GGF Young Professionals

In Stockholm

Hi readers, the last time I wrote, I was in København but now I'm about to leave Stockholm for Göteborg or Gothenburg as we English-speakers say it.

This trip is becoming a whirlwind tour by necessity because I got so greedy in my scheduling. Basically, I spend a day on the train and two nights and a day in each city before moving on. But I don't mind because it was always meant to be a recon trip before the really big Scandinavian visit down the road.

The confusion of the first couple of days have passed and I think I've finally gotten into the rhythm of backpacking. Language isn't the problem it was because, outside of reading a menu, I don't really need to understand exactly what the signs say any more. The procedure for doing things like making a train reservation or finding a map are the same here as it was in Copenhagen. (For some reason, I've never seen maps sold anywhere. I have to go to the tourist bureau for them.)

The other part of finding my rhythm involves somewhat detailed planning, the sort of thing that my mom does that drives me a little batty. Since I'm only spending 36 hours or so in each city, it's the only way to make the best use of my time. Yesterday, I made a list of things I thought I could see in one day and drew a little map of Stockholm to decide the order in which I'd do those things. It worked like a charm.

In something like eight hours, I managed to squeeze in a walking tour of the old city, the changing of the royal guards, finding a great view point of the city for a photo, a stop at a nice restaurant with traditional Swedish dishes, a walking tour of the harbor, the Vasa ship museum and a stop at a little farmer's market for fish soup. I would've done more but I only got three hours of sleep the night before having drank too much coffee.

Anyway, I'm losing patience for blogging since there's so much planning and traveling to do at the moment (It's 8 a.m. and my train leaves in two hours.). I'll leave you with some photos, which are available on my Flickr Web site, as usual. Some of them are a little dark because the LCD screen on my camera makes everything look brighter.

Actually, you'll have to see the pictures at my work blog. Blogger's being an ass and won't display my photos.

posted by Tuey @ 10:16 PM