Stockholm

THe crowded streets of Stockholm
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Stockholm initially reminded me very much of Swiss cities, the cleanliness and the width of the streets had me thinking i was back in Zurich. However, after settling into the hostel (which by the way has free pasta and many australians staying there) I realized that  Stockholm is most definetly not the same as any swiss city. Besides the 7-elevens at every street corner, the people are more interesting and the signs illegible. The fashion is very....fashionable.

On our second day I woke up with the sun (at 4 AM!) but managed to sleep until 7.00 before taking a walk in a city still very sleepy. The deserted streets seemed like they ha da life of their own without the throngs of shoppers and tourists that had crowded them the previous day. I sat down on a park bench and read until it cametime to pick up breakfast for my fellow traveller and get her out of bed. We spent the day with a connaissance from Sweden who showed us the major tourist sites and a little more. We visited the Royal Palace (like so many others in the world), the Nordic Museum (a fascinating collection but unfortunately the explanantions were all in swedish), the Vaasemuseum (the impressive ship which sunk before leavin the port) and the Old town. If there are any Young ladies travelling to Stockholm I would heartily reccomend watching the changin of the guards at the royal palace which I believe takes place at noon everyday (I might be wrong about the time), there is nothing quite like the large group of young swedish men in dark blue uniform ; ).

The collosal Boat
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That night we joined with some fellow backpackers from our hostel (this is why hostels are great) to go "bar hopping". We visited a few interesting places but mostly wandered around for a few hours before heading into the old-town. We found an amazing Jazz-bar which had anything imaginable hanging from the ceiling (ranging from rocking chairs to store-mannequins), good music and an international money collage behind the bar- the place was quite a find. We wandered out way back to the hostel at about midnight.

The wonderful Jazz bar
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We had planned to go down to the National Park just south of Stockholm to hike, but had yet to make reservations for the hostel. After taking the bus all the way down there (about an hour's ride) and calling every imaginable place, we realised we had no other choice than to go back to stockholm and either rent a tent and camp or find some other place for our wilderness portion of the trip. Upon returning to Stockholm, we stepped into the travel agent at the train station and asked for suggestions. Not wanting to pay the excessive price to take a boat trip around the islands, we decided to head upwards towards Dalarna. We found a hostel which had room for us and took a train within the hour.