After my rough start and awkward sleep, I was blessed by beautiful weather in Stockholm. It was in the lower 60's and only partly cloudy. Weather was supposed to be in the 50's and a little rainy. I am not really sure where to start, so I just wonder around the city center for a bit.
Finally, I decide I should get a 3-day transportation pass that is good on the metro, buses, tram and ferries. This turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. I couldn't figure out where to get a pass. After a few different people looked at me funny and gave me 1/2 right 1/2 wrong advice I pieced it together and had to go to a connivence store to buy the pass.
After getting the pass I spend the next 45 minutes trying to figure out how the system works. There are a lot of routes and things are not labeled nearly as well as they should or could be. I decide to go to the info center and the nice girl working the desk explains the basics of how it all works. Alright, I am ready to leave the center of the city now.
I decide to go to the island of Djurgarden first. Now, pretty much the entire Eastern coast of Sweden is a series of islands of varying size. Stockholm is divided up between dozens of these islands. Djurgarden is one with parks and museums. I get to the island and first go to Skansen, an out door, living museum. You have houses built in different time period styles and historical shops that show how items were made back in the day. They also have a zoo of Scandinavian animals. The highlight was the brown bears. Got to see about 5 of them. There was a wolf area as well, but no surprise you couldn't see them...but I bet they could see me..
After this beautiful area, I go to one of the famous museums near by, the Vasamuseet. In the 1600's a huge battle ship sunk in the bay of Stockholm on its maiden voyage. In the 1960's they found it, mostly intact and started bring it to the surface (took years). Not it is restored and inside a museum. 95% of the ship if the original material. They searched the bay floor finding random parks and like a giant jigsaw puzzle put it back together. I will say, it was worth the visit.
After leaving the museum, I wander back to the hostel, locate a grocery store and head there. I will say, Sweden is unbelievably expensive. So I decide to buy some bread, meat and cheese at the store and make sandwiches for the next few days.
After returning to the hostel and having a sandwich I end up in the common room of hostel with about 20 other people, just hanging out. People are chatting, on their computers and watching TV (SouthPark, which has no curse word limitations in Sweden, and they go all out). We then watch the Roast of Charlie Sheen, which is pretty funny. The Americans in the room have to explain quite of a few of the jokes.
It ended up being a very chill night, but that wasn't a bad thing. Early to bed to make up on sleep missed the night before.
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