BootsnAll Travel Network



Josh and Jenny’s European Adventure 2009 – Day 8 Stockholm, Sweden

After checking in at 6AM thanks to the very nice receptionist, Jenny and I finally got up at around 1130AM.  We set our plan for the day and embarked out of the hotel.  We started our walk meandering through the streets of central Stockholm.  We quickly noticed the plethora of malls and clothing stores in the immediate area.  We ended up walking all the way to the National Museum right on the water.  The weather wasn’t great, but wasn’t raining, just overcast and probably in the low 50’s.  Before we entered into the exhibit area of the museum we first stopped to get a quick bite to eat at the museum restaurant.
After we got our sugar levels up, we entered into the museum and started with the special exhibit called “Prerafaelities.”  These were a group of UK artists who drew their inspiration from pre Rafael.  They tried to give it their own spin and uniqueness.  From this special exhibit, Jenny and I walked through the rest of the museum.  It was very nice and had many different periods of art from all over Europe including Italy, UK, Denmark and Sweden of course.
After walking around the museum for about an hour and a half we left the museum and walked all the way back to the hotel to relax.  We were really tired after having a rough last night and an extremely early morning.  Once back at the hotel we relaxed for a little bit and then at around 8PM we decided to ask reception for a dining suggestion for dinner.  The lady at reception recommended a local Swedish restaurant in Gamla Stan (the old city) so we thought we would check it out.  Well finding this restaurant was not as easy as anticipated.  First we went to the metro to see if we could take the train there.  When we got to the ticket booth, the girl informed us it would cost 60Kr for the tickets for like 2 stops.  60Kr is like 7.50 which is a fortune for tickets on a metro.  We said “screw that,” and decided to make the journey via walking.  Walking has been our best mode of transportation all week and we continued that here in Stockholm.
When we got to Gamla Stan, I tried to follow the map the hotel had given us but unfortunately only the vertical streets were listed.  The smaller cross streets were not and of course we were looking for one of those smaller cross streets located off of one of the main squares in the old town.  After an hour and fifteen minutes, Jenny was able to navigate these small, yet hilly cobblestone layered streets we found the restaurant!  However, unbeknownst to us restaurants close early in Stockholm and by this time it was closed.  But I think it ended up being a blessing in disguise because the restaurant this girl had suggested was uber expensive and was way out of price range.
So from the restaurant we started to walk down one of the main streets going north to south along the island that had lots of restaurants.  I found a restaurant that looked good called “Sally’s.”  It wasn’t that expensive and Jenny and I ended up having wonderful dishes.  I had reindeer cooked medium rare and Jenny had entrecote (a good piece of meat I believe located in the stomach region).  Dinner lasted about 2 hours and by 1030 – 11PM we were unsure what to do.  Good thing that Jenny had two friends from Maryland visiting Stockholm at the same time as us.  Jenny contacted them and we found out where they were going for after dinner drinks.
Jenny and I continued our journey through the islands of Stockholm by then walking to the larger island in south Stockholm.  The walk was about twenty minutes and eventually we met Jenny’s friends in the street.  We all found a bar and hung out for a little having a drink.  Food, drinks and everything are so expensive in Stockholm.  By having this incredible socialist system comes a price in the form of extremely high taxes.  In Sweden  mostly everything purchased is taxed by 25% on top of the purchase price!  Jenny and I first found this out at dinner when our meal was more than we thought.  I took a look at the bill and noticed that there was something on the bill that said “moms 25%.”  At that point I quickly realized that the sales tax in Sweden was 25%! Ouch!
We ended up taxing a short taxi ride back to the hotel pretty early and were asleep within minutes of laying down.  This was another extremely long, yet exciting and adventurous day.



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