Sweden

This past weekend I went with a friend to Stockholm, Sweden. The first thing we discovered is that it's very expensive. Sweden doesn't use the Euro so not only were things expensive, but we also had to factor in the exchange rate. The second thing we discovered is that Sweden is amazing :) We couchsurfed while we were there and our host told us that a lot of people are excited to eat in Stockholm. At first I thought that was a bit strange, but now I completely understand (as all of my food pictures demonstrate). Our host told us about a well known bakery, so we went there for the traditional Swedish Semlas, Cinnamon Buns, and other pastries. It was so good that we went twice even though we were only there for 3 days. We also found a really good Vegetarian restaurant right in the center of Old Town. It was an all you could eat buffet, and we definitely took advantage of it! Seriously, the food was delicious! (We also went there twice.) We also had the opportunity to make Swedish Cinnamon Buns from scratch! Unfortunately the oven was a bit off and didn't cook them evenly so the bottom was burnt and the middle wasn't quite done, but they were still delicious and we ate them all!

Apart from the food we got to see a lot of Stockholm. The city itself is built on 14 islands and has an archipelago close by that acts like a barrier to the city. We walked around a lot of the city- along the harbors, the "boardwalk", through Old Town where the royal palace and the Nobel Museum are located, around one of the islands with a huge park, etc. In the park we saw lots of people running and it really made me want to join them- it really was the perfect running spot with gravel trails though a park, next to the water. We also took a ferry out to the archipelagos. Before reaching the fort located on the main island of Waxholm the ferry had to cut through some ice. I had seen the ocean frozen over in Helsinki a few weekends earlier but I had never been on a boat going through ice before. It was really neat to see how quickly the ice reacted and fused back together once the boat had passed. We were told that just 2 weeks ago it would have been fine to walk across all the ice, but now it was getting to warm to be safe. The weather was not what I know as spring weather, but there was a definite difference from my trip to Helsinki earlier. There were ice puddles, where you could tell things had warmed up for a few hours and refrozen, there were birds around, people were outside, and although it was cold and windy there wasn't the frigid chill you experience in winter (like I noticed in Helsinki). I want to go back and visit Sweden sometime in the summer and be able to do some kayaking and hiking up north. It's also really close to the beautiful cliffs and landscapes in Norway where people base jump with wing suits- talk about a rush! Sweden really is a pretty country and worth a visit.