Stockholm is cold-Day 41- February 19th, 2017

I woke up this morning having to pee really badly, and hopped out of bed to go down the hallway to use the bathroom. It must of been all the Coronas last night.

When I got back from the bathroom, the lights were on and everyone was up. We had about two hours to check out, so we took our time. Our plans for the day we’re to see the changing of the guards and going to the National Library of Sweden.

We blasted some Creedence Clearwater Revival while we packed all our stuff up and got ready for the day. We returned our keys to the main office and were able to store our bags there for the day. It was really cold today and everything was covered in snow. We bundled up and headed out into the city to find some grub.

In the past two days, we quickly learned that despite being super beautiful, was super expensive. We were trying to be financially smart and found some café chain, Espresso House, that was nice and relatively cheap. I got a really good coffee and a bagel. It definitely was not a New Jersey bagel, but pretty good for Scandinavia.

My Bagel and Coffee

The changing of the guards was at 12:15, so we spent a good amount of time sitting in the warm coffee shop rather than waiting in the cold. Eventually we headed off to the royal palace. I was here yesterday, but it was still cool to see again. We must have messed up our research, because the changing of the guards didn’t happen. The palace was so beautiful that we didn’t really mind.

We got some stranger to take picture of us, though it’s a pretty poor photo.

From left for right: Sebastian, Harry, Nick, Jonathan and me.

We headed the National Public Library of Sweden afterwards. It was a somewhat long walk, but it wasn’t nearly as windy inside the city. Stockholm’s geography consists of a bunch island linked by bridges. Our boat was on one tiny island, Old Town and the palace were on another, and the rest of the city was on a few bigger islands.

We arrived at the library and the building was huge. However the inside was surprisingly smaller. It’s like the opposite of the Tardis from Dr. Who, giant on the outside and small on the inside.

The inside was very beautiful, though had nothing on the Boston Public Library (no offense Sweden).

Here’s some pictures from the library.

Here is some really old and very big book. Rather than explain it, I’ll just show a picture of the sign next to it. Pretty cool.

The book and sign.

We decided to hang out in the library for another hour and a half. I bought some licorice candy, which was pretty bad because I hate black licorice.

A bit later, we all grouped back together and made plans to grab our stuff from the hostel.

Here was the plan:

1. Go to the hostel, get our bags

2. Find the one Dunkin Donuts in Stockholm (or Dunks as our Massboys Harry, Seb and Jonathan say)

3. Take the Train to the airport

This plan was executed with absolute perfection. I was really looking forward to a pink frosted donut, but they didn’t have any. On top of that, donuts cost $4. I ended up just getting hash browns and they were pretty good.

Later after a bit of confusion, we found the correct train to the airport. I noticed the trains looked identical to the ones I saw in Hong Kong. After some googling, I found out online that they were built and ran by the same company, MTR. Pretty neat.

There was a direct train to the airport, but we wanted the cheapest option, so took a longer train and bus. We made it to the bus station, then soon to the airport.

We had checked in online, and security took about two minutes. Quick and easy.

After finding the gate, I grabbed a pretty good chicken and cashew wrap for dinner. While waiting for the gate, I struck up conversation with these Swedish guys who were my age. We talked a bunch about hip hop and fashion. One guy, Rashev, I talked to for about for 45 minutes.

He was really close to this one rapper who passed away recently, Lil’ Peep. As humorous as his name might seem to some people, I was really into his music and was very sad when he passed away. Rashev knew him for many years and even FaceTimed with him a few hours before his death. Lil Peep died to due to an overdose on laced drugs. It was incredible to talk to someone who knew him personally. He wasn’t Peep to him, he was Gus. He must have been very close with him because he showed me an email Gus’s Mom sent to Rashev a few days after his death. She sent him a song they had worked on together and they talked about how they were feeling.

What was really cool was that Rashev showed me some unreleased tracks with Lil Peep that he produced the beat for. Lil Peep’s final album would be released post-mortem. This was one of the tracks on it and Rashev sent me a copy. This was amazing to have and I was honored to be able to listen to it. Rashev’s flight to Barcelona was leaving, so I said goodbye. This was a great conversation and I’m glad I was lucky enough to meet someone who knew one of my favorite artists. I learned so much more about Peep and really feel a deeper connection with his music.

Thirty minutes later, we boarded the flight.

Here’s a selfie of me getting onto the plane.

I was lucky enough to get placed in an exit row and had a bunch of leg room.

Look at this space!

A few hours later, we landed in Amsterdam. We follow the directions on our hostel’s website and one bus ride later, we were there. Immediately I could tell this was a party hostel and I was very ok with that. The reception desk was next to a packed bar blasting music.

We checked in and put our bags in our room, then went off into the city to explore and find food.

First thing I noticed was that Amsterdam was obviously much warmer than Stockholm. It was cold, but it wasn’t terrible. Also unlike Stockholm, everything was open at night despite it being 10 PM on a Sunday night.

We walked across a canal to a main area.

This picture gives an idea of the area.

We walked around for a while and eventually settled for a pizza place. It was called New York Pizza and was pretty good, though not quite the same as the real stuff.

While getting pizza, we met some girls who study fashion in Surrey, England. That is where my friend Sam is from. Jonathan and I talked to them for a bit and we made plans to possibly meet up the next night for drinks.

Shortly after we returned to the hostel and called it a night. We were in a 20 person room.

This is what it looked like.

I am excited for what Amsterdam has to offer tomorrow!