hotel anywhere.  All we saw were apartment complex after apartment complex.  We finally decided to stop at a McDonalds to use their wi-fi.  We found two hotels online and called one of them and programmed the address into the GPS and thought we were finally on our way to settling down for the evening.  Nope.  The GPS failed us this time and could not lead us to the hotel.  We were still driving around in circles.  Fortunately, as we were headed out of the city I had seen a little hotel off on a side street and we thought, well, that'd be better than nothing!  So we made our way back there and actually, it was a cute little place.  It was like staying in a castle - the rooms were stone and it was dark inside and all that.  So, things turned out ok.  Since it was Sunday evening, late, it was hard to find an open place to get something to eat, but we found a place that was just about to close and we got something there real quick and then headed back.

Out in the Swedish Archipelago

July 11th
Today we had a very early breakfast so that we could catch the metro that would get us to the bus on time to get to the boat that would take us out to Lådna island.  All of those transfers went very smoothly.  Our biggest fear this morning was that it would be raining which would have been hard with all the walking we had to do and with the wait we had out on the dock before boarding the boat.

The name of our boat was Roslagen and it was a nice boat.  We had internet on the boat for quite a distance and then it was gone.  The boat had a nice place that served food, lots of good comfortable seating inside and a nice sitting area outside up on top.  That's where we spent most of our time snapping picture after picture.  Most pictures are probably going to look the same - lots of water, lots of sky with some dots of islands in the middle but it was hard not to take pictures because everything was so beautiful and unique.

The lady of the place we were renting met us at the dock on the island and we were in for a not so pleasant surprise when we saw that the ATV she met us in wasn't meant to transport us, but to carry her grandkids and just a little bit of our luggage.  Which would have been no big deal but it was a LONG walk to the apartment and we were just thankful that it wasn't raining.

Our little apartment was nice and it had what we needed to be comfortable.  The way things work at rental places out on these islands is that the landlords charge for everything little thing.  So, towels cost, bed sheets cost, kitchen towels cost, toilet paper is extra and all that.  After we got to our little place, after that long walk, we knew we had to go out again and we knew that we had a LONG way to go to get to the store.  The landlady had pointed out the general direction to the store so we headed out in that direction for the long walk.  The day wasn't too hot, but when you were in the sun, it felt quite warm.  Once at the store, a small store, we stocked up as much as we could with stuff to last us three days.  We felt pressure to shop really really smartly because we KNEW we did not want to make another walk to the store.  Too far.  We put everything into our backpacks and carried the rest in plastic bags and started the long walk back to our place.
So, these next pictures are random shots from our time on the island.

There are tons of blueberry plants and quite a few strawberry plants on Lådna Island.  This was our haul one time.  Actually it was what we were left with by the time we got back since there was plenty of eating while picking and along the way back.

This is what it looked like from the lane to our little place.

Every morning we'd see a lot of these guys outside our apartment.

While walking around Lådna, sometimes through and along other people's property, we came across a really nice spot on the island.  The spot had an excellent long bench on which to sit, so we sat there (Guillermo even took a nap on that bench) for the longest time enjoying the nice weather and watching the boats as they passed by.  It was so relaxing.

We also walked to another boat dock near to where we were staying, so this is not the boat dock by where we stayed.  We sat on this pier for a while and looked for birds.  We ended up with a few ticks on our legs after sitting on this pier.  But they came off easily and didn't itch or anything afterwards.

This was a view from the pier.

Walking back to the road from that pier.

And one day we walked over to Lådna's main dock just to see what what was going on there, which was nothing.  This is how it looked from the dock.

They have signs on the dock that are orange and red and if you want to be picked up by a boat that is passing by, you lift the sign and turn the sign in the direction of the boat you want and that boat will pull in and pick you up.  There was no one waiting for the boat this day, but we were lucky enough to be at the dock when the Roslagen boat was arriving.  We watched the boat pull in, no one got on or off except for the guy from the boat who was delivering newspapers and mail to Lådna.

The Roslagen continuing on to the next island stop.

We really enjoyed being out in the archipelago, and I guess it helped that we had good weather.  The temperature felt great in the sun, but without the sun, it would have been a little too cold.  We can see the appeal to life out there.

Last full day in Stockholm

We went to the Blockhusporten to eat.  Out on the end of one of the islands

Guillermo and I did a practice run today of how we will get to the boat for our trip out to the archipelago on Wednesday.  We found the bus we need to take with not much trouble and saw exactly how we would have to do it.  Then we took a bus to the Slussen area where we ate at a Strömming stand for lunch.  Then we walked up into Södermalm for quite a ways, then walked back to the Goldener Restaurant where we thought we'd have dessert but all we did was admire the view from above and we went back down.

Here's how it looked from the top of the Katrina Hiss - which is a high observation point but the elevator that is usually used to get to the top wasn't working so we had to go up through elevators in another building.

Then we walked into Gamla Stan and had an ice cream in an Italian restaurant, then stopped at a souvenir store to buy some T-shirts that say Sweden.  Now here's the bad part:  we realized too late that, when we got on the bus to go back to our place, we left the bag with those two t-shirts either at the bus stop or on the bus. Nothing we could do about it at that point and whoever found them, hope they enjoyed getting two free t-shirts!

Shakespeare in the Park

I can't remember that well , but I think we took it easy during the day and in the evening I do know we went to a Shakespeare in the Park production.  We got a nice grassy spot on a little hill and watched several short scenes.  While we watched, we ate some delicious sausage on buns and had some wine.  Here's a scene from one of the acts.

We left before it was over to avoid the mob of people and here are two scenes of Stockholm from the bridge we crossed.

July 8

Living in Stockholm

July 1st
So, this morning we took a taxi to Kista to a place we found on the internet.  When we got to the place, we met Magdalena and she showed us our place.  It was really a big bedroom with a big bed, TV, bookshelf, a futon couch, and a desk and the place also had a bathroom and a big closet in the entrance hall.  It was smaller than we thought it was going to be, but we were happy to have a place and it looked like it would work just fine.  We rearranged to the room according to how things would work best for us and then we were set for the next 10 days.
After getting settled, we went with Magdalena to the nearby mall and she showed us how everything we could want was really in walking distance.  We were pleased that there was so much in our immediate area - grocery and all other kinds of stores, massive food court and stuff like that.  That evening we watched Spain play Italy in the Euro Cup.  We had dinner at an English Pub in the mall and that's where we watched the game.  It was a fun first night in Stockholm!

I'm updating this blog too late to remember exactly what we did what dates while we were in Stockholm.  But Guillermo and I made the most of our time there.  We got to know the metro system quite well.

July 2nd We went to the Wasa Museum today, which is a museum about a ship that sank on its maiden voyage.  Very interesting museum, we more than 3 hours there.  Here are a few grainy pictures of the ship.  The first one shows how the ship supposedly looked on the day it set sail.

And this is how it looks today.  After it was lifted from the Baltic Sea, parts of it were restored.

July 3rd


July 4th On this day, Guillermo and I did a lot of walking around Stockholm again.
July 5th
Today Magdalena drove us out to the Drottningholm Palace - she wanted to show us that part of Sweden and we appreciated our time spent together there.  We really enjoyed the drive and seeing the Palace grounds.  It was also nice taking a break on the palace grounds with waffles and coffee.

July 6th We went to the mall today and bought some books in Swedish, some postcards and stamps - tried communicating in Swedish but people always seem to recognize a non-Swedish speaker and quickly change over to speaking English.  Oh well, it's easier, but so much for getting much practice! Magdalena invited us over for wine and chocolate this evening.  We shared with her also some manchego cheese and olives.  It was nice sitting around, chatting and enjoying those special food items.

Lost and homeless

June 29th
After breakfast in our hotel, we noticed that the clouds were dark outside and we actually heard thunder!  Probably about 40 minutes before we had to leave the hotel, it started raining.  We hoped that it would at least lessen up a little bit by the time we had to cart our luggage down the street to the taxi.  And it did, by the time the taxi got there, it was just sprinkling so that was good!
Our flight back to Stockholm was good.  Once in Stockholm, we caught a bus again to the Quality Hotel and thought we'd have a little time to relax before heading back to the airport to meet Rebeca's friends Karen and Lars to go out to dinner with them.  Well, we had no sooner gotten our stuff settled in our room then Rebeca knocks on our door and says that her email shows that we were supposed to be meeting them RIGHT NOW!!
So we all scrambled to get more or less ready (we heard we were going to be going to a really nice restaurant in their hotel).  Oh well, jeans it was going to have to be for us since that's all we brought.  We took the next shuttle to the airport and met Karen and Lars by their hotel and then we find out that they are driving us INTO Stockholm since we were going to a nice restaurant downtown.  Nice!
We all enjoyed a Smorgasbord at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm and it was very very nice.  Excellent choices of food in the buffet with everything very tasty!  We had a great evening with them.  After dinner, we walked across a bridge to a little island and just admired the scenery and enjoyed the company as we s trolled.  When it was time to go back, Lars dropped us off at our hotel which was so nice of him.  We had figured we'd all go back to their hotel and we'd catch the shuttle back to our hotel.  Lars dropping us off made the evening that much more relaxing.

June 30th
Rebeca left back to Tucson this morning which of course was a sad thing for us.  It was the true ending of the actual main reason we are over here in Europe anyway.

So, anyway, in the morning we got up early so that we could see Rebeca and her friends off for their 7:30am flight.  Then we sadly made our way back to our hotel and had breakfast.  Elton John music was playing while we ate breakfast and that made me sad yet laugh because it reminded me of a video Rebeca made while we were driving on a trip and Rebeca commented, "This is the kind of music we have to listen to on this trip!"  Yeah, an Elton John song was playing in the background in the video.

We spent one more night at the Quality and the next morning we took a taxi to the next place we were going to stay for a while.