Sweden

July 12, 2016

Today we left to go visit Sweden. We woke up late so we had to get going in order to make the most of the day. We started towards the harbor to cross into Sweden, but got distracted when we saw a bakery. We decided why not and picked up all sorts of pastries, and stopped off at a park for breakfast.

We played around on the swings and the slides for a little before we had to get going again. after an hour, we finally made it to the harbor where we got onto a boat that felt more like a cruise ship. Each boat had huge parking garages on the lowest deck, holding all sorts of cars, buses, and trucks that were on their way to Sweden. The interior of the boat was really nice as well, it had all sorts of restaurants inside to choose from, but we didn't because it was so expensive for 8 people.

 We set foot in Sweden for the first time and gazed upon the city before us. Since we didn't have much time, we weren't able to see a lot, but we still managed to get some sites in. We first visited an old military fortress, used to defend against Denmark when they were at war. We walked into the huge brick square and made our way up a steep spiral staircase. Every so often, there would be a door where you could step inside and listen to the history of that floor. One particular floor had a dress up closet and board games tucked into the corner. The one we played was called “foxes and sheep” while the kids were having a costume party.

We got to the top of the fort and got a cool view of the city below us. It was fairly cloudy that day but that didn't prevent me from taking 100 photos. We stuck around there for about 20 minutes before the wind drew us away and went back down to lounge around in a nearby park.

My dad took a nap while the kids played on a park and I looked for a photo opportunity in the general vicinity of my family. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo but it didn't matter anyway as all the photos I took beforehand made up for it. We finally left the park when it started raining on us. Thankfully, we had our rain jackets so it wasn't as bad but if we didn't get out of it quickly, we were going to get soaked. Thankfully, we were able to make it to a little shelter thing before the worst of the storm hit.

We waited until the rain died down to head back into the city. I started looking around for a keychain for Sweden when I found the Swedish red horse in a food market. The reason it's so special is because a long time ago they used to carve these horses to play with, as they were very poor at the time. They continued making these horses, but started painting them and designing them. There other horse designs disappeared, but the red horse managed to carry across the generations.

After I picked it up and probably spent way more than I should have, we started heading back to Denmark. We took the boat back to Denmark and slowly saw Sweden fade in the distance.

We got back into Denmark and started making our way back to the apartment. Before we officially left for home, we stopped by the Danish Kronborg Castle that was alongside the ocean, but we didn't go in because the price for tickets was insane. Although, fun fact, that castle is where hamlet took place. Feel free to look it up here: http://www.visitdenmark.com/kronborg-castle-shakespeare-hamlet

After we had our fun on the castle grounds, we headed back to the apartment. For dinner, we stopped off at the grocery store again and picked up some hotdogs and of course, stroopwafels. We carried our stuff to the nearest bus stop and took the bus back home.

The rest of the night we made hot dogs and watched the karate kid until we all fell asleep. Tomorrow we will be heading down to Kraków Poland and tour Auschwitz.