Today started a bit later than yesterday at about 7am. I slept in on purpose because I know that things open late in Scandinavian countries already. I had a quick breakfast as provided by the hotel downstairs after getting cleaned up. It was a cup of juice, a cup of coffee that was ok but maybe a bit sour tasting and I made a grilled cheese and ham sandwich using the toaster and some ingenuity. In any event it got me on my way by no later than 8am after all was said and done. I walked out and found the Gamla Stan, which is the old town and did a couple laps around it (it’s an island which was the original site of Stockholm) and then pushed a bit past it after I had a good idea of where I was. I found one of the site seeing boat tours not far past the old town and chose to take one of those at about 10:30am (I had been walking for some time now). The boat tour took me on a ring around one of the islands of the city and up a canal and along Lake Maloren. It was nice but the boat had windows (for good reason it would have been frigid over the water without them) and those windows were dirtyish so I didn’t really bother to get any pictures on it. It was very helpful for getting the lay of the and though, and I was able to figure out where the Vasamuseet and the Nordisk Museet were and also Skansen.
I want to visit both the Vasa Museet and the Skansen later in the week but decided to go to the Nordisk Museet which was, I thought a history of the Nordic countries. However it turned out to be a series of modern and some older exhibits and was probably something I would have skipped on had I known it beforehand. I did have lunch there, in the cafeteria like museum restaurant and it wasn’t too bad. I had roast beef served with a brown gravy and boiled potatoes and a cucumber salad. Alas I couldn’t find any pepper in the place but it was a meal that Brien could have loved no doubt (aside from the salad which had a tangy dressing that added a lot of flavor to the meal as a whole. The other item of the museum that was neat was a section on the Sami (formerly known as Lapplanders) or the indigenous peoples that have lived in northern Europe since before the Caucasians came along. Their story is very similar to that of the indigenous people in American being one of oppression and discrimination but at least it sounds like the wholesale genocides like the Americans committed were at least less present if only less mentioned. I suppose we don’t publish it in America so much so it is possible they are skipping on some of it too. The Sami still herd reindeer and have made a fair amount of financial headway due to tourism as well but I don’t think they own any casinos…
After finishing the museum I toyed with the idea of going straight to the Vasamuseet but decided I should instead get my Stockholm Card sorted out instead of paying for the museum directly as I had with the Nordisk. I figure I could justify one but not two admissions I didn’t have to pay. Trying to find the place to turn in my voucher for the Stockholm Card was sort of a wild goose chase. There was a place not far from the Nordisk but they said they could only sell cards and the voucher wouldn’t work there. They said to go to Central Station, so I did, and tried the SJ ticket office who said to try the SL ticket office who said, “No the place in Central Station that used to do this closed and you have to go to the Stockholm Tourist Office.” He drew me a route to walk on a map and it made sense but I got myself a tad confused and turned a block too early and managed to then do a couple loops around until I figured out my bearings again (I could have saved myself some issue if I had admitted my tourist state and pulled out the map to get my bearings at least once). In any event I found the place and got the card then headed back to the hotel to get a small bit of rest before looking for dinner and to see if the internet connection was working and it was. I used a few minutes to post up what I had and to speak to my brother online and actually to manage to catch up on the Boston sports scene. After hearing that the Patriots and the Bruins both managed good games over the weekend I headed out.
On my way to the train station to get tickets for Orebro in central Sweden I saw a Jensens Bofhus and forgot that I had been to one in Denmark. I saw that the place was very busy and it was still only less than 6pm so I decided to try it. It wasn’t until I saw the menu that I realized that it was a place I had eaten at before if not in the same country. That said it was very similar to what I remembered after the fact in that it was a serviceable steakhouse but not really anything to write home about but at the same time wasn’t anything bad. The service was moderately quicker than I remembered in Denmark, but not stellar all the same. That said, I managed to finish the meal and head on over to Central Station where I purchased my tickets to Orebro and back and then decided to visit O’Leary’s which appeared to be open. They are filled with Boston area memorabilia which amused me greatly but when I asked if they knew whether the Patriots had won on Sunday they said there wasn’t any real call for American Football there. Fortunately I had already found out they had won 23 to 16 or so from my brother and the Bruins had also won on Saturday against Atlanta. All the same I ran into a pair of business partners from Philadelphia while I was at O’Leary’s and spoke to them for about an hour or so. I wished them well on the hopefully inevitable win of Philly against Tampa Bay and they even bought me a drink. They were also in the medical industry dealing in genetic therapy from what it sounded, and were very friendly. I thanked them for the beer and for the local sports news I pretended I hadn’t already heard. After finishing my third Falcon Export I opted for the march to the hotel where it being after 10pm I decided on writing this then heading for bed. Tuesday promised an early ride to Orebro then a guess as to what I would be doing there…
The pictures for day 3 can be found here.
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