After taking a nap in the room for a few hours, we pulled ourselves together and set out into the city. We took the metro about seven stops to an area called Gamla Stan, an older part of Stockholm. Most of the city is essentially interconnected islands and the Gamla Stan region is on its own island.
On main streets, it was fairly crowded with people, but the side streets were pretty desolate. We had no destination in mind, and were simply exploring the neighborhood. Some of the streets acted like wind tunnels. The weather was a bit odd — sunny and chilly, but evidently this is about as nice as it gets in Stockholm.
There were a lot of people out considering it’s a Wednesday. We gradually headed in the direction of our hotel by crossing a bridge to parallel the water. This is apparently the kind of day that Stockholmers live for. People were out walking, running, and SUNBATHING in this “gorgeous” 65º weather.
We made a stop at the easy to pronounce Mälarpaviljongen. It was an outdoor eating establishment, and was therefore packed on a day like today. It was a casual affair where we ordered our easy to pronounce Köttbullar (Swedish meatball meal). It was delivered to us in a gazebo out on the water after about five minutes.
Worth noting is that we haven’t seen any IKEAs since we’ve arrived. Also fun fact: I have never had the meatballs at IKEA, so I don’t have much of a base on how Swedish meatballs should taste. As far as I could tell, the meatballs were decent, served with some mashed potatoes, lingonberries, and pickley things. When we left there was literally a line out the “door” onto the bike path about 15-20 people deep. One upside of being here instead of Madrid is that we benefited from an early dinner. A typical Spanish dinner time post 9pm would have resulted in Nicole and I falling asleep on top of a tortilla.
After walking for another ten minutes or so, we arrived back at the hotel to finalize our plans for tomorrow — which involves Paris (we think).
passports & pepto bismol 