The Splash and Dash: Stockholm

The other two guys that I had come over to Sweden with were taking the flight home on Saturday afternoon so it was off in the car to Stockholm on Friday afternoon for a night on the town and some sightseeing.

Erika and me

Changing of the guard and the Royal Palace

First stop was to check in and head out for a little tourist shopping. Pete took me to the shops where he had previously bought me some clogs and I ended up stocking up on four more pairs. Awesome! I bought a few more touristy things for friends too, but Erika was keen to head out to the major shopping district. The boys did some "man-shopping" while Erika and I went off to the malls. I ended up finding a nice jacket but for some reason didn't try it on. But while Erika was in the changerooms trying some other stuff on, I decided to give it a burl and tried it on. It looked awesome! I bought it for 949SEK which is about AUD166 and I've been wearing it ever since!

The boys had planned a fairly big night on the town and I was pretty keen to go too. We started off at an Irish pub called the Shamrock where we were served by a Australio-American Swede. We knew that something was different about him when he took our order and just before he turned away to head to the kitchen he said, "No worries". We all just sat there and looked at each other. "He just said 'No Worries'. Did you hear that?" was the call. He had to have been partly Aussie. No-one else says that!

The meal at the pub was good albeit a little late but by then it was about 10pm and I was getting itchy. And I mean literally itchy. I don't know if its the washing powder in the hotel towels and sheets (most likely) or stress on my body from the cold or the water or what, but I get wickedly itchy. And when I get itchy, I get irritable. So as we were walking outside in the cold air heading towards the next bar, I had to call it a night. I was starting to shake. Not the cold shake, the "my body has had enough" shake. So I jumped in a taxi and headed back to the hotel. When I got there I noticed that the hotel had towel heaters on already, so I made the most of it and did some washing and dried them on the rack.

On Saturday morning I was woken up by the hotel phone with "Jorgen!". Pete, Erika and Chaim were downstairs and calling me for breakfast. I went down and nailed some more herring (yum) and later we checked out and headed out on the town again.

Pete making fun of me being "short stuff"

Be cautious of cars driving into the water

We went to two museums, one on Swedish culture at the Nordisk Museum and one of the Vasa, a ship that sunk in the centre of Stockholm.

The VasaLovable bones

It was back in a taxi to the hotel to grab our stuff and head over to the airport to see the boys off and Pete and I then grabbed the hire car and headed back to Örebro just in time for dinner, not without a stop for Maccas along the way...


It was off to Sebbe's house with beers and Chinese food to play Wii, and watch some videos. That, and kit up for some snow-boarding action.

Beware of the Swedish Snowboard Ninja!