The Amazing Race:
Half of both the bad AND the ugly involves the journey to Sweden itself. It began on Thursday on the overheated Oscar Myer Mobile busses here in Malta. There was some sort of traffic jam, worse than usual, so our bus driver took it upon himself to invent his own bus route. This included barreling the wrong way down a one way for some time. No worries, family..he was following the way being paved by his fellow weiner-mobile. After we got back on track and I was sufficiently drenched from head to toe in sweat (“clean and dry” in Malta is NEVER a reality..) I was finally back to the apartment. After packing up we met Kristi back at the bus stop only to hop on the same bus I had narrowly escaped hours before. This ride was considerably better.
From bus to plane, we arrived at the airport for our Ryan Air flight. If you have never flown Ryan Air and can avoid doing so at all costs, please do so. We check in and head to the gate only to find out there is absolutely no organizational system when it comes to boarding this plate. We stood in a “line” that bore closer resemblance to a mosh-pit as they checked us into the flight. The method of check-in was also very sophisticated and involved our gate attendant finding our ticket number on a giant bingo board and X-ing it off with a pencil. There are no pre-assigned seats on RyanAir flights, so the gate “opened” and we all bum rushed the tarmac (yes, they let you out right on the tarmac) to the back of the plane where we were lucky enough to find 3 seats together and threw ourselves down. The flight itself consisted of loudspeaker announcements, or should I say advertisements, for Clinique perfumes and makeup, scratch offs, and other strange contraptions from the Sky mall. People milled about the cabin with drinks in hand, chatting with friends and family scattered about, as if this were a Bon Jovi concert or something. The captain announces our descent in Sweden and I glance out the window and see green for MILES. Not only was the sight of vegetation a surprise, the sight of absolutely NO ‘downtown’ looking area was somewhat unnerving. We were in the middle of a forest and our airport resembled a cabin. We touched down to the “off to the races” bugle, and clapping. Yes, it was as strange as it sounds. After touchdown we asked a girl who was from Stockholm if she could tell us where our hotel was, and handed her the hotel print-off. She rattled off a few instructions but said she’d point us in the right direction after the shuttle-bus when we got to the train. We exchanged glances, “how far exactly are we from the train?” she replied, “it’s about an hour and a half bus ride to central Stockholm.” Ahh…..duh. what?! SO after an hour on busses in Malta, 4 hours on planes over Europe, we hurry into the airport and print off our “Flygbuss” tickets and locate what bore a striking resemblance to the night bus in Harry Potter. It may have been the cobblestone and the strange language but I had many HP moments in Stockholm. From bus to train, the girl and her boyfriend pointed us to the right subway station. We hop on the Red Line to Fruangen with directions to Midsommarkransen, nearest our hotel. We hop off there, and ask another unsuspecting Swedish couple for further directions. She pulls out her iphone to locate us on a map and show us where to go. (I have discovered the origin of ‘Minnesota nice’ and it can be traced back to the Scandinavian motherland, people). We followed her through a park and she pointed us into a dark tunnel underneath the highway. 
We weren’t in much of a position to argue and had no other options so we plunged into the tunnel and found ourselves on the other side of the E4 freeway in what looked like the warehouse district. We took a left down some access road and another right down some hill in what resembled a loading dock of sorts. Another left, and we saw it: Hotel Vastberga. It also, looked like a warehouse. We rang the after hours buzzer and were let in by a very sleepy night security man who tossed us our keys and grunted to the second floor. After letting ourselves into what looked like an IKEA showroom, we passed out around 2 a.m.
We weren’t in much of a position to argue and had no other options so we plunged into the tunnel and found ourselves on the other side of the E4 freeway in what looked like the warehouse district. We took a left down some access road and another right down some hill in what resembled a loading dock of sorts. Another left, and we saw it: Hotel Vastberga. It also, looked like a warehouse. We rang the after hours buzzer and were let in by a very sleepy night security man who tossed us our keys and grunted to the second floor. After letting ourselves into what looked like an IKEA showroom, we passed out around 2 a.m.Wedding Crashers:
It was in the subway en route to our train that we first learned that we were in for a wild and unique weekend in Stockholm. When asking what were the sites we needed to see, the couple from the plane rattled off a laundry list of things to do including visiting the Royal Palace, normally. We were then told the Royal Palace would be closed for the duration of our visit, as Victoria was getting married on Saturday. The CROWN PRINCESS OF SWEDEN, Victoria, was getting married on Saturday. We unknowingly booked our ‘long weekend trip’ to a country that has been preparing for this wedding for YEARS, on the day of the wedding. We were also told this meant that the entire SL system (the Stockholm transportation) was free Saturday, in honor of the Princess. Sweet, I can get down with free trains. Congrats, Vicki!
Friday we wander into the city and unknowingly discover the magnitude and proximity of this wedding business. Gamla Stan, or “Old Town” as it’s called, was a few stops away and the former center of town. Complete with cobblestone streets, winding alleyways, and quaint café’s and shops. Very old town Europe. We were poking around when we came across a crowd of people. Being curious tourists, we ambled over and craned our necks to get a look at what the fuss was about. There were about 20 men in military dress and berets lining the street outside a massive building, and cameras on rolling cranes. “A movie!” we thought. “How authentic of a set!” We walked around some more and found ourselves on the border of Gamla Stan near a bridge lined with Swedish flags that led to a building the size of the White House. Directing your eyes vertically downward from the rows of flags there were at least 50 or more military men lining the streets at attention. A woman with a microphone hurrying after a man with a TV camera walked by, and we followed her to ask what the commotion was about. “It’s for the wedding!” she replied. What we were witnessing was not a movie being filmed, it was the most epic dress rehearsal dinner of sorts of all time.
Friday we wander into the city and unknowingly discover the magnitude and proximity of this wedding business. Gamla Stan, or “Old Town” as it’s called, was a few stops away and the former center of town. Complete with cobblestone streets, winding alleyways, and quaint café’s and shops. Very old town Europe. We were poking around when we came across a crowd of people. Being curious tourists, we ambled over and craned our necks to get a look at what the fuss was about. There were about 20 men in military dress and berets lining the street outside a massive building, and cameras on rolling cranes. “A movie!” we thought. “How authentic of a set!” We walked around some more and found ourselves on the border of Gamla Stan near a bridge lined with Swedish flags that led to a building the size of the White House. Directing your eyes vertically downward from the rows of flags there were at least 50 or more military men lining the streets at attention. A woman with a microphone hurrying after a man with a TV camera walked by, and we followed her to ask what the commotion was about. “It’s for the wedding!” she replied. What we were witnessing was not a movie being filmed, it was the most epic dress rehearsal dinner of sorts of all time.
Late Friday and early Saturday the police presence became significantly more pronounced. After our hop on hop off boat tour, where we spent the whole day on Djurgarden, an island across the channel, we noticed a few new additions to the harbor in the form of a British destroyer, and a submarine. Wedding security. (no joke). 
Saturday was shaping up to be interesting.
We get back from the boat tour at 3 on the dot to find barricades and SWARMS of people lining the streets, look across the bay and see a string of white cars processing behind a police motorcade up the hill to the church. We avoided Gamla Stan for most of the afternoon and opted for the Slussen area for shopping instead..returning just in time to see Daniel & Victoria on the steps of the Royal Palace waving to a cheering crowd and being serenaded by a choir. Newspapers with coverage of the wedding were being handed to us not more than 2-3 hours later, while we were in southern Stockholm. Talk about hot from the press!
Saturday was shaping up to be interesting.We get back from the boat tour at 3 on the dot to find barricades and SWARMS of people lining the streets, look across the bay and see a string of white cars processing behind a police motorcade up the hill to the church. We avoided Gamla Stan for most of the afternoon and opted for the Slussen area for shopping instead..returning just in time to see Daniel & Victoria on the steps of the Royal Palace waving to a cheering crowd and being serenaded by a choir. Newspapers with coverage of the wedding were being handed to us not more than 2-3 hours later, while we were in southern Stockholm. Talk about hot from the press!
Aside from congestion we probably wouldn’t have experienced otherwise, free subway rides Saturday (no complaints here) and more “Victoria & Daniel” merchandise than you knew what to do with… I think we experienced a pretty typical weekend in Stockholm.
“E.4. .. you sunk my battleship!”
We spent half the day Friday at the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a royal warship from 1628. It was the most elegant, and expensive warship of its time- constituting 10% of the state’s budget at the time. On it’s maiden voyage people crowded the harbor to see the Vasa set sail. The ship made it 20 minutes and 3 km from port when the ship sunk in the harbor, killing 40 onboard. Apparently the guy who was designing it died, his brother took over, and t here were some design flaws. 
The ship was too tall and too t
hin, the weight system did not allow for buoyancy, and after the cannon salute before taking off the ports were left open: so when a strong wind blew the ship on its side, instead of springing back up the port holes filled with water and it sunk. Woops? There was discussion on who to blame (kill) for this failure and since the king authorized it with “the direction of god”, and you couldn’t blame the king OR God, nobody died for the blunder. Except the 40 young people, women, and children on board. Apparently on a maiden voyage some commoners and friends and family of soldiers were permitted onboard. The ship remained in the Baltic for 330 years until 1961 when the salvaging process began. This process took 30 years. The original ship was painted in bright colors, although the three of us felt it looked more foreboding in the coppery color it was in after being raised from the Baltic.
The ship was too tall and too t
hin, the weight system did not allow for buoyancy, and after the cannon salute before taking off the ports were left open: so when a strong wind blew the ship on its side, instead of springing back up the port holes filled with water and it sunk. Woops? There was discussion on who to blame (kill) for this failure and since the king authorized it with “the direction of god”, and you couldn’t blame the king OR God, nobody died for the blunder. Except the 40 young people, women, and children on board. Apparently on a maiden voyage some commoners and friends and family of soldiers were permitted onboard. The ship remained in the Baltic for 330 years until 1961 when the salvaging process began. This process took 30 years. The original ship was painted in bright colors, although the three of us felt it looked more foreboding in the coppery color it was in after being raised from the Baltic.“It’s a small world after all”
After Vasa we went to Skansen, which resembles a life size version of the It’s a Small World ride in Disneyworld. It’s the largest open air museum, and has hundreds of replicated homes and 
shops from what Sweden would’ve been like in the 1600s and later. Complete with period actors in authentic old school clothes who were in the shops and homes to answer questions. It was here, after visiting the reindeer on the far side of this 75 acre museum, that the monsoon hit. By the time we made it to the gate, we were all soaked (myself only from the knee down, having brought my Malta umbrella, which still made no difference in the level of discomfort). Kristi purchased an umbrella just in time for it to stop raining. We headed back into Gamla Stan and found a warm restaurant where I paid an obscene amount of money for a cured beef brisket that unsettled my stomach for the remainder of the evening. Apparently the lack of beef in my diet since being in Malta was noticeable and my digestive system went on strike. Uuf. We stopped at the grocery store near our hotel, bought sweets and drinks, took LONG hot showers and crawled into bed around 9. Capping off our evening with a very strange Keanu Reeves flick.
shops from what Sweden would’ve been like in the 1600s and later. Complete with period actors in authentic old school clothes who were in the shops and homes to answer questions. It was here, after visiting the reindeer on the far side of this 75 acre museum, that the monsoon hit. By the time we made it to the gate, we were all soaked (myself only from the knee down, having brought my Malta umbrella, which still made no difference in the level of discomfort). Kristi purchased an umbrella just in time for it to stop raining. We headed back into Gamla Stan and found a warm restaurant where I paid an obscene amount of money for a cured beef brisket that unsettled my stomach for the remainder of the evening. Apparently the lack of beef in my diet since being in Malta was noticeable and my digestive system went on strike. Uuf. We stopped at the grocery store near our hotel, bought sweets and drinks, took LONG hot showers and crawled into bed around 9. Capping off our evening with a very strange Keanu Reeves flick. Archy-pellago:
I spent the better part of 4 hours hearing about and in the archipelago and still am unsure how to say it correctly. Oh well. We cruised from the main harbor up into Stockholm’s archipelago, the largest in the world, with 30,000 islands that house 10,000 permanent residents and 20,000 during the summer months. The resemblance to cruising one of northern Minnesota’s larger lakes is uncanny, especially Lake Vermillion: steep hills with trees, and an occasional cabin poking through. The boat dropped us off at Vaxholm, the capital of the Archipelago, where we poked around the citadel for a few minutes. After discovering the museum there was closed, we realized we needed to take a ferry to the main little city. It was honestly 100 yards across the water, but we were forced to pay for a ferry (the most expensive 2 minutes of my life) where we were only left with 35 minutes on the island. We cruised up the street and I split off to find myself the most satisfying banana cake with 
buttercream frosting and a coffee, quite possible ever, and camped out on a patio until 12:55 when we ran back to the ferry to meet up with the ship that was picking us up. Back to the Old Town in time to see part of the wedding processional, we headed to the hub of the shopping district where Kristi and I did some damage, and finally tried on hammer pants. I thought molly was insane when s he came back to MN after a summer in Spain with these purple genie looking MC Hammer pants. Not until getting here did I realize: they’re EVERYWHERE. So we finally tried on some hammer pants at Cubis and snapped photos in the dressing room. They’re disturbingly comfortable. I purchased a zebra print dress with pockets. If there’s one thing that should’ve happened to women’s fashion YEARS ago, it’s formal dresses with pockets. Awesome. Back to Old Town for a late meal, and then to Medborgarplatsen where we had a beer on the patio of this outdoor restaurant, and chatted. We left in search of ice cream and found ourselves back outside the homemade waffle cone shop we spotted our first day here. I had the most amazing ice cream cone ever, still warm from the waffle iron. It was the perfect way to end our trip. We stopped in one more pub near our hotel for an evening drink, and headed back to the hotel just in time for dusk: 11:45. That’s the thing about Stockholm.. sunset is 11:00, sunrise is 3:00. This entails waking up at 4:30 a.m. in a cold sweat thinking you’d overslept only to find out it’s the dead of night. No thank you.
Alas, the weekend came to an end and I find myself back in the land of limestone and car horns. On deck for this week is the Hypogeum and St. Peter’s Pool. The Hypogeum requires booking 3 weeks in advance and is Malta’s most famous underground temple. Only 4 of us on the entire study abroad (those of us in session one who were staying for session 2) have got tickets. I’m pretty excited, having been told about this site before leaving the states.Stay tuned!
-KB
-KB
Posts
2 comments:
Sounds like an adventure filled weekend! Can't wait to hear about Hypogeum??? Good going girl. Joey
Wow, and I thought my life was exciting!
Post a Comment