Stockholm Part 1

It was 6 in the morning, and I decided to go find my hostel. It was about a 10 minute walk from the train station, and really easy to find. Unfortunately, it didn't open until 8 am, so I sat down on a park bench nearby for a while until I decided it would be better to stay at the train station where it was actually warm.

I sat down on a bench at the train station, and faded in and out of consciousness until shortly before 8 when I decided I would head back to the hostel. As I was leaving the building, I passed by one of the convenience stores and decided that some food would be good. I went in and saw the rows of candy, and remembering Kaycie's candy and grossly lacking impulse control while that sleep deprived, I grabbed a bag and started shovelling all kinds of different candies into it. Then I got a Coke and a chocolate bar. That was my breakfast.

I got to the hostel, and checked in, but I couldn't get into my room until 2 pm, so I put my backpack into the luggage storage, and then hung around the hostel for a while and went on the Internet and tried to figure out what I wanted to do for the day.

I eventually decided that I would head to the dance museum that I had found a pamphlet for. It didn't open until 11 though, so I still had some time to kill. I started walking anyway though, and found the tourist information office to grab a city guide.

I ended up finding the main shopping street, and going around there for a while. There was one intersection that I found that had an H&M on 3/4 of the corners. And I found some good candy shops.

It may be a little hard to see, but there are actually 3 H&M's in this photo!

I headed to the dance museum, and I enjoyed it, but most of it was not quite what I was expecting. I was hoping there would be more of the collection dedicated to modern dance styles, but a lot of it was about traditional dances from around the world. That was interesting, but a lot of the styles didn't have (good) videos, so it was mostly just costumes to look at. Then I found that they had a decent loop of videos playing in their modern dance section, so I watched clips of everything from ballet to Broadway, from the early 1900's, to clips from just a few years ago.

Antique dance shoes.

Pretty costumes!

They had a lot of displays like this and although I found them interesting, I preferred the ballet stuff.

Then I also realized that they were showing a film about a competition at the Bolshoi Ballet in the 1960's (I think) which seemed pretty interesting, so I watched that. There were some really neat clips of Mikhail Baryshnikov in it, and just a lot of good dancing.

After the museum, I made my way back to the hostel to check in, shopping a little along the way. I put my stuff into my room and then decided to try out the little café that was in the reception area of my hostel. I tried to pay with a credit card, but for some reason the machine wasn't working. I grabbed a bill out of my wallet, but it was an old issue from a trip my grandma went on about 10 years ago, so it's no longer valid. Which meant I actually had a lot less money than I thought I did. However, it also meant I got a discount on my food because the woman working was feeling bad that it was their fault I couldn't pay with a credit card, so I just gave her all the money I had.

The food was good, but I went out right afterwards to get more money because I didn't have any. Then I walked around a little, and shopped a bit in the old town before I came back to my room and crashed for a nap.

I had a late supper (at Max again) after I woke up from my nap, and then went back to my hostel. I didn't feel like trying to meet random people in the common area, so I just went to my room, and ended up going to sleep pretty early. My room had 12 beds, but I quite liked it, although I think I shared the room with 8 guys that night.

View from my bunk - nice room.

I got up early and had to get myself checked out of my hostel by 10. At 10, I went on a bike tour that I had signed up for given by one of the women who works at the hostel.

It was pretty good, although I'm really in no shape to ride a bike, and I couldn't find my camera in my bag, so I didn't take any photos (maybe just as well to focus on my biking). We saw a bust of Astrid Lindgren in a park nearby our hostel (she used to live in the neighbourhood, so a lot of her stories take place there). We saw a plaque where the Swedish Prime Minister was assassinated in 1986, and a monument to a war hero that died after being taken prisoner in Russia. We got to hear a bit of the story of the Vasa, and then we had a little picnic on a dock. They had said in the description that it would be coffee and traditional Swedish cinnamon buns, but the buns were actually cardamom buns, which just aren't as good as cinnamon ones.

After we came back from the picnic, I tried to get my things ready to head to Finland. I did some laundry and went on the Internet and ate at the hostel café for lunch while I was waiting. Then I went on a bit of a shopping walkabout before I came back to get all my things packed up and head off to the ferry.

I got to the terminal by taking the metro, and went to buy a ticket. I asked for the cheapest one they had, and the woman told me that would be a shared cabin, so I said "Okay," and paid the 90 SEK reservation fee (the rest was discounted by my Eurail pass). I got a drinkable yoghurt and tiny chocolate bar as I waited to get on the ferry.

While waiting to board the ferry.

Next up - the ferry to Finland.