Stockholm

We arrived in Stockholm the 31st of May and didn't end up leaving until June 10th. Talk about a long stay in one place. It was great though. And hopefully we didn't overstay our welcome to much at Hilary's cousins' place.

Hilary's cousins are Helen, Daniel and Sandra. Helen and Daniel live together which Helen's boyfriend Hakan and their dog Idum. Sandra lives by herself in a place close by. They are the sweetest family. I'm so happy we got to meet them and hang out for 10 days.

We didn't get to see much of Sandra, as her life is pretty stressful right now. But Helen, Daniel and Hakan were amazing. They were more than willing to show us around their city, invite us out with their friends and treat us like family -- which Hilary is, but they pretty much adopted me as well. Yay.

The week was really laid back. We walked around, went to parks (there was sunshine!), saw a couple museums and drank and ate food. Hilary was sick for a few days so we ended up taking those days off and just hung out around the apartment. It was really nice not constantly feeling rushed to see everything. The change of pace was much needed this far into the trip.

Because I have so many days to cover this blog may not be as complete as the rest but I'll do my best to summarize each day starting with June 1st.

Tuesday

Daniel is really in to history so he took us on a couple walks around the city explaining things as we went. Although, the first attempt at this we ended up getting a little side tracked by beer and our walking tour turned in to a drinking tour, no complaints. Helen and Lynn (Daniel's girlfriend) met up with us and we all went to Sandra's work to have dinner then headed to their favorite neighborhood bar.

Wednesday

Daniel, Helen, Lynn, Idum, Hilary and I decided to go to the park and soak up some sun since Stockholm is the first place we've had real sun in a few weeks. It was so great to just lay and feel the sun on my skin again. Sandra and her new puppy Harley met up with us eventually and we spent most of the time watching Idum and Harley wrestle with each other.

Helen, Hilary and I then decided to head inside before the sun could do any permanent damage to our skin. That night Helen's university was hosting a BBQ so we grabbed some food and headed out after a couple of hours inside. We hung out there for awhile to eat and watch some Swedish baseball, which is surprisingly nothing like American baseball except that there is a bat and some bases, and then decided to go off just the three of us by the water and drink a 3 liter box of wine we had purchased earlier that day. This ended up in us going from bench to bench around the city finishing this off. Eventually we ended up at a bar where we had another drink, met some random boys and eventually headed home.

Thursday

There is a food festival going on in Stockholm this week so we decided to head down there with Helen and one of her classmates. There were a ton of people around and some pretty good food. While we were out walking around there were huge trucks full of kids playing loud music jumping up and down, blowing whistles and screaming their lungs out. Turns out these were people who were graduating from high school. This is a big Swedish tradition. It was very bizarre to see. Especially when I asked Helen to translate one of the signs that was hanging off the back and she translated it as "Honk if you have a big penis." Ha - alright. I tried to imagine something like this happening in Seattle and the thought made me laugh.

Helen's friend, Marie, knew of a place with a great view so we headed up there to watch the city as the day faded. We hung out there for a few hours and when it eventually got to cold to be outside anymore in the clothes we were wearing we headed back for dinner.

Friday

We were tourists today and headed in to the old town to do some souvenir shopping. Once we got that out of the way we headed to a photo museum which had 4 exhibitions going on. The museum was very new, about two weeks old. Museums are not normally my favorite place, but I love photography so I don't really give this museum the same connotation as I do most. All the exhibitions were really good and interesting. The exhibits were "A child is Born", "The Birthday Party", "Life of a Photographer" by Annie Liebovitz and "Bodies". After that we just headed home for dinner and then watch a movie with Hakan.

Saturday

We attempted to get out of the house today, but after getting into the city Hilary could not stop coughing and looked horrible. I didn't want her to continue getting sick and feel this was the rest of the trip. It isn't fun for anyone when someone is to sick to enjoy anything, so I strong armed her into going back home and resting for the day. We spent the day watching Mad Men and Dane Cook. It was very lazy and not typically something you do when traveling, but it was needed.

Sunday

We decided to take a boat trip out to the archipelago. This is an area of Sweden made up entirely of islands. I think there are around 30,000. It was a 3 hour round trip ride and was absolutely gorgeous outside. When we got back Hakan and Daniel offered to take us on a motorcycle ride through the city and countryside. They both have bikes. We happily accepted and spent a few hours our riding around. I've been on a bike a few times in my life but always forget how much I love it. So much fun. If I had the money or the balls to buy one I would totally do it. Since I don't, I might have to resort to finding a boy with a bike. Chris - that's you! :)

Monday

We hung out with Helen all day shopping and eating. Eventually we ended up on a mission to find a cafe and have some traditional Swedish cakes. When this mission failed we ended up at a bar. However, Helen got us some delicious Swedish chocolate first, so we spent the rest of the night eating chocolate, drinking and laughing. The drinks are not super cheap in Sweden but we were able to find a place with some good prices on beers, cider and shots - oh my. That was a good night...

Tuesday

We finally found our Swedish cakes today with Helen. First we went to say goodbye to Sandra and Harley, then walked around Helen's neighborhood a little until we found the cafe. After that we went to the train station to reserve our seats. We wanted to leave the next day but after an hour and a half at the station we found out everything was booked and ended up having to leave a day later and we are taking a less direct route than we hoped. Oh well, the life and times of a traveler are not always easy.

That night we were invited to another one of Hilary's distant (very distant) relatives, Lisbet. She was a really nice lade who is widowed and retired and now does a bunch of traveling with one of her friends. She goes to South Africa a lot too which I thought was really cool. The meal she made us was unlike anything I've ever had before. It consisted of a very fancy Swedish caviar specialty followed by salmon which was prepared in some special was but was essentially raw and then a bunch of vegetables and then followed up with delicious raspberry pie. I can honestly say I never thought I'd be eating caviar and raw salmon in Sweden, but I did, and it was surprisingly not awful - ha.

Wednesday

This was our bonus day. We spent it with Daniel and Lynn going to the Swedish outdoor museum, Skansen, which was way better than the one in Switzerland. Since we had Daniel the historian with us he was able to tell us a lot of interesting things about the place, which was great.

After the museum Lynn's dad was gracious enough to invite all of us over for a good family BBQ. So good! He is a great cook and we sat around drinking wine and beer and having great conversation.

Thursday

Today is the day we actually leave Stockholm. The morning was pretty slow. I got up around 7am, due to not being able to sleep. This worked out great cause I was not stressed at all and had some alone time before Hilary got up. We packed, said our goodbyes, which was really sad. Hilary and I keep insisting that they all come visit us in Seattle someday and I genuinely hope they do!

Once we got to the station we began our 24 hour train ride to Paris. This is a little interesting because we originally wanted to go to Bordeaux, but could only get tickets to Paris for certain. We have to wait in Paris to see if we can get a train to Bordeaux or not. This leaves us in a little bit sticky situation since we aren't sure which city we'll be sleeping in come Friday night. But we have couchsurfers in both cities lined up just in case.

Friday

On very little sleep, we are finally on the train from Frankfurt to Paris. Our overnight train last night was from Copenhagen to Frankfurt. It was a lot less exciting than my last overnight train but I hardly got any sleep due to the noice and movement and sleeping with 6 people in one tiny room. We had to get up a 6:30 to swtich trains. The process itself has been pretty smooth so far so that is good. No realy train mishaps. We will be getting to Paris, now it is just a matter of figuring out how and when we are getting to Bordeaux.

Kyrkhult

Hilary's family is amazing. Her third cousin, Leif, and his wife, Eva, live in a small town in Kyrkhult (pronounced sher-cult), Sweden. Leif met us at the train station a little outside of Kyrkhult and drove us back to his place. This is only the fourth time we've been in a car the whole trip with this was a treat. Instantly we were greeted with hugs and wonderful aromas of a homemade Swedish meal. We spent the night eating Swedish meatballs and the most delicious gravy I've ever tasted thanks to Eva. It was a really good night of talking and getting to know them.

The next day Hilary and Leif went out to see where her ancestors migrated from and I opted to stay in and enjoy a relaxing day to myself. This consisted of a great breakfast, time on the couch reading and the longest bath of my life. I'm not usually a bath person but this was needed and was so relaxing. When Hilary and Leif got back we had dinner and desert. Now comes the best part. Eva is a trained masseuse and offered to give both Hilary and I massages after dinner. I'm not usually a huge fan of massages but this was so needed and absolutely amazing. After that we watched a movie and headed to bed. It was by far my slowest day. I think it was the first I've spent the whole day inside and I loved it.

The next morning we got up and headed on a road trip to meet another one of Hilary's relatives about 2 hours away by car. She lived in a beautiful small town on the beach. I'd compare it to an Oregon seaside town. We had lunch, visited a few of the places on the Swedish peninsula which took a few hours and then had some warm quiche and eventually around 7pm headed back to Leif and Eva's place. Once there we just watched another movie and then headed to bed again. The rest has been so nice. It sounds boring, but after 9.5 weeks of anything but boring it is welcomed.

The last day we were there was pretty much the same routine. Slept in, ate breakfast, read my book, took a long bath, had a delicious homemade Hungarian dinner and then Leif took us to the train station and we said our goodbyes.

This post was short, but I cannot express enough thanks to Leif and Eva. They were absolutely amazing and wonderful people!! Now we are on our way to Stockholm to hang out with their children for the next week. Yay!