for some reason for a moment, Andy was thinking that the sun rose in the west -- which didn't make reading the Stockholm map any easier. turns out the trashy chain in the u.s., 7-eleven, turned out to be our savior. it had internet hookup, traditional stockholm pastries AND the best cappucinos we had since Italy. We didn't question it. We just drank them. Lots of them.
The place we were supposed to stay who said, "no problem, call us at 9 on Monday" wasn't answering repeated calls OR trips going there on foot buzzing their door at 9, 9:10, 9:15 and 9:30, so we decided to try another place. So we checked out "The Red Boat" -- which is exactly that. A little hotel on a red boat in the river there. They had a vacancy and we grabbed it. Everything else was booked and we can no longer rely on 'dropping in' as much as tourist season starts to heat up in every country.
Biked in a beautiful park in the East that jutted out to the water and had random world-class sculputures in the gardens there. There was even another Rodin, "The Thinker" (How many of these are there?). Somehow Andy managed to flatten his tire again as well. Twice. Both times he assured the guy that it wasn't intentional. Chalk it up to reckless driving or, perhaps more likely, massive weight gain.
Attended an 'international' food festival, which means they had everything there but Swedish food. Even 'Tennessee' ribs made it seemed by arab immigrints which was quite respectable and surprisingly good.
Checked out the modern art museum and got caught in the middle of the 'Sweden Day' parade, an ecclectic mix of people (yes, there are black people in sweden) -- piled into the backs of big flatbed trucks with a fence and dj hooked up to huge speakers playing r. kelly and everyone "wooing" to people below. It also bore a eerie resemblence to the graduation flatbed trucks, with freshly minted high school grads, drinking to hip hop on these trucks and also 'wooing' to pedestrians on the street as the trucks zoom by. We also think some were wearing toga-type white sheets with some kind of 'plant life' like leaves and branches of trees scattered around them, but this could not be confirmed. The trucks of people for the Sweden Day Parade were wearing yellow and blue, the national flag's colors.
As with Denmark, there's fantastic design everywhere here, and most everyone speaks English. Although whatever you do, never, ever try to burn a DVD in Stockholm, Sweden. You will end up cursing as much as the day is long -- as people/photo studios/internet cafes who have burners (which is very few to begin with) mainly only can write to cd's, or, if they have a burner for DVD's it always seems to be, from the three shops we went to, mysteriously "broken" and in need of repair.
So, we will have to Frankenstein a solution by burning some cds now, making sure they are recieved by Anne and Steve, then delete photos to free up memory and try to find someone with a dvd burner in Finland (Helsinki) -- Andy is emailing different contacts there -- it seems to be the best solution to instead of going to a store, just find someone at home with a damn Mac! It's now getting to the point where we might be missing shots because of low memory. We have 4 gigs and it seems to always be full!
Great design goes hand in hand with interesting shopping so we tried a bit of both on our last day. Our ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki leaves at 4pm so time passed quickly and before you knew it, we had to pick up our packs and head to the dock.
It was beautiful sailing through the almost 20,000 islands that protect Stockholm from the Baltic Sea, then into the open water. The ferry was a mix of restaurant, lounge with singer, a random magician, sauna, nightclub ("disco" as they say) and makeshift casino with a roulette wheel and a black jack table thrown in a seedy corner.
We thought it would be like the Greek ferry, where everyone just sleeps out in the open, but they were not Greek and they only had limited areas in which to crash, which we learned our lesson the hard way. Sleep was hard to come by, but at least Andy scored 30 Euros at the tables. Woke up a little wrecked, but looking forward to chilling in Helsinki as the 10th place we had called, finally had an availability. Even better news was the sauna at the top.
After getting ourselves oriented, we found that, not unlike its Scandinavian brothers, Finland had an amazing design scene. Absolutely inspiring. We went to the Design Museum, The Cable Factory (old Nokia Headquarters now turned into industrial-type art spaces) The Contemporary Art Museum (which was hosting its every 10-year arts festival ARS '06 -- showcasing some of the most exciting work in the world of modern art going on today), and visited the "Marimekko" headquarters where they also make the fabric through enormous 'silk screening'-type machines into giant rolls sent all over the world to be turned into the famous Marimekko handbags, pillows, clothes, etc.
Went to the Sauna bar, but the Sauna was only functioning for groups. Watched some world cup matches. Seems like it was on everywhere. And of course, rented the requisite bikes -- a must for seeing Helsinki. Went out to some beautiful islands and of course along the southern bay. Also rode on Sveaborg Island, an old fortress, but definitely has to be one of the few remaining that will still let people ride bikes on top of the (now) grass-covered giant walls!
Crazily and suckily, on the 2nd day there, though, Andy dropped the digital camera. We didn't know what to do. The image was blurry/blowing out now and it was our only descent camera. Our option was to have it fixed, which we were told would take 3 weeks and cost as much as the camera. Or buy a new camera there, but we weren't sure if the charger would fit coming back. Or have Steve buy a new camera in Canada and overnight it to where we were staying. Amazingly, we found out we could bump up the three week time because they had the optic part that was broken there in the only (we were told) place in Finland that could really fix a camera. The bad news is that it would cost 240 Euros! Unbelievable. We decided to go for it as it seemed the only option for also allowing us to enjoy the rest of our time there trip. We got the camera back in two days without having to pay rush fees. Miraculous.
The night before leaving, Andy went to the Grand Casino for fun and to see if he could defray part of the cost of fixing it. After 2 hours and (scarily) going back to the cash machine for one big bet, he came back with, you guessed it, exactly 240 Euros.
Our bus to cross the Russian Border bound for St. Petersburg left at 12pm the next day.
Thanks: To Nina at Marimekko who took time out of her busy schedule to take us on an absolutely fascinating and inspiring tour at the headquarters.