We're in The Best Western Hotel Kaplan in the Ostermalm district of Stockholm. Today we toured the city by bus and then spent several hours at the Vasa Museum. The museum houses Vasa, the ship that sank in 1628, 1500 meters after it was launched. This museum was our number one priority for this trip. Tomorrow we plan to spend time in Gamla Stan...the oldest section of the city.
On our own in Stockholm we realize how spoiled we were in Norway being hosted by our friends. Neither Norway nor Sweden are particularly "user friendly" for foreigners. No signs are in English but in both countries people are very helpful when asked. "Hop on hop off" buses are good but finding a place to buy a ticket which one must have before boarding was not easy.
Stockholm is as beautiful as everyone says. It is very expensive but the strong dollar helps...8.5 kroner to a dollar...American tourists. Sweden is in an economic slump so 50,000 Swedes are working in Oslo. There is no slump in Norway. I asked our Norwegian friends how the drop in oil prices affected Norway. There is little effect because Norway only spends 4% of it's oil income and invests 96% for the future. Ah...those sensible Norwegians. We were told Stockholm would be cold...it is!q
2 comments:
Sue and I were in Stockholm and Oslo in 2008. I had meetings in Stockholm and then had seats at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo. We really enjoyed Stockholm, and had a formal dinner one evening at the VASA museum. I would agree, it was a highlight for certain. Oslo, we didn't like as much. We were there right before Christmas and Stockholm was so spectacularly lit up, Christian and festive - while Oslo, as memory serves, was gray and dingy in comparison. We only saw the downtown areas of both cities although we travelled between the two on the Queens train, where all of the scenery looked like northern Minnesota. Sounds like you had a wonderful trip! Keep them coming!
Ed feels he and J. both do the recliner thing very well. He says to tell J. she is to be congratulated for posing for the picture, since her mouth is closed and his usually is not.
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