Day 1 Stockholm
Woke up this morning pretty early and went out to watch the scenery go past in the early morning light. We'd made it to the archipelago before Stockholm so we were going through a bunch of small islands ... most with some form of human habitation.
It wasn't particularly cold but there was a very fresh breeze which made it a bit uncomfortable being on deck after a while.
My Finnish SIM card worked for a while but eventually it stopped so I stopped in at a 711 convenience store to pick up a Swedish one. Expensive!
It took me a couple of hours to get to the hostel since I was taking the ingress route but when I arrived at the harbour I saw my accommodation across the river.
That's right ... I'm staying on a boat! I've been very nautically themed lately! I saw this on hotels.com and thought it looked pretty cool and I had to stay there. The boat doesn't seem to move at all so it's basically just a funny looking building but it's cool!
It would have been great if the boat had a galley to be able to cook in but it doesn't, so I've got to go up to the main building for the cooking facilities.
They let me check in early which was super so I dumped my bag and did a bit of planning for the next couple of days.
Eventually I took off and went for a wander around the island my boat is on but there wasn't much interesting there. There IS a modern art museum but I'm not sure I'm going to check it out given how shit I think contemporary art is :)
I wander into the city and make my way to the central square in Stockholm where I am doing another free walking tour of the Stockholm Old Town since I enjoyed the Tallinn and Helsinki ones. This one was hosted by an American chick who is now living in Sweden because her mother is Swedish.
Unfortunately this tour was nowhere near as enjoyable as the Tallinn and Helsinki tours. The tour guide was kind of annoying and while I'm sure she thought she was being amusing I would have to disagree. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why she was annoying but she just was. And the tour itself just wasn't as informative as the other ones. The first couple of tours went into the history of the cities and the countries and had relevant and amusing anecdotes. Again - it's hard to put my finger on exactly what I didn't like about it but maybe it's that the girl was trying too hard to be funny and she should have been focusing on being interesting.
At the end I snuck away without giving her a tip because I didn't like the tour and I didn't have any small money anyway.
After that I wandered around the old town for a bit longer. It's certainly not in the same sort of touristy pristine condition as the Tallinn old town but that's because this one looks like it actually has people living and working there. It feels more lived in and authentic and less like a tourist attraction.
I bought a 48 hour Stockholm Pass which will hopefully save me some money but it was pretty god damn expensive. The girl at the counter accidentally gave me 2 cards so I'm going to try to take advantage of that. I'm not sure how I can do that but I'll give it a crack. Worse case I'll give it away and build some karma points.
Stopped in at a market on the way back to the hostel to get some food for dinner and breakfast. Showered (great showers in the boat! Plenty of water pressure and hot water), cooked dinner and now I'm writing this blog.
Stockholm is a beautiful city. Walking back through the city to the hostel was lovely and it's definitely not as cold here as it was in Helsinki.
Apparently the hill on the street is shifting so the buildings on either side of the alley are tipping towards each other. There are some lamps that will be crushed in a couple of years.
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