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.