Sweden

We left Estonia via plane bringing our total transportation tally up to plane, bus, foot, and boat. Not too bad for one week.

We arrived one hour later in Sweden, but thanks to the time difference it was the same time we left when we got there. We took an hour and a half bus ride from the Skavsta airport to Stockholm, Sweden. We got off the bus and started wandering the city. Our first stop was St. Clara's church:

It had a lovely interior, particularly after viewing so many plain interiors of churches in Tallin.

The priest asked if we would stay for the service and if someone would do some reading in English for the congregation, so we stayed and Samantha did some excellent reading for everyone.

We left the cathedral and headed into the main square area.

Now I don't know if many people know this, but Stockholm actually consists of about 14 islands that are connected by a series of bridges. This makes for some beautiful views of the skyline, particularly in the evening. Here are some of my first views of Stockholm:

Everywhere we turned the skyline was absolutely stunning. I immediately loved Stockholm.

We made it to our hostel eventually and stayed the night there. The next morning we headed out to see the city.

This is the bridge that leads into one side of the island that holds the Old Town area of Stockholm:

The streets of Old Town:

We found a free walking tour online that we went on that first morning. It was a fun and informative tour. This is the statue just outside of the steps where the Nobel Prize is given out:

This is the King's garden, which I imagine would be gorgeous come summer, but it was still pretty:

King's street, where the current princess met her husband, who was not previously of royal birth (he worked at the gym she went to). It turns out Sweden is obsessed with their royal family.

Another view of the gardens:

By the Parliament building:

Can't ever leave home without my fur hood:

The Parliament building:

The view from the Palace balcony:

The changing of the guard:

After the tour we headed into Old Town to see the main cathedral.

Me, Sara, Samantha, and Paige in front of the cathedral:

Isn't Stockholm gorgeous?

MK and A pose for Megan:

I love the colors of the bricks next to the black roof:

For Mark and Megan:

Unfortunately the cathedral was closed, along with most everything because it was Good Friday. We managed to make the best of things.

We made our way onto another island and found a pretty stunning view:

We decided that this was where we needed to come watch the sunset later that night.

Next we headed onto another island to see the City Hall.

Here it is from inside the square:

The view from the front of City Hall:

Looking back on the island we had just left:

Of course this had to happen:

City Hall:

We made friends with some ducks:

He had clearly been waiting forever for someone to high five him:

Gamla Stan:

We found a dala horse!

So of course I had to ride it.

Sweden has some incredible architecture:

I loved just walking around and seeing the buildings and water so close together.

We made our way over to another island to see the Nordic Museum:

Here I am out front of the museum:

We headed over to the Junibacken Museum, which is a children's museum dedicated mostly to Astrid Lindgren and Pippi Longstocking.

Here I am reading with Astrid herself:

And hanging out with Pippi and the gang:

I love Stockholm!!

We headed back to where we had planned to watch the sunset, obviously seeing some gorgeous sights along the way. Here is the palace in the background of this lion:

I did some birding because we found one thousand swans and ducks:

We made it back to the spot we had previously decided on to watch the sunset.

Unfortunately, this was as good as the sunset got because it was so cloudy:

Yet again, we managed to make the best of it:

My jacket was problematic for leapfrog:

But I managed somehow:

 

As you may have noticed I have been wearing a hat in just about every photo. This is why. I took my hat of and had some pretty nasty hat hair:

Yet another incredible view:

The only downside I found with Sweden was that everything was super expensive. This led to us eating 3 meals in a row at McDonalds. I was lovin' it nonetheless.

And don't worry, I still managed to find some Moomins in Sweden. Megan might find the one with a paintbrush familiar:

All over Stockholm we kept seeing signs reminding adults to hold hands with their children. Reagan is quite short, so every time I saw this sign, I would make her hold my hand to cross the street.

I had a goal to visit as many islands as possible, so on our last morning, I dragged everyone to two more islands. On our way we passed the ducks and swans again.

The whole time I was in Stockholm I had been hoping to see this crown on one of the bridges as I had seen many pictures of it in my research of Stockholm. At last, I found it!

And wore it!

We found this castle on the 9th island we visited:

The view from the other side of the bridge on the way back:

The other side of the river:

We wandered around near the bus station until we had to leave for the airport. One final beautiful view of Stockholm:

After an hour and a half bus ride to the airport, we got on a plane back to Tallin. The flight attendant asked Samantha and I to sit in the emergency exit row. We figure it was because we were the two strongest looking people on the plane.

We arrived in Tallin an hour later and began our half hour walk to the bus station. On our way we found a grocery store that was open ad stalked up on White Lion candy bars and Digestives since they don't have them in Russia. I think the lady at check out thought we were a little strange.

We got to the bus station with time to spare. Eventually we got on the bus and began the overnight journey home. We did our best to sleep on the bus, but were of course awakened when we hit the Russian border so that we could go inside and wait in line to have our documents checked. We all made it across the border and onto the bumpy Russian roads. Finally, around 9 am we pulled into St. Petersburg and got on the metro to head home.