When I first got to Ireland, I set up a bank account with the Bank of Ireland. If I used my account ten times within a certain period of time, I became eligible for a free flight to a European city. I met the requirements and picked my top three cities for travel (Rome, Milan, and Stockholm). A few weeks later, I received a call with an offer for a flight to Stockholm and was able to work out dates that worked with my schedule. I convinced a friend of mine from class, Rose, to come along with me, so last weekend, we traveled to Sweden.
Stockholm was a really cool city. It is built on 14 different islands between te Baltic Sea and Lake Malaren, which are connected by over 50 bridges. We spent most of our time in Gamla Stan, the "old town" part of Stockholm. We got lucky with the weather (it only rained once, and when it did, we ducked into a pub for a bit). A few things really stood out about Stockholm. First, it is quite expensive (especially alcohol and there is a 21% VAT, a type of tax, on everything). People in the US have mentioned implementing a VAT in the US, and I would recommend them spending time in Sweden as see how much stuff costs when there is sales tax and a consumption tax, no bueno. Second, the city was extremely clean. Third, every Swedish person speaks English quite fluently, and apparently learned a lot of slang from watching Beverly HIlls 90210, according the the guy who sold me my pin at the Hard Rock.
We spent a lot of time walking around, we went to the Royal Palace (and the four museums in the palace), saw the changing of the guard, went to a viking museum that had a 17th century viking ship, and took a boat tour around the islands. In addition, I tried moose (which my Norwegian friend thinks was really elk, and just poorly translated on the menu, either way, it was good).
Here is a video of the Royal Cavalry Band at the Changing of the Guard
I had my final class today and my friends Amy and Christina are in town visiting. The Queen was in Dublin this week (I'll post pics later), and we are going to Cork tomorrow!
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