Tuesday--Chill'n in Chiseldon

I'm sitting in their Orangery Restaurant at the hotel and enjoying the morning. They're hosting a big group so their resident's living room is being occupied by a theatre group. They always have something going on here. When we were here a month ago, they had another group that was filming a documentary, using the hotel as a backdrop.

Today is a free day for me--chill'n, drawing, writing and whatever. While I was answering my email I realized I had never uploaded my notes about Sweden, which I had written when we were on the train to Brittany. If you'll remember, we went to Stockholm to catch the cruise to Russia and Estonia. So we booked a room the night before and then after the cruise we came back and stayed for a couple of day. I was supposed to upload my notes and photos, but never did. Now you  get the scoop today.  (Tomorrow Rob and Angie will be taking me to Cornwall, so I'll have plenty to share on Thursday.)

July 7, 2010
I'm on the train and thought I'd put some things down that are rolling around in my head. I only have about an hour's worth of time to write, so I'll have to be quick.

Sweden, the city of Stockholm is very sleek and modern—very, very clean. That's what I imagined. Our hotel room is like walking into IKEA. As expected, the room is very small-a short hallway with the bathroom on the left and then it pours out to the room. I thought I had ordered a room with a double bed and sofa sleeper, but I was wrong. Sometimes that's the problem ordering through Expedia. I even called and made reservations directly with an agent, but I didn't clarify what I was ordering.

Very small room, three twins

Shower shares heated floor with whole bathroom.
Interesting, but water gets all over the floor.

The room had a window seat but had beds that were set on an edge, obviously to be able to reconfigure the room easier. The edge was about 4 inches in width also served as your night table. Alex slept on a pull-away bed. Actually our first night, we all slept in twin beds. But that was changed after we came back from the cruise. On that day, I was so sick with my cold, I stayed in bed the entire day. The guys went out and got us burgers.

Speaking about burgers, in Stockholm they cost around $17 to $20 but Hal and Alex found this McD knock—off called Max. They sold children's meals for $3.00. So we got them the first night and then the day I was sick, they upgraded to the adult hamburgers that cost $7.00. For the rest of our time, we just went to a local supermarket (Co-op, pronounced coop) and purchased baguettes, cheese, orange juice and the like. I had bought a bottle of vodka in Russia so I took a few shots of that for medicinal purposes. Really I did!! Their vodka is way lighter than ours. So I was drinking my way through the cold.

Super clean, sleek city

Multiple benches for sitting in middle of city

By Friday, July 2, I was feeling much better and one of my students, Ida who lives in Stockholm, took us on a private tour of the city. First we went to Old Town. Wow, this is the older part of the city. There are lots of hidden corridors and neat little shops. The palace is also part of the whole package. Just a couple of weeks before we came, the Royal family's daughter got married to her personal trainer--we missed all festivities, which is good in my opinion, too many crowds.

Oh I should also mention that we arrived originally in Stockholm during mid-summer festivities. So on our first day, there was little traffic. Everyone is on holiday then in celebration of the light. I can't even begin to imagine what winter is like in Stockholm considering that sun is down only a couple of hours during mid-summer. All of us had a hard time sleeping until we got to France where night and day is similar to ours.

Chess game in the park

More gardens facing old town

The Royal  Palace

Old Town. 

Had lunch in old town: $100 for four people for a small
meal of Swedish meatballs and potatoes. Way expensive here.

Stockholm is made up of 14 separate islands with 57 difference bridges. We bought an all-day pass that allowed us to use the subways, buses, and ferries. After visiting Old Town, we hopped on a ferry to see the Vasa Museum. This is a ship that sank back in the 17^th century after going less than one nautical mile (it was supposed to be the best of the best at the time). In the 70s, they pulled it from the sea, restored and put it on display in this museum, which opened in 1990. It is amazing. Not only did the ship stay preserved all those years but so did a lot of skeletons, tools, and so on.

Took the ferry to Vasa Museum. We traveled the
city on trains and ferries all on one pass. Cool!

Imagine that this ship was under water for over 400 years!

They've reconstructed the faces of some of the people who died on the ship.
You can't see it, but they've included sweat on this. Amazing.

Inside the Co-Op

One of our adventures in Stockholm came when we found out that we had to have only 44 lbs of weight in our luggage. We had all flown from the US which allowed 50, but now we had get it down by six pounds. So I basically eliminated any clothing, books or other miscellaneous items that were heavy. So you know what that means? I now have an extra six pounds of space that I can use to buy stuff in England.:)

Right now as I am writing we are on one of those TVA trains—super fast on our way to Brittany. It's amazing how fast this thing can fly. The cars on the highways look like they are standing still. The landscape has a yellow orche look with bits and pieces of land painted with emerald green. It's been warm here and the landscape shows it. We were very fortunate in Paris to have air conditioning. That's why we went with Novotel. I don't believe our friends in Caurel have air conditioning so that will be prove to be very interesting with my constant hot flashes. So here ends my Sweden notes. :]

The longest sunset I've ever witnessed.