Stockholm

Oh, I have been so bad about blogging, and now I find myself two entire cities behind! I will try to catch up....

On Sunday, I was driven by Carina, Per, and family to Stockholm (thanks, Carina, YOU ARE AWESOME!) after a great visit with them all. I was staying in the IPA house in Rissne, which is a suburb of Stockholm. The price was definitely right (it was only 37 Euros per night!) and it was so incredibly simple to get the metro into Stockholm each day to see sights. As had been my experience already in Sweden, the people in Stockholm were so unbelievably friendly and helpful that all I had to do was begin to look confused and someone would approach me to ask if I needed help.

So, let's see....we took a canal tour (I had never realized how much WATER there was in and around and through the city!) and saw the Grand Palace, Skansen park, and some other sights, but the best sightseeing adventure was the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a ship commissioned to be built in the 17th century, and it sank on its maiden voyage before ever getting out of Stockholm. This isn't really all that fantastic, I guess, but the museum was astonishingly cool. Once again, I have to say that Rick Steves' travel books are the bomb. Anyway, I also finally got Swedish meatballs while in Stockholm - I actually went to the grocery store and bought them and the sauce mix myself, and cooked them up in the guest house. So, my Swedish culinary wishes were all granted (but still nothing compares to the food I had while with Carina and Per...nothing).

My other "wish list" item for Sweden was to buy a warm sweater; in fact, I deliberately didn't bring one with me, and the jacket I brought is more water-resistant than warm. So, I looked around in Stockholm and ventured into some little shop that sold wool sweaters. Now, these aren't fuzzy wool sweaters, but dense, wonderful, intricately designed wool sweaters. The price tags were jaw-dropping, but I tried one on anyway and it fit and I had to buy it. I wore it the next day and, even though our breath was visible, I couldn't feel anything on my upper half other than torrid heat. I actually almost had to remove the dang thing, it was so warm! I have been appreciating it ever since. I shall have to add a picture of it once I get home and upload pics.

Speaking of uploading pics, I am LOVING the Epson viewer that I bought before I left the states. It allows me to back up my photos every day, and then look through them and weed out the obviously bad ones. Maybe I'll only have two thousand pics when I get home instead of three thousand!!! hahahahha

Last but NOT least, I received an email from my lovely daughter today informing me that she has procured employment for herself for when she gets back home from her trip to Copenhagen (remember, SHE is why I am here in the first place - to see her speak at the Association of Internet Researchers conference on October 16). Sara will be working for a non-profit in the city, the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Yay, Sara!

At the same time, I have pretty much decided that my current project for California Volunteers will be my last gig in Sacramento. I'm tired of driving, and spending the last 6 weeks on forced unemployed status (thanks to our completely dorky governor, damn him!) has made me realize how much I love my city. I just want to be HOME at night, and ride public transportation during the day. Sacramento can go to hell (oh wait, it's 117 degrees there sometimes int he summer - it already IS hell!) :-)

OK, off I go. Love to all my friends and family.

Cheers,
Janine