Gamla Stan

On Friday, I was finally leaving for Stockholm. I didn’t want to leave though. I think I could have stayed in Gothenburg forever. Gothenburg is a lot like Chicago except it’s smaller and....better. Gothenburg has a long, unique history, its a clean city and the people are really friendly.
In Sweden, (from what I understand) one is either a Stockholm person, a Gothenburg person or one of those crazy people that chooses to live in the Arctic Circle. I realize that I haven’t been to Stockholm yet but I don’t think anything could beat Gothenburg. Thorlief has a joke that he likes to tell:
Q: “What’s the best part about Stockholm?”
A: The road going to Gothenburg.
Well said.


Leaving Gunilla and Arne was really hard. I tried not to cry but failed kind of miserably. It took me 21 years to get to Sweden the first time... who knows when I might be back??

Gunilla had two parting gifts for me. The first was my very own chunk of amazing Swedish cheese. She said she didn’t want me to go hungry at Uppsala. The second was a clock that was made in the porcelain factory that Gunilla used to work at. It even has a little “Made in Sweden” design on the back.



The flight to Stockholm was fast and easy. I think (again) that I am the luckiest person when it comes to travel (knock on wood!). I was sitting at the window seat...and even though there was a row of seats in my front of mine...there was randomly a seat missing right in front of me. I guess they only take away the seat nearest the exit window. So I had a window seat and got to stretch out! Lucky!

I realized today that in my almost 3 weeks of traveling, I have been to 6 different airports already. Stockholm’s Arlanda airport is huge. I had the seemingly impossible task of trying to find Taylor and Ryan but we semi-randomly ran into each other after only 10 minutes of searching.

When we finally got to our hostel, I convinced Ryan and Taylor to fight the jet lag and we went out to dinner. Conveniently, our hostel was only a 10 minute walk from Gamla Stan. Gamla Stan is one of the major sightseeing stops in Stockholm. It’s the “historical district” of Stockholm and it reminds me of an over-priced version of Gothenburg’s Haga.

After dinner, we watched Dancing with the Stars in Swedish (which was actually really entertaining) and went to bed early. Off to Uppsala tomorrow!!