…and I am back in Europe!
I went to Chile for a little over 2 weeks and it was great. It had been a little over a year and a half since I last visited, so it was super nice to see my family and friends. Not only that but I had a surprise visitor!
Liz, it was AWESOME to have you down there :)
And then it was time to get back into the adventure! I flew from Santiago to Madrid. I had about 6 hours of layover, so I went to downtown Madrid and had some tapas and beer watching the Olympic games. Then to Copenhagen, where I had a 3 hour layover and finally heading to Stockholm in Sweden, my final destination. It was midnight and after 26 hours of travel… the hotel I planned to stay at the airport was full! But I managed to find something else which ended up being right next to the club where we played the tournament, so it worked out fine.
Felipe got there Monday night, so I had all Monday to go out and do the tourist thing. So I jumped in a bus and went to downtown Stockholm. The city is really beautiful, very similar to Helsinki. The city hall was a big brick building overseeing the main waterway of Stockholm, with a huge tower that you could climb up (picture here). I didn’t, the waiting time was too long. Instead I went to “Gamla Stan” - the old downtown. It is a relatively small island; maybe 15 blocks long and about 6 wide. All the roads are cobblestone and it is full of little alleys and passageways, which take you to all kinds of hidden shops, restaurants, coffee shops, museums and a royal palace! I was blown away with it. I stayed there for maybe 3 or 4 hours making sure I walked every main road of the island… I loved that place!! I am going to blame my choices that day to bad luck. There are more than 70 museums in Stockholm, and I found myself in front of the Alfred Nobel museum, the guy who “invented” the Nobel prize there in Gamla Stan. I chose that museum to do my culturization that day and I was VERY dissapointed. There was almost nothing in there! The only thing that actually showed Nobel prize winners was some videos, but that was it. Then I walked into this restaurant that had some catacombs. It was a 700 year old prison. Awesome place, but then again, the food was not good. Tried some goulash soup (meat and potatoes) BUT not good as I said.
Felipe got there Monday night, so I had all Monday to go out and do the tourist thing. So I jumped in a bus and went to downtown Stockholm. The city is really beautiful, very similar to Helsinki. The city hall was a big brick building overseeing the main waterway of Stockholm, with a huge tower that you could climb up (picture here). I didn’t, the waiting time was too long. Instead I went to “Gamla Stan” - the old downtown. It is a relatively small island; maybe 15 blocks long and about 6 wide. All the roads are cobblestone and it is full of little alleys and passageways, which take you to all kinds of hidden shops, restaurants, coffee shops, museums and a royal palace! I was blown away with it. I stayed there for maybe 3 or 4 hours making sure I walked every main road of the island… I loved that place!! I am going to blame my choices that day to bad luck. There are more than 70 museums in Stockholm, and I found myself in front of the Alfred Nobel museum, the guy who “invented” the Nobel prize there in Gamla Stan. I chose that museum to do my culturization that day and I was VERY dissapointed. There was almost nothing in there! The only thing that actually showed Nobel prize winners was some videos, but that was it. Then I walked into this restaurant that had some catacombs. It was a 700 year old prison. Awesome place, but then again, the food was not good. Tried some goulash soup (meat and potatoes) BUT not good as I said.
After Gamla Stan I walked to Djurgarden; another island. There I saw more museums and the Skansen, a sort of zoo but with buildings from “old” Sweden, basically showing the way things used to be in the old days.
All the rest of the week it was golf tournament time, until Friday! That was my night out in town. Of course I had company, and this time I was soooo happy to see Rebecca, another of “my” girls in the golf team in Arkansas. She and her friend Jonas came for the weekend to hang out and watch the golf tournament. We went out to this club that was all in white… the floor, the walls, the bar, even the DJ’s headphones where white. Pretty cool.
The other cool thing of Sweden is the amount of different cultures that are present here. Of course you have the “classic” swedish… you know, blonde, pale, tall, light eyes, but there are so many other cultures present… imagine there are 30,000 people from Chile only!
Oh yes, we are slowly conquering the world!
…so I’m back in Europe, for quite a while… keep me posted with all of your happenings friends! I love hearing news from everybody!
In Holland (Netherlands) now, wish us luck! You can follow the results at http://www.europeantour.com/ or watch it at http://www.channelsurfing.net/
Peace!
Mo
Mo
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