Saturday, July 16, 2011

Stockholm: Night Two

After an entertaining curve ball of a night, we were back on our feet, well rested and ready to explore Stockholm. We had a quick breakfast of corn flakes and were off to roam and sightsee. Our destinations were planned and we began walking towards the water where we ran into a walkway along the water that directed us right to The City Hall. The massive building was situated on the corner of the river, filled with colorful gardens, and blessed with an outstanding view of the city. We entered inside the courtyard only to find a horse statue that caused a group of Asians some serious troubles. One of them attempted to hop on the horse as the lifeless animal magically bucked her off. Friends gathered around and pushed beneath her for a good several minutes before the happy, drenched in sweat equestrian was able to pose for a picture. We left through the main gate in the front of the Hall and pressed on over a bridge to the next attraction. Across the channel from The City Hall was Riddarholm church,  one of the oldest buildings in the city that dates back to the 13th century. It was a true honor to stand inside this structure but we had one more major site to see.  

Across from this church we found the Royal Palace of Sweden. Apparently it is almost impossible to get someone else to take a decent picture of you when, even when your trying to capture and important lank mark. Luckily, we finally got a family from Maine to give us what we needed and we were back on course. As we circled the palace and passed some royal street performers, we noticed one in particular that was surrounded by a large crowd of people and setting up for his next show. We decided to stay and watch a man whose costume consisted of two people having dinner on his back. This was a particularly amusing site to see, especially when he bent down to pick up his materials. The show was quite intriguing as the man juggled wands of fire and sharp large pirate swords. It was a great ending to our Royal Palace visit as we left the highly populated scene. On our walk back we passed through St. Clara church and other cathedrals on the way back to City Hostel.

We arrived back to our eight-person room (all to ourselves) and sat down to watch the movie Inception. After the movie, we noticed we were running a bit behind schedule for our reservation at the Ice Bar. Our receptionist told us that they would not accept any guests that were more than ten minutes late so we were quick on our feet and in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the hostel did not have any stovetops for boiling water and cooking our pasta so it was up to the microwave to fulfill our appetite. We were able to cook the pasta in the microwave but it took much longer than expected. With only twenty minutes until our reservation and a ten-minute walk, our pasta and sauce were ready. We have never scarfed down food as fast as we did that night. Kobayashi and Chestnut would have had some serious competition. Thankfully, we did not have any hostel member’s pass by our ferocious vulture like feeding as we were out the door in search of the ice. We arrived to the Ice Hotel and proceeded to the bar entrance to receive our Eskimo jackets and high-end gloves before entering the 20 degree farenheit environment. The bar was ice, the benches were ice, and even the glasses that we drank our fruity drinks from were made of ice. We walked through a train of people that were singing and kicking their feet side to side to the music. The Ice Bar was surely the coolest one we had experienced thus far. Pun intended once again. Once we left, a heat wave simmered our faces and provided a rude awakening to our body temperatures before being back on the streets.


As we walked toward a spot for nightlife, we abruptly changed plans as we remembered it was Sunday night. We journeyed back to the City Hostel and caught our last glimpse of the beautiful sunset that Stockholm graciously provided us. 

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