So with the start of the week, begins a new start of my journey, basically, I’m finally going to be heading out of Stockholm later today. Stockholm is a great city, but I’ve been here one day longer than I expected that I’d be here, and now I’m moving on. I leave for Lund at four today and arrive in Berlin at 6 tomorrow morning. I was even able to book a room, so everything seems to be working out… I doubt that I’ll be writing anything else to the blog until at least tomorrow, which probably isn’t too bad of a thing since I haven’t really written about anything special yet. which probably isn’t too bad of a thing since I haven’t really written about anything special yet.

Sun 25/07/10 09:06

So today I took off to explore about 7 or 8 this morning. It was cold and rainy, more like misty than rain, but it was wet. I usually don’t like the cold, but I can say that I really enjoyed the lack of tourists on the streets. Actually it’s Sunday, so there is a good chance that there wouldn’t have been many people on the streets regardless of the weather. I don’t know how far I actually walked but it has to be somewhere in the area of twelve miles, long enough that I’m sore right now.

I took a lot of photos, and to be honest I thought that I’d have a bunch to show, but when I got back to the hostel and actually looked at all of them, there really wasn’t that many good ones.

I went on a boat tour around Stockholm and some of the photos from the water are from that.

So it’s my third day here and to be honest, I’m ready to leave. I think I’ve seen all the touristy things that I can see, it’s rainy and cold, and I’m itching to move on. I haven’t made up my mind about Stockholm just yet, but I’m thinking that this will probably be my last time here. There’s something nice about it, but there really isn’t anything special about it. I’ve been all over the tourist part of the city and everything I’ve seen here, I’ve seen in other cities, and in some of the other cities they just do it a little bit better. If it’s architecture, St. Petersburg has got it hands down, and for livability, Helsinki, Paris, or anyone of a number of other cities beat Stockholm.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not dissin’ on Stockholm, the people are nice, and there is lots to see, but I think that this city is more for living than for visiting. Having said all that I am ready to leave, but have one more night and then I have to try to find someplace to go to.

Today I’m really at a loss of things to do, the weather is cold and rainy (like I mentioned) and I’ve seen much of the city, as I’ve also mentioned, so what to do? What to do?

Sat 24/07/10 09:38

Today I started by going to the bus station to try to get a ride out of Stockholm. Unfortunately my expectations that there would be dozens of choices to exit Stockholm for Berlin either by bus or by train was quickly squashed. I guess it’s not as big destination as I thought I even went to a travel agency that was supposed to be the exclusive ticket provider for the main bus company in Europe, and they were closed. I ended up extending my stay in Stockholm for at least a day or until I can find a bus somewhere in the direction of Germany.

After all the bus stuff was finished, I started to go exploring more of Stockholm. I began on the street that I mentioned in an earlier post. The street makes for a good starting point because it starts where my hostel is located and ends at the parliament building about 2 or three miles away. From the parliament building I kind of just wandered around, mostly following the groups of people. My first stop was to watch the changing of the guard. It’s always an interesting thing to see. The Swedes do a whole parade complete with a marching band as they make their way into the courtyard where the actual ceremony takes place. Unfortunately there were so many people that I wasn’t able to see most of the ceremony. It was kind of funny too, because at one point I was at the front of most of the people, and as the time got closer, I was somehow slowly pushed back. Seems to happen way too often to me.

From there I headed across a canal and into another touristy area. It was very similar to the other street, but not as many people. I stopped to take a break in this one center area, and in marches about 30 guys with flags. I didn’t know what they were doing but it was definitely some sort of protest. They lined up on both sides of the center and just stood there. Eventually the police showed up but no riot happened, at least while I was there.

It was starting to rain by the time I realized that there wasn’t going to be any excitement between the police and the protestors, so I decided to start making my way back to the hostel. I stopped at several places to take some pictures, but to be honest there really isn’t a lot to photograph. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of really beautiful buildings, but in most of the situations, they are hard to get a good photo of.