My alarm went off at 2:45 AM today and I had no problem getting out of bed. I had that same excitement you have as a little kid when it’s Christmas Eve or right before a trip to Disney World. So many exciting opportunities were ahead of me.
I threw my charger and some last minute things into my bag, and headed downstairs. I only ate my brioche because I was in a rush and didn’t want to risk missing the bus and then my flight. But I knew that was a pretty unlikely scenario.
I had a 40 minute walk to the bus station, but fortunately it was pretty warm this morning. I got to the station fifteen minutes before the bus left, and boarded. Jonathon and Nick got on immediately after. Harry and Sebastian were no where in sight. Sebastian sent a text in our group chat and arrived one minute before the bus left. He had sprinted and was very sweaty. Henry on the other hand, had not said anything in our group chat.
We feared the worst, and unfortunately these fears came true. Harry missed the bus, and as a result, he missed the flight too. We waited for his panicked response and it came about 45 minutes later. He had to end up booking another flight later that day and spending at least another hundred euros. We all felt bad, but there wasn’t anything else we could have done.
The bus to Lyon went smoothly otherwise and we reached the airport, all four of us left. By the time, we got through security and it was pretty much time to board. We got on the plane and were surprised to see our classmate Chrisly there as well. She was going to be in Stockholm for a few days as well.
I was definitely spoiled with my last flight on Lufthansa because when I asked for a coffee on the flight, I was charged three euros.
The crappy half-filled coffee.
About three euros gone and three hours later, we had finally arrived in Stockholm. It was bright, sunny and beautiful. We made our way through the airport and found out the bus and train we had to take to get to the main city. We could take a 20 dollar train that was 20 minutes long, or a bus and commuter rail that took an hour for 4 dollars. We went for the cheaper option.
The train ride was filled with some cool views and I saw a bunch of Skanska signs. That was cool because that’s where I am working this summer and their headquarters are in Stockholm.
Here’s a picture I took from the train.
Before we knew it, we were in the heart of the city. Stockholm is absolutely beautiful and filled with canals and really nice architecture. There was also a dusting of light snow that was whiter and cleaner than any snow I have ever seen.
Here are some pictures I took while walking around the city.
So Harry booked all of our hostels and all we knew was that our hostel was on a boat. Because of this, we randomly went to two boat hostels that were not the right ones. After some searching, we finally found our boat.
Look at this beauty
We rested up for a bit and charged our phones. We were all starving and wanted to find a place to eat as soon as possible. We ended up going to the office area of the hostel to ask the receptionist for places to eat. There ended up being a cafe in the office we didn’t see earlier, so we ate there. I had a really good panini and a nice Swedish beer. This is also when I realized how expensive Stockholm is. My panini was only $11, but the beer was $7. At least they both tasted pretty good.
My panini
While eating, we looked up a bunch of free activities in the area and settled on an Army museum. We truly didn’t know what to expect, but just hoped for the best.
We walked around for a bit to get to the museum, and saw this really cool ice-filled harbor.
Ice Age 2: Continental Drift
We got to the museum and judging by the tank on the front lawn, we knew it would be really cool. Free admission doesn’t hurt either.
The Tank
In my typical museum fashion, I am just going to post a selection of pictures from the museum. The exhibits taught me a ton about the Swedish military and its history going back to the 1600s. The museum also was super interactive and had deactivated guns for us to hold or military backpacks to try on. Anyway, here are some pictures:
“If Night at the Museum was real, this would be a terrifying place to be” -Sebastian
We easily spent two hours at the museum and all really enjoyed it. Afterwards, we headed to find a grocery store to buy supplies for dinner. We were planning to cook in the hostel kitchen. We ended up getting supplies for a bunch of grilled cheeses. For $3 a person, we each could have 3.5 grilled cheeses. Afterwards went on a hunt to find a liquor store.
We quickly discovered two things:
1: The drinking age in Sweden is 20.
2: All liquor stores close at 6 PM on Saturdays in Sweden (It was 6:03 unfortunately)
We were out of luck, and just planned to go out tomorrow instead. We got back to the hostel, ready to cook our 14 grilled cheeses. Sebastian and I headed the cooking effort, utilizing a small and crappy electric stove. Most of our grilled cheeses came out burnt or weirdly cooked, but we made the most of it. It’s truly hard to make a bad testing grilled cheese.
Our cooking set up
The hostel kitchen was super crowded and this whole experience made me never want to work in a kitchen. Irregardless, we all enjoyed the grilled cheeses. While eating, we talked to some Libyan dude named Rio who was an engineer. We talked to him for a while about different engineering stuff and a bunch of random stories. He was very nice and I look forward to meeting more people in future hostels.
We were all pretty tired, and just headed back to the room for the night. We spent a few hours goofing around, and eventually Harry got in. It seemed like he had a crazy day, but I guess that’s what happens when you miss your bus to the airport.
We all headed to bed shortly after, very exhausted.
Foreign Tourist with No Grasp of the Local Language 
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