After we left the temple we went to find our hostel, which took us about 2 hours to find, once we finally ended up finding it we felt really dumb because we had been super close to it quite a bit, it's pretty funny now but at the time we were all irritated and not having fun because we were lugging our bags all around Stockholm and it was raining.
Our hostel was really cute and nice, it was definitely a different experience staying the night with complete strangers but it was also pretty cool because we got to meet people from different countries and hear a little bit about their travels. We were kind of awkward though because none of us had ever stayed in hostels before and we weren't sure how much to socialize with everyone, but everyone was really nice.
Kelsey, Victoria and I wanted to go do some exploring after we got the hostel and got settled in so we took off to have an adventure of our own - we just started walking, hoping we could find old town. We got lost, but we were never worried about it (we had our travel passes so we could always jump on a bus or metro and head back in another direction!) We finally ended up finding our way to old town, but most everything was already closed by then. This is where we learned everything closes really early (it got dark at 4pm) and everything opens really late (usually not until after 10am).
We ended up finding a cute little place off the main street and ate food there, it was really good and the guy was really nice, he actually remembered an ILP that went there a year ago and asked us a few questions about it. He also gave us some free food.
Finding our way back to the hostel was a little difficult but we all felt like after our night of wandering the streets of Sweden we definitely knew a little bit better how to travel there using the metros. That was also the night I realized there were way more homeless people in Stockholm than there are in St. Petersburg. It was a little strange, people would just have beds set up on the sides of the roads. Victoria described as looking a little bit like a sleepover.
Our next day in Sweden was a Sunday so early in the morning we went and explored a little bit and then we we went to church and met up some really awesome Swedish people. We also met some missionaries (who showed us the way to the church building, which was weird seeing because we don't have an actual church building in Russia) and one of them was from New Mexico!
After church we went to an open air museum called Skansen, in Skansen they have a bunch of animals and they also have a bunch of old homes from all over Sweden they brought together that you can go see and walk through, so it was a really cool experience getting to do a little bit of "time travel" to what Sweden looked like back in the day.
After Skansen we went back to Old Town to do some souvenir shopping, they have so many trolls in Sweden (and Norway we later learned). Trolls are a big part of folklore and it's one of the things they're known for, they were creepy to me at first but then I fell in love with them, it's just part of the culture! We ended up stopping into a little place and got some Swedish meatballs!
Our last day in Sweden was pretty sad for us, everyone had fallen in love with Sweden so much. It's a completely different world from Russia, everyone speaks English (as well as like 5 other languages, really makes me feel incompetent) and everyone was so helpful and friendly! We had planned on going to Old Town one more time in the morning and then going to the Vasa Museum (a viking ship museum) but we ended up deciding that we wouldn't have enough time to really enjoy the Vasa Museum if we went (which was definitely true, come to find out)
So we explored more of Old Town, ate Swedish chocolate, got Swedish pastries and explored close to our hostel and found a cathedral right behind it and it was beautiful. Such an amazing experience seeing everything we got to. The Swedish pastries we ate are actually a type of Swedish Christmas pastry called Saffron buns (lussebulle).
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| There was Swedish currency all over this statue, we think it's for people who are homeless. |
We decided to leave for the airport from the hostel early, and it was definitely a good thing we did, we found a bus to take us to the airport (which was 40 minutes long) and then by the time we got there it was time to check in for the flight (no idea where the time went) and for some reason none of us had really processed that we would be taking a plane so everyone had a lot of liquids, etc. It was a mad dash once we got in the line for security. We were looking through our bags, taking off belts, shoes, etc. all while the line was moving. It must have looked like a black and white comedy, once I got through the scanner at security I looked back and saw Kelsey trying to pull Victoria's jacket off from over her head (Victoria's zipper broke at the beginning of our trip) and I couldn't help but laugh.
We made it through security just fine and then boarded the plane and waited to take our hour long flight from Sweden to Norway.
We all wished we had spent another day in Sweden, it was truly a beautiful place, we were really happy wandering the streets, randomly finding "hidden" places like the cathedral and the royal palace. I definitely left a piece of my heart in Sweden.
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