Stockholm

Fri 4 June

A good night’s sleep as our cabin didn’t have a window so it was dark all night, unlike Tallinn where we only had around three hours of darkness.

The ship docked on time and we had around a 400 m. walk from the ship to the exit of the terminal. On board there was a large duty free shop and many had taken advantage to stock up, the shop supplied a luggage carrier with six cartons of cans and I think many people travelling didn’t have cabins but partied in the bars and night club all the way from Tallinn. Only one problem they couldn’t control their cans on the walk to the exit and young men were trying to gather up the cans they dropped along the way, many kind people were giving them plastic bags to replace the split cartons. Outside the terminal was a bus to the city and across the bus parking area they were still dropping cans, several spilling their contents. Boarding the bus we were pleased to discover that it stopped beside the bridge to the island on which our hostel was situated so we didn’t have to walk from Central Station as we expected. We checked into the hostel around 11:00 am but couldn’t access our room till 1:00 so decided we would go for a walk until then.

We hadn’t left the hostel when my phone rang it was the hostel reception, “could we come to the hostel office? We’re very sorry but we’ve had a computer glitch and booked you and another couple in a group in the same room, would you mind moving to the hostel in the city centre.” As the across Sweden cruise we are booked on next week leaves from the wharf about 100 m. from the hostel we weren’t that keen to move but they offered to pay for a taxi both to the other hostel and back to the cruise boat next week and provide breakfast free of charge on five mornings, so we accepted their request.

After checking into the new hostel we walked to a supermarket and could hear a lot of yelling and whistling, it was a large truck with high sides and full of dozens of high school students celebrating the end of year. As we walked around the city, dozens of these trucks were driving up and down all the city streets packed with students, a generator and a large sound system, it is obviously a Scandinavian custom as we witnessed a similar event in Oslo 24 years ago. As in Oslo many of the students were very obviously rather worse for wear and standing on a bridge as one of the trucks passed underneath the floor was littered with hundreds of empty beer cans. We were later informed that they would be eighteen years old and at that age they can go into a bar but they are not allowed to buy take away until they are twenty. They must have some kind friends who provided their supplies. Tomorrow should be a quiet day as there may not be a high school graduate to be seen.

Sweden is in the throes of preparing for a royal wedding, Princess Victoria is marrying on June 19 and the celebrations start on the Swedish National Day, Sunday June 6, with many functions in the parks and other venues and the celebrations continue until the wedding, unfortunately we couldn’t accept an invitation to the wedding as we will be in Scotland.

We have just discovered that tomorrow, Saturday, 18,000 marathon runners will be running around Stockholm’s streets which may interfere with our sight-seeing plans.