Sunday, July 22, 2018

Europe Trip part 3: Sweden

Ok, so I'm really behind on my blog post. I'm actually in Munich, Germany at the time of writing this so I've got a lot of story telling to catch up on. Spoiler: I couldn't have died.

Ok, hybrid story telling using dot points. Here goes!

The nightrider dropped us off at Stockholm central station at 6:45am. We both didn't get much sleep so the 45 minute march to our hostel in extreme heat was quite a challenge.

We arrived at our hostel and only slept for a few hours before we decided to meet up with my Swedish friend Max. Side note: Max is a Swede Matt Gates and I had met travelling around Cambodia together.

Meeting up with Max was amazing. He's just as social as I remember (but not in the superficial American way) and very welcoming. He lived up to his word and took us out for meatballs in the city center!

I can tell Stockholm has way more character and excitement to it than Oslo. Oslo seemed empty 24/7. Stockholm, by contrast, has plenty of outdoor pubs, busy supermarkets and even VR gaming stations!

Later on that day we met up with Tim and Rebecca (other Swedes which we met in New Zealand together) and went to Aifur, an old fashioned Viking restaurant selling excellent quality Mead and meat. Definitely a tourist trap, but still lovely!

The next day Kaz and I took a ferry over to a nearby island (not technically an island) and toured a few museums. We walked briskly past the Abba Museum and into a viking museum. It was amazing! They covered the facts behind vikings and the average lifestyle of vikings in much more detail than the Oslo museum. It was really surprising to hear that Swedish vikings had gone as far down south as Istanbul. It was also interesting to hear that around the 10th century Christian culture had started to overwrite Norse culture - and anthropologists know this because Swedes stopped burning their dead, and started burying them. Overall amazing museum. It's called "Vikings Alive".

We topped off the day by visiting Max, Tim, Rebecca and another Swedish friend. We enjoyed some pizza, beer, played some soccer in a nearby park and then went in for a dip in the nearby river! Really nice finish to our trip in Sweden.

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