Solfari.com presents Stockholm, Sweden

We spent our one night in Oslo meeting with Tony of London fame and Kevin from San Francisco. The Fantastic Four were now together for the main feature of the trip: Stockholm.

We boarded an early train in Oslo for the 6 hour trip to Stockholm. With the notable exception of a frustrating but now humorous encounter with the American female geriatric society while boarding the train, the trip went off without a hitch. Norway had been cloudy and cool for the most part but by the time we arrived in Stockholm, the clouds had broken and a beautiful mid-summer Saturday afternoon was upon us.

Dinner Time at Madeleine's

Stockholm, Sweden

We arrived in Stockholm and made our way to my friend Madeleine's flat in central Stockholm. I had met Madeleine the year before during the Earhart tour and she offered to put us up in her building.

Her building has flats for about 20 different people and there is an extra dormer flat that can be rented for $5 a night. Needless to say, this was a great deal for us and we were quite thankful to have a full flat to ourselves. In order to determine who slept where, we rolled dice on a nightly basis and chose from the following:

firm twin bed
soft sofa
WWII era cot
floor

With such a variety of quality, the dice roll was an extremely important part of the day and night! Apparently, I had some good luck because in 5 nights, I was on the sofa 3 times, the twin bed once and the cot one time. My luck would continue in future matches as well.

Madeleine prepared a late lunch for us and invited her friend Karen to join us on the rooftop deck. We had a great caserole, or something that I would not normally eat, and enjoyed talking about the city and the earlier portion of the trip. Of course, we left out some of the better stories, but nonetheless, there was still quite a bit of laughing at John's antics.

Madeleine and Karen were meeting some friends at Tivoli after dinner for a few rides and games. We joined them and talked with their eclectic set of friends for a while before suggesting a certain pub for a snack and drinks. That pub was the Dubliner!

We all met at the pub, which was surprisingly sparsely populated and had some drinks before the band began playing.


Kevin, John, Craig and Tony Dubliner, Stockholm, Sweden	Email Photo

Once the band went on around 11, people started filing in like they were following the Pied Piper. Slowly, we left our Swedish friends at the table to talk about the weather while we began making new friends and feeling the energy of the Dubliner.

After spending the rest of the evening dancing on tables and trying the local brews, we finally left to head home. It was about 3 am when we went to catch the bus. The sun was beginning to show itself over the horizon as we happily headed home for a good night's rest. Although the sunrise was probably one of the most dramatic things that could be seen in Stockholm, I was happy to be resting myself for the rest of the 'work week' at the Dubliner.


John Gettin' Jiggy Dubliner, Stockholm, Sweden	Email Photo

We spent the next 4 nights at the Dubliner, rubbing elbows with people from all walks of life. We met a crazy Dutchman, who is immortalized in the next page, who shall forever be known as 'Fritz'. Mostly because that's his name and it fits him to a 'T'. :-)

We spent our evenings there drinking, dancing (live music every night), eating and greeting. Sunday night, while listening to an English fellow from within a few kilometers of Tony's flat, we met 2 locals: Karen and Linda. They were on holiday and were out for a relaxing evening at Dubliner. Sort of like us!

Linda graciously offered to show Tony around town the following day so he left John, Kevin and I on our own. No worries there because we made our way to the Vasa Viking ship, Djurgarden and City Hall. It turned into a rainy period in Stockholm but we always had a warm place to 'go to work' and sleep at night.

Continue on to Fritz

Solfari : Places : S2K : Stockholm

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