05-30 Nordisk and Maritime Museums

Out of the apt at 9:03 to catch the #67 bus at 9:14 to Nordisk Museum. We have two big museums to do today, plus a viewing from the Kaknästornet Tower, that's a TV tower, restaurant, and observation area.

The Nordisk Museum had three floors.

The top floor had furniture and rooms from Swedish homes though the ages. We start in the seventies and went back to the 1600's.

The next floor down had toys and fashion through the ages.

There were also dioramas of seasons holidays that they celebrated and how they celebrated through the years.

They had a nice audio tour here at this museum. You could use your own ear buds and listen to all the descriptions and stories.

On the ground floor there was a display on different kinds of lights you would have in your home.

And then there was an Aurora Borealis show. It was really lame. Bummer.

OK, time for some lunch. Bummer it's raining out here. It’s a short walk to the river and there's a cafe here with inside dining and it's almost full. We share a very good Hawaii pizza and then catch a bus to our next museum, the Maritime Museum.

The King was here yesterday dedicating something.  We start with an exhibition on the Swedish East India Company.  It told how it took them 18 months to go to China to get tea to bring back to Sweden so that they could sell it for more money on the black market in England.

Then we saw the stern of a King Gustav III's ship, the Amphion, and heard its story. In one of the few failures of the designer, it was too heavy to row and wasn't very good under sail either. Under sail on its maiden voyage with the King on board, it capsized under a heavy wind. It was only another heavy breeze in the opposite direction that righted her. The King had had enough and took a carriage home the rest of the way.

They had a very big model ship collection. The large sailing ships were the most impressive, but they had modern Naval vessels also.

We went to the cafe and had ice cream and a Coke while we checked the weather and decided not to go up in the tower today. Too rainy and low visibility.

We left the Maritime Museum and caught the 4:15 bus #69 home, stopping at the fruit stand next to our train/bus stop for two bananas and an apple. Then to home and Pat leaves to get his hair cut. No apt available today, so he makes one for tomorrow.

Back home we write up our day and have a homemade dinner of baked potatoes with cheese and an apple.

05-29 Stockholm's Royal Palace

So this morning we slept in till 8. Even with a mini blind and a shade on the window, it's like noon at 4am in the morning. Put sleep mask on and go back to bed.

Finally out the door just after 10 and catch the #18 train to the palace. We arrived at the Royal Palace and decided to do the 11:30 English guided tour of the Crown Jewel.

Since it's 5 min to 11 we go downstairs to the Tre Kronor Museum in the basement of the palace to learn about the fire that burned the castle and on food storage which was down here. Most of the castle in the foreground was burned to the ground in 1497. The only thing left standing was the furthest wing away.

Back up out of the basement and around the corner we went, to a guided tour of the Crown Jewels at 11:30. Here we learned they no longer wear the crown, but place them on a pillow during special ceremonies. They haven't made any new crowns for a very long time. Each member of the Royal Family has a specific crown assigned to them.

After the Crown Jewels, we left and went to lunch at a nice little sidewalk cafe. We had two cheese burgers and two cokes. Very good.

Now we are ready to go back to the palace to tour the Royal Apartments on our own and the Tre Kronor Museum under the palace where they stored dry goods.

Next we went in the chapel which is connected to the Royal Apartments. They have polished English copper pipes on the pipe organ, something that was common at the time (1742).

We walked over to the Riddarholmskyrkan church that has all the Kings buried there. It's beautiful on the outside, kind of plain inside. No church services happen here, but concerts do and there are people buried under the floor and inside rooms and under. Strange.

We walk around Gamla Stan (the old part of Stockholm) looking though a couple of shops and then find a spot for dinner at a Bakery.

We split a lasagna with a bread and a piece of watermelon, then caught the train back to our apt arriving home about 6:40.

At the train station grocery we picked up some water and aluminum foil and tape. Our first job at home is to cover the bedroom window. Success. It blocks out a lot of light. Hopefully that will work.

Now to rework our days here. They are remodeling upstairs and start at 8 am each morning. No problem on most days, but our days off are not scheduled for the weekend. So I think we will change that and hopefully be able to sleep in a little later at least one day a week. The other item is that there is a marathon happening on Saturday and it's in the area we were planning on going. So we will switch a couple things and be good.

05-28 Traveling to Sweden

Today we are up early. We have a lot of traveling to do and we get to go to a new country!!!

We take Uber to the Rotterdam Central train station at 7:10. Then get train tickets for the 8:03 to Schiphol Airport. Arriving at the airport we are not sure where to go, but we keep following the signs towards our gate, #1a, and we walk forever and then farther still to get to the KLM ticket agent where we each check one bag.

That done and it's another long walk out to our gate. You get to each gate by walking upstairs where everything is; the shops, the restaurants, and bathrooms. Then you go downstairs to a small holding room with no access to anything except the gate. You are kind of captured in a room of glass. It's a good thing we went down, even though there were no seats to sit and wait on, because all of a sudden they just started loading. No announcements, no order, just everybody lines ups and gets on.

Our flight time got changed and so did our seats at some point in the past few months. So Karen ended up in a middle seat with a guy on the aisle who hogged the armrest and hung on her side and a girl on the other side who spilled her whole coffee on herself. Luckily she managed to miss Karen. Pat is behind Karen in an exit row with nothing to his left except the emergency exit door.

Our snack came in a very cute Delft cardboard open box with a sealed cup of water that was nice and cold and a piece of cake or sweet bread. It was very good.

Arriving at the Stockholm airport, we got our bags. There was no passport check. We grabbed some lunch in the airport. We just split a ham and cheese and got a couple of Cokes. Karen had checked the itinerary while on the flight and that was our plan, because Stockholm is so far from the airport, about 45 minutes. Good plan. It worked out great having things thought out, because on busy days, or when it's too hot or you're too tired, it's great to already have those things thought out to make your day go smoother.

We got cash at the cash machine at the airport before going on the bus into Stockholm. We arrived at our  AirBnB "top floor apt" about 2:15 and Dennis came in and explained everything to us, locks, codes, keys, and windows. He gave us two metro pass cards to add money to for our bus trips. We unpacked and organized and found our shorts, as it was 78 (what?) in the apt and he had the window and the patio door open.

Mostly settled in, we went to dinner at Pompei Restaurant at the end of the block around the corner. It was excellent. It was a recommendation from Idalie (pronounced Italy), Dennis' wife. I asked her for a recommendation for a good pizza restaurant. Then, when we got there, the calzone sounded so good, I got that instead. Pat got a seafood spaghetti. We will be back for the pizza, since we have 12 days here.

From the restaurant we could see the main bus/tram station so we headed over there to see about getting a weekly bus/tram/ferry pass for use within the city. It took a bit to figure out where in the machine's menu that we could purchase the 7 days adult ticket to verify the price we would be paying. We determined from our itinerary how many trips we would be using it for in the next week and decided it would be a good deal for us and much more convenient.

Next we located our new-to-us grocery store. After picking breakfast items and snacks, we returned to our new home on the 6th floor. Here's something we passed on getting. Tomato puree toothpaste?

This apartment shares an entry with the owner, but each unit has its own locked door. Just inside our door is a very small kitchen with a sink, two burner cook top, small square microwave, small under counter refrigerator, dishes, silverware, pans, toaster and small kitchen table with two chairs. All of that in a 6' x 7 1/2' area.

The bathroom door is in the kitchen and it has a shower, sink with no counter, and toilet. Shower drains on the floor; we will see how this goes.

Continuing through the kitchen and into the living room we have a couch that makes into a bed, tv, and a small coffee table.

The bedroom door is just past the kitchen on the left and in there we have a queen sized bed, two night stands with lamps and a wardrobe with 9 hangers and four drawers. Supplies for us include 4 towels, a second set of sheets, extra TP, vacuum cleaner, iron, ironing board, two umbrellas, games, books, and maps.

Past the living room is a small deck overlooking a shared courtyard and two other shared courtyards and roof tops, including a church.

Tomorrow we start getting to know Stockholm.

05-27 New Ship, Same Port

We are getting off the ship 🚢 today. Two weeks went by really fast. It was awesome having Brian here. Being able to share a part of our European Adventure with him is a dream come true. The Pulpit Rock hike is a memory we will always treasure.

So we went down for one last breakfast together and then back to the rooms to brush teeth and put in last minute items in. We all three walk off with our own luggage, because they let us stay in our room until it was our time to leave.

There's no passport check or anything (even though they said to have them ready). We say our goodbyes to Brian at the sidewalk, then he goes left and we go right.

He is walking to the train station, then taking the train to the airport and a plane into Oslo. Karen and Pat walk half way to our New York Hotel, that we stayed in a couple of weeks ago, to catch a shuttle from the MS Rotterdam over to the SS Rotterdam Ship/Hotel.

We are amazed at how many people are getting the shuttle bus to the ss Rotterdam Ship/Hotel. We think the line to check in will be long. So I took my back pack and went to the check in line while Pat waited for the luggage below. Then I found out they were all parking there, not staying there.

Our room was not ready so she stored our luggage. We wanted to do a tour of the ship here, but don't quite understand. She says it's at 10am, so we waited around only to find out later that we had to get back in line to buy our tickets from her. There was always a long line at this front desk.

Then she told us 10 wasn't available and we could do 10:30. Later we find out this is just the engine room guided portion of the tour. It was a fairly good tour, if you understood the way it worked.

Part of the tour is self guided with a hand held audio device. Part is volunteers guiding you through certain rooms and part is a guided tour that happens at a certain time. We got to see the first and tourist class lounges and sports areas (shuffle board on the floor, not table game like on our ship).

We went to the engine room at our appointed time and his tour was in Dutch. But our audio guide told us some of what he was saying in English.

We finished our tour at 1:45 and went to Lido Deck for lunch, out on the back deck by the pool. We split a burger & fries, two Coke Zeros and a large bottle of water. We had no water since leaving our ship.

Our room is so spacious: king bed, three chairs and so much room to walk around. There's two closets and another closet with an iron and an ironing board. The bath has two sinks and two medicine cabinets and a rolling cart that has three shelves.  

Next we got a reservation at front desk for a water taxi to the Euromast. The water taxi ride was really nice because it was so hot out and it took us straight there.

We had 10% discount coupons for our tickets. The elevator takes you to the observation level. Just one floor below is the restaurant. It's beautiful out here. The observation level is completely outside. We go around and get pictures of our ships, the ms Rotterdam, The New York Hotel, the ss Rotterdam, and the locks.

We decide the ship isn't leaving yet, so we go up the stairs to where they board the ride to the top. It's like a lot of amusement park tower rides. Rotates around as it rises to the top. But the glass is much clearer and not scratched so pictures turn out much better.

When we get back to the observation level we think we still have 40 minutes until the ship leaves, so we go into the restaurant and order a chocolate muffin and two cokes. But then the ship starts pulling out. So I went and asked the waitress to hold our order, we were going to watch the ship leave, then come back.

We went up to the level above the observation level and watched the ship leave and sail past the ss Rotterdam (our hotel for the night). Back to the restaurant, she not only held our order, but put a reserved sign on our table and held it also. Awesome.

We head down the tower knowing we need to find something to eat for dinner before going back to our hotel, because there is nothing around the hotel. We cross the street and check out a place, then go back and eat at the cafe at the base of the tower. We had two ham and cheese toasties, water and a Coke.

At 6:45 we start to head back to the ship/hotel. We tried to take the water taxi back, but couldn't call, so we waited at the dock about 10 minutes. Nothing came. Finally a group of people came and they called to go to the New York Hotel. Their taxi came about 10 minutes later and took them. He said he couldn't take us, but would call. We waited 30 more minutes and then headed out to catch two buses to near our ship and walk back (a 45 minute excursion instead of the 5 minute water taxi ride).

We have an early trip to the airport tomorrow. So we prepared and went to bed early.