A Mostly No Walk Day

We took a steam boat ride to Mariefred, 3.5 hrs one way; 

this was our view.

other than the crowds, wind, broken toilet; I needed the rest from walking. PB seems less than thrilled but still glad not to be walking.

Mariefred is charming. We ate a decent meal at a tapa's place. I thought this a perfect stop. It was a tiny shop, turning out amazing food. We had:

Country chips with sour cream, seaweed roe & onion.

Fried potatoes (tiny potatoes/halved) with aioli dip.

Fresh smoked prawns with aioli served with toast.

Game sausage, mustard, sauerkraut

Note: Food is expensive whether you're in a restaurant or a grocery.

Tomorrow is Noble Hall - last day.

Later:

OMG, the ride back; we experienced the high and low. Low was the steam ship getting stuck in the mud - I keep reminding myself the ship is 120 yrs old. We were an hour late getting back to Stockholm and I finally got to see dusk.

The high was visiting with a Swedish man/ Finnish wife for most of the 3+ hrs of the return trip. They were friendly, willing to share information, exchange ideas. We covered religion, taxes, humanity, AI, housing for pensioners, WWII and it's impact on Finland - whatever popped into our heads. She's been to the states several times attending conferences as she is almost deaf & serves on the nat'l board advocating for the deaf.

Getting a local perspective is the highlight of this visit - for me.

Erik Gunnar Asplund

I've long been fascinated by the architectural style of the 1920's -30's.

When I read about Asplund's existing buildings in Stockholm, one of them being a hotel/apartment, I immediately booked. We're staying in a lab room at the former National Bacteriological Laboratories

Erik Gunnar Asplund (1885 – 1940) was a Swedish architect, mostly known as a key representative of Nordic Classicism of the 1920s, and during the last decade of his life as a major proponent of the modernist style

Although far less famous than his Woodland Cemetery, Stockholm City Library or Gothenburg Law Courts, Gunnar Asplund's National Bacteriological Laboratories at Solna occupy a special place in his work, epitomising his short-lived functionalist phase. Dedicated, in the period before antibiotics, to the elimination of dangerous diseases and the production of anti-serums, the laboratories also reflect the general concern with health and hygiene that so deeply imbued modernist thinking. But after his long exposure to history and search for appropriate style, Asplund's interpretation could not avoid tacitly embracing social and symbolic issues alongside the purely technical and, for an architect so sensitive to contextual issues, nor could it avoid engagement with the landscape.

Rainy Day in Skansen

This open-air museum, which visualises Swedish history through the ages, founded in 1891. It contains over 150 traditional buildings from around the country, dating from the 14th to the early 20th century – dismantled, transported and rebuilt on site. Nordic animals are kept in their natural habitats, surrounded by trees and plants from all over Sweden. 

It's a hike. We did close to our 10,000 steps by noon. Wouldn't have missed it, even with constant showers. 

Entering via escalator should give us a clue we were in for a hike.

and then there was the funicular. PB was thrilled.

I wasn't crazy about drudging to see caged Nordic animals. I was pleasantly surprised by the naturalist enclosures. We had to stand and hunt for many animals - woverine, artic fox, bison, lynx, wolf, brown bear, seal, otter.

The rest of the pics are in my Stockholm album.

Impressions

Sweden is mostly a cashless society. Want a coke, 240kn charged to your credit card. PB came with $100 in krona. After 5 days, he still has most of it.

It's very expensive to live here. Lunch usually runs around $100. How can you not love food usually served with mashed potatoes and lingon berries?

Public transportation is excellent. You can get almost anywhere using a phone app or a card. Give PB a map and a schedule, he's a Transportation Genius. Me? The art in the subway stations was my saving grace. I was so busy looking at it, I forgot to be claustrophobic.

Sunny Day in Stockholm

I created a shared Google photo album, thus I don't have to deal with loading as many pics to this blog.

Our mission today was to ride a Hop On; Hop Off bus to get a better sense of the city - which is made up of many islands and bridges.

But first there is the discovery of the longest escalator I've ever been on

amd possibly the world's longest art gallery. It's worth riding the subway just to view the wall art.

Our train was 3 levels below the station. For someone like myself, extremely claustrophobic, the wall art makes the journey not only tolerable but enjoyable.

We located the information office, purchased a 72 hr pass, directions to Hop On-Off. Still find the many islands confusing. The harbors is gorgeous as are the buildings, both modern and old. Sweden is on holiday, many people we see are tourists from all over Europe, lots of different speech and dress.

After the bus ride, we had lunch at the opera house with its wonderdul view of the harbor and building. PB ordered traditional meatballs, with gravy and lingon berries. My lunch Baked cod loin, small potatoes, butter sauce, trout roe, chive oil, fennel and radish. 

I almost licked the plate.

Next we headed to see the Vasa. Located on the island of Djurgården, the ship is the only almost fully intact 17th-century ship ever salvaged

 The 64-gun warship Vasa sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. I didn't have much interest in seeing an old ship but thought PB might enjoy. I was absolutely agog! Besides being beautiful, it's massive, 4 stories high. 

Returning to our apartment, we rode a tram, subway, bus and walked up the miserable drive.

Time Is Flying By

Almost a week later since the wedding. Connal returned to Ireland, Mikki & Kil to Italy, Georgia to Portugal, Antje and Chris to Germany, we're in Stockholm and Larissa & Kevin just sent a video from Singapore's Raffles Long Bar, drinking the famous Sling.

We had a wonderful visit. Lots of talk and laughter. Connal moves to Switzerland Sept 1. The baby is maybe a boy. One Doc is definite, another isn't. I exchanged my blue yarn for pale greens and greys.🤗 

The 1st day in Stockholm was our usual, trying to figure out transportation. Because the discovery took 2.5 hrs, we walked ALOT. I'm here to tell you, Stockholm may be on the ocean, it is NOT flat! If there was a hill, we found it. Apparently we're Hill Seekers, that's how many we climbed.

Our apartment is waaay too far from City Center, my bad. We like roomy and I like to be away from the TV, so apartments make sense. Nada. In future we'll stay closer. Besides spending 10 mins walking up a hill to the bus stop, we then return walking downhill, up one incredibly steep drive to our apartment.

Full disclosure, I was warned about distance. In my defence, this building was designed in the 1930's by Gunnas Asplund. I so much wanted to stay here. And here we are. It's very roomy, nice, lots of clever Scandinavian design - with a real coffee pot.

We've yet to see sun set or sunrise. Today dawn is 3:22; dusk 22:25. It's cool 64 today. Pleasant for hiking around.

The 2.5 hr flight from Zurich was uneventful. We selected a cab from one of many and maybe? got lucky. He charged a fixed price, so no unpleasant surprises. OMG could the guy talk!!! During 25 min drive, at 70 mph, he located, by Google map, our home (or the fake address I gave him), talked about dominance of English language, swedish taxes, said he was once in the Secret Service and so on and so forth. PB arranged for him to return us to the airport ... REALLY?!!

English, very contemporary English is spoken all over the city. Speech is almost flawless with no particular undercurrent of Brit or American.

So, back to the 1st day, we made it to City Center - after a frustrating 1/2 hr waiting for PB's phone to load the transit app and buy a 24 hr pass. Then we got on a bus into City Center. Our mission is to find the state liquor store for necessary vodka and wine. Both essentials at Days End after we drag back up the hill. Google Map usually defeats us with the standard start of "head southeast, northwest etc." I'm in a GD foreign country, directions are useless, give me right, left, turn around - something useful! Instead of always "recalculating!" before we finally get in sync.

Just as we seemed hopelessly lost, hot, and tired, we managed to stumble across a traditional British Pub, the Queens Head. Did we try any of their 300 beers? No we had Spritz's.

Fortunately, we next stumbled on the state store, as well as a Coop, almost next door. Loaded with 20lbs booze and food, we then found a subway stop only steps away. Jeesh! 

This is why, we never make a 1st day snap judgement. Usually we're tired, oversensitzed and barely tolerate each other. Still we laugh at ourselves and usually have a wonderful time.

The CountDown

The morning starts checking the weather; hour by hour. How hot, how much rain? Yesterday was almost a wash out, unnecessary plans cancelled. Seemed like everytime I left the apartment, rain. Chris reported Adliswill was getting rain and hail.

However, today is sunny, cool looks like a beautiful day. Mikki reports the Schnorf's are getting ready. She and hers are staying quiet in the apartment until they're on their way. Kil arrived last night. We're looking forward to a quick visit before he and Georgia return home tomorrow. Morgan's hotel owners said it was high season, they couldn't let their manager go, even for a night.

Later:

By law, couples complete the legalese

In the civil office. It's a smallish area so only family and two witnesses. The rest of us waited outside. 

The government house is directly left of the Fraumünster church. Friday's rain turned into a perfectly beautiful day.

Waiting

First came the family:

So begins a 13 hour party! We headed to the square for.a series of pics.

Then we were off to a 90 min tram ride thru the city of Zurich. Antje's sister and family provided endless champagne from the family's French vineyards as well as food. It was fun to watch the startled city people as we rolled thru the city streets.

Kevin and Larissa made the wine holders

The tram let us off in Wolleshofen. From there everyone rushed to their cars as we had an hour before the next party started. Chris imitated an Indy 500 driver, delivering us to the hotel (WITH AIRCONDITIONING !!! 🤗) 

By 4:30 party was in full swing. Champagne and wine were flowing.

More later