Stockholm, Land of the beautiful

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  Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
Tuesday, August 5, 2008

I was on my way to the land of the beautiful people as I soon found out when I arrived in Stockholm. My train was in the afternoon and lasted about 4 and a half hours. The only thing that I was actually excited about was the brige that the train crosses. The bridge was about 9km long and joined Denmark with Sweden. As we crossed you could look down and see no bridge, just water. Lucky for me it was only about 15 minutes into the trip and I was then set to be able to catch up on some well deserved sleep. I passed out and the next thing I knew I was pulling into the Central Station in Stockholm. A quick visit to the tourist info and I was on the metro tring to find yet another hostel.

When I arrived at my hostel, I was pleasently impresses. The only hostel so far that you actually have to take your shoes off at the front door. The place was incredibly clean, and I was pretty happy, for the time being. The guy at reception was more then helpful showing me maps of the city , where to eat and where to party. He actually even showed me right to my room and introduced me to the other guests. Most hosels all they do is point you in the right direction and then you have to hope for the best.

When he opened the door was I was pretty surpsied. He had put me in the room with 4 lesbians. What I didn't know when I planned my trip to Stockholm was that Euro Pride was going on for about a week, so the city was buzzing. The ironic part was the 4 women he put me with were about 40-50 years old. Really nice ladies and we chatted for quite a while as they got ready to hit the town. I personally was going to call it an early night and just chill out. I finally went to bed about 12:30pm and my roomies still weren't home. They woke me up when they fianlly arrived in about 3:00am and during breakfast the next day I learned that they had an excited boat cruise with dinner and ball room dancing. It was awesome talking with them but they were headed home that afternoon. I on the other hand had to change rooms because they were overbooked. I packed my things, got my new room and I hit the streets.

Stockholm is quite a beautiful little city, well its not that little but is definally walkable, which was good because I found the metro really confusing. The old town is small and loaded with charm. Seperated by the Baltic Sea and a lake the city lies on canals and waterways. It was busy but not overwhelming.

The people here are the most amazing yet when it comes to looks. The girls all have long blonde hair and blue eyes. For every ''not so good looking'' girl there was 20 that deserved a second look. The men all fell off the cover of GQ or Calvin Klein. Again, blonde, tall and usally has one of those girls hooked onto his arm. The older women are incredible too. Fashion forward and they all know they look good. I wasn't really surprised that there were beautiful people running around Sweden, they do have a reputaion after all. I was just surpised at how many there actually was.

I found out from the ladies that the gay pride parade was going to be that afternoon. So I walked down to the main street and when I arrived I was greeted by thousands of Euopeans and tourists waiting for the parade. The celebration was about 4 hours long and a ton of fun. The europeans sure know how to throw a good street party. It started to pour rain so I decided to head back to the hostel and finish up the sight seeing stuff the next day.

I grabbed my book and sat in the common room and that is where I met Stefan and Florian from just outside of Munich. They were on vacation and stopped in Stockhom just for a couple of nights. After chatting for about an hour we decided to hit a pub for a couple of drinks. I have learned that if the country you are in doesn't make good beer, you always default to the local Irish pub. The main beer in Sweden is BLA, need I say more. I was with the two biggest German Beer fans so I had to follow their lead. Every city has an Irish Pub and they are damn good. I went to get changed and by the time I came out the boys had picked up 4 more people. Hillary, Australian, Bogie, Polish, and two german girls, I still don't know their names. They all wanted to hit a club but we decided to stick to the plan and found a pub. After a few pints of Guiness the girls convinced us to hit a club. We walked, and walked, and walked I think straight across Stockholm and after getting turned away from 2 clubs I was getting irritated and so were the boys. We were perfectly happy in the pub and now I was getting dragged across a city and no where to go.

We ended up at this place called SpyBar and after we invested the 180 Kron,(22 canadian) for cover I was really pissed now. We made it upstairs and there was no one there. There was about 10 people and us. I was done with beer so I asked how much a rum and coke was, 160 kron.(20 canadian) As soon as I heard that I was back to the beer and it was still about 12 canadian a bottle. Lucky, about half and hour later a wedding party showed up with all their guest and it got really fun. The booze was flowing and that is when I learned my most valuable lesson to date since I have been traveling.........

DON'T DRINK WITH THE POLISH!!!!!

Bogie and I started to shoot Vodka, and after 3 shots in 15 minutes I felt the blood rushing from my face. I knew I was in trouble. It was about 5:00am by now and it was time to go home. Lucky, and I mean Lucky for me, the only sober one, Hillary wanted to take off too. We all at that point left and headed for the metro. All I knew is I needed to get to bed quickly. I don't drink that much at home and my tolerance sucks to say the least. I should know better, and I do, but I was still in a state of drunkenness and I had no idea how to get home. Hillary was my god sent and got me to the hostel in one peice. I crashed and knew the next day was not going to be the sight seeing day as planned.

I got up the next moring about 11:00am and I felt great, I was surprised, I really felt good. Bogies tried to explain that it was the vodka that helps with the hangovers. I didn't believe him but I still felt good. We all met up in the moring and decided and we still needed to see the city. We walked down to the Royal Palace and then over to the Island where the Ship Museum was. As we were walking we all decided that none of us were really interested in the museum but it was a really nice walk. I had only one other thing on the list of To-Do's and that was City hall. They didn't want to go, so we headed to TGIF's for lunch. I had one more day to myself because they were leaving in the moring so I was planning to hit City Hall then. We headed back to the hostel around 4:00pm and grabbed a few beers from 7/11. We hung out in the park across the street because there was no alchol allowed in the building. We called it an early night because the guys had to be up at 3:00am to catch a plane. I'm planning on seeing them again in Munich for Octoberfest.

I got up the next day and hit the streets with only one thing to do, City Hall. The only reason I really wanted to see it, was because it is the place where they award the Nobel Prize. The tour was great, saw the parliment rooms, the famous staircase where the winners take their walk, and the hall of gold. A room that is 100% gold mozaic peices, picturing the history of Stockholm. The room is about 30 feet high, about 20 feet wide and about 50 feet long. I huge space where 1 cm X 1 cm tiles cover the entire area not including the floor. You can get married in there if you desire but it will cost you.

I went out for a bite to eat and called it a day. I was getting bored and really looking forward to Berlin the next because everyone told me it is the place see in Germany. Again I called it in early and went to bed. The next day was monumental though.

I had my overnight train booked for 4:20pm so I still had another day to kill in Stockholm. When I got up the man at reception (I didn't even ask him his name and we talked to much in 4 days) said that I should be happy that I was leaving. Sweden was going to be hit with one of the worst storms they have seen in months. I went outside and it was raining so hard you could actually see the puddles growing. I didn't have an umbrealla and I didn't want to spend the enitre afternoon inside. I decided to go see BATMAN, THE DARK NIGHT. I headed down to the cinema and watched the matinee in English and subtitled in Swedish. I was so happy. Crappy weather and a great movie that I could actually understand. After the movie I headed to the train station where I was about to learn another valuable lesson, INVEST IN YOUR SLEEP....................

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