(journal entry from August 30, 2019)
Stockholm is so big! Especially after being in the country for most of the trip so far. We definitely prefer the country… especially the driving part. Driving here is crazy! We missed so many exits because our GPS would lose signal in the tunnels (which are everywhere because Stockholm is made up of so many archipelagos.) . It was cool to see the city though.
We spent a few hours at Gamla Stan, which is the old town of Stockholm. We walked around, looked in the shops (and found a few souvenirs), and got some lunch. Jershon got the meal that included 3 kinds of herring (the waitress said this was one of the most traditional Swedish meals) and I got Swedish meatballs (also a traditional Swedish meal).
We then quickly picked up a few groceries and headed to the place where we were going to catch the ferry to get to our Airbnb. We barely missed it, so we had to wait a little over an hour to catch the next one… which was also the last one of the night.
We got to stay in some pretty unique Airbnb’s during this trip. This one required us to get on a boat (a ferry) and then another boat (a row boat) to get to our boat (our house boat) which was in the archipelagos just outside of Stockholm.
When we were on the ferry ride, the sun was already going down and we were a little nervous about having to still go in a row boat to get to our house boat.
As we were on our way to the dock where we would get the row boat, we passed by the houseboat. It was fun to get a sneak peek of it. 🙂
When we got off the ferry, our Airbnb host was there waiting for us (he lives right there by the dock.) He took us over to the row boat and gave us the instructions on how to get to the houseboat.
Luckily our row boat had a little motor on it so we didn’t have to row (but honestly, it probably wouldn’t have been any slower… that motor didn’t make us go very fast. haha). Luckily it only took about 10 minutes (or less) to get from the dock to our house boat.
When we got to the houseboat, we tied the row boat up to the house boat and climbed up onto the platform of the house.
Our houseboat consists of 2 small rooms that only have beds and very low ceilings, a small bathroom, a sauna that also doubles as a dining room, and a rooftop deck where we cooked our food and sat in camping chairs.
For dinner, we cooked steaks, potatoes, and asparagus. As we were eating dinner, we watched the sunset and admired a family of swans.
After dinner, the sun had set all the way and it was getting dark. Jershon and I put on our swimming suits and jumped in the cold Baltic waters and then quickly got out to sit in the sauna. 🙂
Jershon jumped back in to bathe himself. Haha. I just used the shower thing (which is just a small tank filled with baltic water and a shower head attached to it) to rinse myself and wash my hair.
Now we are going to bed. 🙂
(journal entry from August 31, 2019)
We got off the ferry, got back in the car, and drove about 30 minutes to the Stockholm Temple.
