(Continued because I wrote too much about the first day)
Monday, June 14
As it turns out, Mondays are a popular day for museums and other public places to be closed. Fortunately, I'd done a bit of research and planning and had knocked out all of the anti-Monday venues the previous day. That, and the fact that I'd gotten to visit the Vasa Museum already meant that I could take my sweet time getting up in the morning. Which, given the early times at which I'd been rising for the past two weeks meant I "slept in" until the particularly unimpressive time of 8:45am. I guess this just goes to show you that if you don't have anything important to do and without the internet as a distraction, you can get good amounts of sleep and still be up in the morning. I'm going to have to try that back in the states sometime.
Anyway, as I woke up and got ready for the new day, I took the time to check out my cabin in the light of day. While the view out the window (pointed straight at old town Stockholm) was quite charming, something that was more intriguing to me was the composition of my cabinmates. Out of the six bunks in the room, we had the usual assortment of scraggly backpackers, skinny jean-clad bohemians, and the one middle aged businessman trying to attend a conference on the cheap. However, the most curious thing about these people was that the scraggly backpackers were two British girls. Turns out that co-ed hostel dorms would be fairly common for the remainder of the trip.
First up for the day was a trip to the old central palace. Throughout the complex, there are several different museums, and you can get a combination ticket for access to all of them. Unfortunately, the Swedish government heard that I was coming to visit and decided to close two out of the four museums for the whole month. Or maybe it was because of that whole royal wedding thing I talked about yesterday.
So I saw the two things that were available to be seen. One of them was more sculptures, but the other one - the Tre Kronor Museum - was pretty cool because of the fact that it described the history and construction of the palace itself. But what's more is that inside the museum, you could actually go down inside the walls themselves and see the remnants of the old palace - the Tre Kronor, or Three Crowns Palace - whose smoldering foundations the new palace was built on after its destruction by fire several hundred years ago. But... once again, no portraits allowed.
Luckily enough, the place I visited next was quite interesting to look at: my second guard changing ceremony of the trip. However, compared to the one I saw in Oslo, the guards here in Stockholm were a well-equipped, well-trained show of precision. I mean, not only were they crisp and accurate in their synchronization and step counting, they also seemed prepared to function effectively as actual guards with each officer carrying a handgun and a radio in addition to the seemingly standard Big Rifle with an Aggressive Looking Bayonet. Plus, this ceremony came complete with music, and perhaps most interestingly this music was provided by a mounted band. Sweet.
So I saw the two things that were available to be seen. One of them was more sculptures, but the other one - the Tre Kronor Museum - was pretty cool because of the fact that it described the history and construction of the palace itself. But what's more is that inside the museum, you could actually go down inside the walls themselves and see the remnants of the old palace - the Tre Kronor, or Three Crowns Palace - whose smoldering foundations the new palace was built on after its destruction by fire several hundred years ago. But... once again, no portraits allowed.
Luckily enough, the place I visited next was quite interesting to look at: my second guard changing ceremony of the trip. However, compared to the one I saw in Oslo, the guards here in Stockholm were a well-equipped, well-trained show of precision. I mean, not only were they crisp and accurate in their synchronization and step counting, they also seemed prepared to function effectively as actual guards with each officer carrying a handgun and a radio in addition to the seemingly standard Big Rifle with an Aggressive Looking Bayonet. Plus, this ceremony came complete with music, and perhaps most interestingly this music was provided by a mounted band. Sweet.
So by this point it was 2pm. I'd seen the palace, I'd seen the guard changing ceremony, and I'd also seen the Nobel Museum, although there's no photographic evidence of this. It's not that they prohibited visitors from taking pictures, it's just that the place didn't really have all that much interesting stuff of which to take pictures. I should have taken the advice of somebody I met on the ferry and skipped the museum after they told me that the place really wasn't worth the $6.50 they ask to get in. After visiting myself and spending about 25 minutes inside, I'm inclined to agree.
Fortunately, the neighborhood around the Nobel Museum is really quite interesting to see. Like the palace, it is located deep in the heart of the oldest part of Stockholm, so the streets are delightfully narrow and lined with all manner of shops. Plus, the buildings come from a wide variety of architectural styles that we just don't get in the United States. Because of the narrow nature of the streets, they're closed to traffic as well, so they make a great pedestrian mall to wander through.
Unfortunately, by this point of the trip I was so paranoid about pickpocketing that I honestly had a bit of trouble enjoying the scenic nature of it all. Ever since a guy asking me for directions kept brushing his hand against one of my bags while making wild gestures on my first day in Oslo, I'd been constantly vigilant about that kind of thing. So when I got to Stockholm and the museum guides kept telling us to make sure we removed our admission stickers "so you don't stand out to pickpockets while passing through Old Town", I kind of put myself on high alert. It was probably unnecessary, but I found myself trying to keep a 5 or 10 foot buffer between me and anybody else for pretty much the entirety of the trip. While walking through cities, I started to notice that I was most comfortable when I was either completely alone on a street or surrounded by an enormous crowd of people, all of whom looked more oblivious and touristy - and therefore more moneyed - than myself.
But I digress. I was finished with what I'd originally thought would be a whole day's worth of museums by 2pm, and my next bus didn't leave town until almost 11pm. So I dug around in the stack of museum brochures I'd picked up the previous day at the hostel and found one that looked interesting.
The Spårvägsmuseet is the Stockholm Transport Museum. Like the Tram Museum that the American Contingent had visited in Helsinki, it details the history of local transportation. However, unlike the one in Helsinki, this one was more than just a few signs and a few trams. Open in 1920, he Spårvägsmuseet is spread throughout the basement of the city's main bus maintenance facility, meaning that not only were buses constantly rumbling around about 15 feet overheat, there was also plenty of room for lots and lots of exhibits. The museum itself wasn't much for detail or visual flair, but what it lacked in refinement it more than made up for in volume.
All in all, the museum contains over 50 transit vehicles spread out over 1.6 acres of floorspace, ranging from horsedrawn trolleys to trams to articulated buses to the subway, covering the last 150+ years of public transportation in Stockholm. What's more is that you could walk around in the vast majority of the vehicles. In fact, a few vehicles were set up in such a way that you could climb into the driver's compartment and pull levers and flip switches. While some of these ones even went a step further and had a "driving simulator," to my disappointment it was just a looping video of the trolley or the subway or whatever rumbling down the tracks. I guess those exhibits were more set up for small children.
But I digress. I was finished with what I'd originally thought would be a whole day's worth of museums by 2pm, and my next bus didn't leave town until almost 11pm. So I dug around in the stack of museum brochures I'd picked up the previous day at the hostel and found one that looked interesting.
The Spårvägsmuseet is the Stockholm Transport Museum. Like the Tram Museum that the American Contingent had visited in Helsinki, it details the history of local transportation. However, unlike the one in Helsinki, this one was more than just a few signs and a few trams. Open in 1920, he Spårvägsmuseet is spread throughout the basement of the city's main bus maintenance facility, meaning that not only were buses constantly rumbling around about 15 feet overheat, there was also plenty of room for lots and lots of exhibits. The museum itself wasn't much for detail or visual flair, but what it lacked in refinement it more than made up for in volume.
Even though it took me a good 90 minutes to make it through the museum - which was pretty impressive, considering all of the signage was, to my surprise, only in Swedish - that still gave a great excess of time to get to the bus station. Fortunately, I suppose, the transportation museum was located several miles from the city center, so I had a good, long, healthy walk to pass the time in both directions. Ironically, although I was just coming back from the transit museum, I decided not to take the bus back in - or in fact during any of my journeys in Stockholm - because of my staunch refusal to spend any more money than I had to while in the city. However, the double irony that I discovered shortly after leaving Stockholm was that due to the royal wedding all public transportation in the city was free.
Oh well. Might as well treat myself to a hot dog with all the money I "saved." By this point, I was tired of eating pop tarts, raisins, and beef jerky, so I splurged and got something I'd seen advertised several times called a "French Hot Dog." It's essentially a very long, very low quality hot dog served inside a hollowed out piece of french bread that's been lightly toasted in a grill press. Aside from the fact that the street vendor had trouble understanding that no, I did not want any mayonnaise on my hot dog, it was actually really, really quite good. The mild sourness of the french bread really served to set off the homogenized fattiness of the snappily tubular mystery meat. I really think we're looking at the future of the streetside hot dog right here.
With my last few hours in the city in which I wound up spending the most time sightseeing over the entire trip, I continued my itinerant wandering. I saw my third American embassy, following up on my impromptu sighting of the one in Norway and the near-wild goose chase Donny and I undertook in Finland before settling down on a park bench across the street and enjoying the view off across to Skansen, a surprisingly expensive living history exhibit and zoo on one of the islands east of downtown.
On the way back to downtown, I picked up my luggage from the hostel's storage room and marched back to the bus station by way of still more concerts. These ones weren't quite as attention grabbing as the rain-soaked raucous party I'd been at the night before, so I didn't stop for long. However, I did notice posters advertising shows by both Green Day and Guns N' Roses in the following week. This revelation struck me as kind of odd, since it meant that both of those bands were following me around Europe, with Green Day having performed in Helsinki the previous Saturday and GNR being in Helsinki the previous week and Oslo the very day I arrived. It's almost like the universe was trying to tell me something, but the heck if I'm forking over $55 for a band I don't even follow.
Speaking of paying lots of money for bands I don't follow, Green Day: Rock Band was released 3 days ago. The cost? $57.99.
However, before too long I found myself waiting around at the bus station.for yet another lengthy journey by Swebus. This time, though, the bus was cleaner, the seats seemed to have more kneeroom, and most importantly the bus was less than half full. This meant that nobody had to share seats with anybody else, meaning that I could stretch out a bit and enjoy some decent sleep.
But not before we wound out of downtown Stockholm. Like all the other Scandinavian capital cities I visited, Stockholm's road system has significant differences compared to a major American city, primarily having to do with the connection between large freeways and the central business district. Even in a relatively mediocre city like Richmond, you're never more than a mile or so away from a highway while downtown - especially not at the intercity bus terminal. However, getting out of Stockholm reminded me of the time I took a bus out of Blacksburg more than anything. I mean, you make a few turns littered with traffic lights before driving along a road with one lane in each direction for about a mile before finally getting a passing lane. About 10 minutes after you leave the VT campus on Main Street, you finally get to the highway... and that's about how long it took to get to the highway from the central bus station in Stockholm.
I guess that just goes to show you how much priority highways in the US were given during the sixties, cutting through poor sections of town - that's where the cheapest land was - to get to the city center regardless of the effect it would have on the communities the highways tore apart. But that's a story for another time, and certainly not tomorrow when we'll hear the tale of how I drove (or was driven) from Sweden to Denmark, something that wasn't possible even 10 years ago.
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