So today officially confirmed my suspicions that Swedish people are reproducing at an abnormally fast rate and are soon on their way to overpopulating the earth with beautiful, skinny, blond, fashionable people. Needless to say, although Sweden is cool -- I could never pass for being Swedish.
As much as I love travelling with my parents -- my father's snoring is not always conducive to getting a great night's sleep, so even though I had told myself I was going to get up early -- I failed. After all sleeping in a bit, we all had breakfast in the lounge on our floor -- big array of food. I had some yogurt and granola, which was really quite good even while not being overly exotic.
We got our act together and walked across the bridge to the old town, Gamla Stan, to watch the changing of the guards ceremony. Since today was Sweden's National Day, it was much grander than usual (or so we think). Tons of people surrounded the square in front of the Royal Palace -- including everyone from the Holland America cruise ship that was docked in Stockholm today -- but we were able to finagle our way into a pretty good spot. Just after noon, the mounted band entered along with all sorts of other soldiers dressed in royal blue or navy blue. It was quite the affair -- and the music was great!
Mounted band in front of the palace.
Flag bearers marching out
It was a great thing to see -- lots of Swedish pride and nationalism, but also lots of standing in the sun! From there, we left the island of Gamla Stan with the intent of going to a different island called Djurgarden. We walked down by the water for about 40 minutes until we finally found ourselves on the new island which is home to many different museums and even an amusement park!
We were getting hungry, so we decided to find some lunch and happily stumbled upon this restaurant in a courtyard sort of tucked back behind the Liljevalchs Museum (whatever that is....my research isn't proving to be very helpful). After bumbling around and trying to figure out how the whole getting food system was supposed to work, we finally ordered lunch. There was an enormous farm table filled with different cakes, pies, breads, pastries, and sandwiches - which we mostly resisted by ordering meatballs of some sort which came with boiled potatoes and vegetables. My dad and I both had the lamb meatballs and my mom had the Swedish meatballs -- it was surprisingly delicious. We were allowed to take the bread that we wished from the table -- so I got a couple of slices of the brown/grain bread and a hunk of baguette.
Lunch
Courtyard of Cafe Bla Porten
After lunch, we walked around to the entrance to Skansen, which was the world's first ever open air museum. Today, it still is an open air museum -- as well a zoo, concert venue, restaurant, etc. If you think it might be there -- it probably is. We spent the majority of the afternoon wandering around and seeing old Swedish buildings and (not old) animals that are predominantly native to the area. It was really fun -- the only thing was that is seemed like legitimately every single family in Sweden was there. And that each family had 3808329 children all under the age of 5. So with me not being the biggest kid fan in the world -- that was a bit of a bummer. But I'm really glad we went, and I think we all had a great time.
Leaving turned out to be a bit more challenging than expected. We knew that the royal family was supposed to come to the amphitheater for the annual National Day festivities at 6:30pm -- so we didn't realize that by 5:30pm, all of the trams and buses on the island had been shut down in preparation for their arrival. We hadn't planned on watching them come by in horse drawn carriages -- but we made it partway down the street (actually, back to Cafe Bla Porten) and decided that we might as well stay and see them come by. So I can say that I've seen the Swedish royal family! So much hullabaloo for about 30 seconds of watching them pass -- crazy!
Skansen! (A bit like Swedish Disney?)
Mama bear and one of her 3 cubs
Queen Silvia is waving, King Carl XVI Gustaf is next to her and then Princess Madeleine across from him with her fiance, American banker Chris O'Neill (their wedding is on Saturday afternoon) -- we also learned that the Swedish people don't really like Madeleine because they think she's a spoiled brat!
Princess Victoria (who apparently everyone loves), her husband Prince Daniel, their baby Princess Estelle, and then Victoria & Madeleine's brother, Prince Carl Philip sitting across from them
So that was pretty cool! After seeing them pass, we walked back to the hotel -- again along the water. There were some pretty incredible boats and it seemed like every Swedish person in the country was out walking around! Really crazy. After that, relaxed night. I'm again writing this while being the only one awake in the room....
I'm assuming that after yesterday's video, everyone thinks I am legitimately crazy -- I won't try to refute that....but if you found it as entertaining as I did, give this one a try. It's just about up there with the chocolate moose clip.....
A demain!
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