Hej everyone, I'm back from Stockholm

We set out at 6:30 am Wednesday morning and paid €21 to park at the Hahn (German for "rooster") airport for three days, which really wasn't half bad. I had to really really FIGHT with the lady at the counter when we went to check in because she was trying to make us pay €5 each to check in since we were using the counter... Ryanair charges anyone who doesn't use online check in BUT anyone who doesn't live in the EU is not allowed to use online check in. Discrimination? Yes, but they don't care. Anyway not getting into that. We experienced some terrible turbulence for about 6 seconds during the flight there and it was so bad we all thought for those 6 seconds we were really going to die, it was terrifying.

The hostel we stayed in was really really cool!!!! It was also very clean. They have free pasta! We bought our own sauce (found the yummy kind we had in Italy!) so that made for quite a few Euros saved on dinner in this expensive city. The beds in the hostel were also really comfortable and there was just a lot of space to hang out and meet people. I met and chatted with sooo many people it was unreal. Had a grand old time chatting with a bunch of English boys, although I had to ask them to repeat just about everything they said, ha ha!

We walked around the town pretty much the whole time we were there, photographing the fabulous and enormous statues and gardens. Stockholm is situated on 14 islands connected by almost 60 bridges! Gamla Stan is the old town and is soooo pretty and picturesque with old, old houses and narrow alley ways. The city is ridiculously clean and I saw TWO people's dogs poop on the street and the owners promptly cleaned it up! We witnessed the changing of the guards at the Royal Palace (when the guards walk they swing their left arms up really high, its funny). We caught a random acrobatic show in the town on Thursday. A Swedish specialty we really enjoyed were the cinnamon buns... the best of which were NOT purchased in a bakery, in my opinion, but in a package of six at the grocery store... Sweden also has the most amazing chocolate I have ever tasted, and as I write this am fighting the urge to get up and retrieve some of it from my cabinet... RESIST!!!

Stockholm has a fabulous shopping district--over 4,000 stores. We walked everywhere. On Thursday we went to the Vasa museum, a huge museum that's centered on a 16th century war ship that sunk 15 minutes into its maiden voyage due to being too top-heavy. That was fascinating-- we were there for almost three hours. After we visited that museum, we stopped for lunch and I had a hotdog wrapped in a tortilla with mashed potatoes, lettuce, tomato, and ketchup/mustard. They overdid it on the potatoes in my opinion...

Our evenings we spent hanging out downstairs in the hostel just chatting away with other travellers. I enjoyed that immensely... by the time most of those other travelers made up their minds about which bar they were going to that night, it was time for bed for these two old ladies ;-)

Most of the pics (should be posted on Monday) will be of all the pretty buildings and squares and guardens and statues we saw... Sweden is a beautiful country!!

In other news, I may be getting a sublease for my apt. for August and September, two months that I'd planned on, reluctantly, having to pay regardless that I'm going home before August even begins...

My head behind my eyes still constantly hurts, but only when reading. It seems harder to focus on the words than ever before, as if my eyes were going out of focus by themselves somehow.

I just planned a weekend excursion to Brussels, Belgium, for June 13-15... Iwona is coming to visit Koblenz on the 16th-17th so I am looking forward to that as well.

My next trip is on Friday, and I'm going to see ANNA in London!! I am very excited and feeling very grateful, as her mom is going to pick me up and take me to the airport and then pick me up again when I come home on Monday night. And also grateful that Anna is hosting me and sharing her 2 for 1 coupons with me :-) and picking me up from Gatwick, YEAH :-) Thanks Anna :-)

Tomorrow there is a giant flea market on the Moselle...we're going to walk there and check it out. I hope I don't find anything I can't live without... I can't afford to have any more STUFF...speaking of stuff, I just got a new webcam for my "new" computer (I got it fixed last week for FREEEE) which is a really really cool webcam and it works way better than the old one, which means, Mom, I'll be calling you more often :-)

Now I am going down to see my Australian buddy--we took my bike to the shop today to get a new tube in the back tire, ate ice cream, and walked home--to sip sangria and talk about life. It's quite possible I may get so drunk that I won't be able to find my way home, which is downstairs and to the left, leaving me at the mercy of a most merciless Aussie.


Cheers,
Caitlin

UPDATE: I just read my entry (it's the next day, 9:12am) and I must have been drunk when I wrote the entry (I really wasn't) because "my way home" from the Aussie's as a I described in the last paragraph is NOT "downstairs and to the left"... it's UPSTAIRS and to the RIGHT... downstairs and to the left is how to get to the Aussie, who lives on the lowest floor, LOL.

I did make it home last night, it was a fun time and the lights in the hallway don't work. Hmph.