Round the World in 150 days!: Days 12, 13, & 14

Hej from the land of Vikings, Seaman, and Ship Craftsman! Stockholm is a living example of its history and legacy, with winding cobblestone streets, remnants of an underground culture of vikings past, and original architecture that appears virtually unharmed by past wars. Today Stockholm's streets are filled with cafe's, restaurants, bars, and trinket shops filled with traditional Swedish clog shoes and Scandinavian wool sweaters with nordic color patterns.

A cappuccino anyone? This city is so easy to travel within. We walked across different neighborhoods, all connected by walking paths, and each street a stone's throw away from a café serving the best tasting espresso and cappuccinos (Anne, they definitely serve Italian espresso!). One of our favorite stops in this town was the Vasamuseet, holding an impressively large and intact warship built hundreds of years ago to fight in the Sweden-Poland War in the 1600's, only to sink upon its maiden voyage (Sweden's very own Titanic!). The art and craftsmanship alone was worth the viewing, as was the engineering of the ship itself. The history put it over the top!

We also loved the Alfred Nobel museum, highlighting all of the years Nobel prize winners. We left the museum with mixed emotions, inspiration to achieve something greater than oneself and a realization that right now we are a couple of travel bums, specks drifting in the wind of the countries we visit. We both left the museum pondering what our contribution to society might likely be. We ended our evening with a date night including some of the best sushi....ever. Loved the mushroom dumplings.

A treat of the trip was the AIK hockey game. Stockholm's very own, challenged by one of Sweden's many other hockey teams from Tingsryd. The crowd put the fan in fantastic as they chanted and sang the team's song and catch phrases as they supported the team enthusiastically until the very end of a well fought one goal game. Unfortunately AIK lost, but Korey was so happy to fulfill his sport withdrawal (it only took two weeks-for those of you who bet how long Korey could go without sports, its two weeks-let Ines know who wins the bet!). Although, it could have been a bit sooner because Korey went to great lengths to catch the MSU-Nebraska college football game, and with the time difference, it put him searching for a bar that carried ESPN and would be open from 1am to 4am. No luck though, he had to settle for an online radio accounting of the game. And luckily he fell asleep before the horrible ending...

We ended our journey with a traditional Swedish dinner with our new friend Mel. It included "Pelikan's Swedish Meatballs with Cream Sauce and Lingonberries", "Baked Swedish Rainbow Trout", and traditional "Toast Skagen", which is a fresh shrimp salad on grilled toast that is amazingly delicious. For those of you that have ever had a meal at Ikea, it pales in comparison.

Today is a travel day, as we take the Eurorail from Stockholm, Sweden to Copenhagen, Denmark. We are truly impressed with Stockholm and it's people, history, and amazingly efficient and great metro and transportation infrastructure.

Things we learned: 1) Korey has an immediate and truly amazing command of railways, tramways, and underground metro ways! He looks at maps once and is able to magically navigate us across multiple countries and throughout these cities with perfection!, 2) Korey misses his sports! As he leaned over to Ines to ask if she missed the US, she knew immediately he was projecting, thinking of his sports and missing them. More to come on this topic as we travel for another....five....months.