We had bought an unlimited 24-hour transit pass yesterday at our local 7-Eleven (they are everywhere here) and it can be used on trams, buses, and the trains. After walking almost 30,000 steps yesterday and the forecasted rain today, we knew we’d put this pass to good use and our first swipe would be the S7 tram to the Vasa Musuem.
I had originally thought that the ship at the museum was a Viking ship and that meant it was like a pirate ship. Welp, I was wrong. It was a ship made for the Swedish navy that was a giant failure. It sunk in The Stockholm harbor before even taking its maiden voyage and ended up being an embarrassment to the country. I guess now they’re now monitizing that by making a museum about it. Smart. And very interesting. If only they’d let people on the giant ship because I would have jumped at that opportunity. It was enormous and super cool to see in person. I still don’t exactly know what a Viking is or does, but I guess I’ll find it out again someday (I remember nothing from learning about it in elementary school.)
After the Vasa museum, we headed to the ABBA museum. We saw my colleague from work again (so random), and chatted him and his friend up in line. Score for the student discount too on this ticket. Thanks Hunter College for not having an expiration date on my grad school ID and allowing me discounts at major tourist attractions. This whole museum was dedicated to ABBA, who I didn’t know was Swedish until this past winter when my friend came to Stockholm and went to the museum. The more you know. I am now wiser because of this knowledge.
This museum had tons of ABBA memorabilia and a lot of Mamma Mia stuff too. I’ve never seen Mamma Mia because it’s a musical and I don’t really enjoy them. At all. (It kind of freaks me out when people just burst into song.) Scratch that, I did see the first twenty minutes a long time ago and fell asleep (see, musicals don’t do it for me) so I never saw the rest or had the desire to. I didn’t realize that ABBA was composed of two husband and wife couples, but that was an interesting fact. I learned this after I asked my friend if she thought any of them had slept with each other and then we went on to read that they were involved with each other . The costumes in the museum were super cool to see and they had a lot of really fun interactive things to do. We had some photo opps, sang karaoke to Dancing Queen, and made a dance video to Dancing Queen too.
When we exited the museum, it was pouring. Like huge raindrops. I didn’t pack my umbrella this morning because I straight up didn’t want to carry it around. We had grand plans to continue our day outside, but they had to be put on hold because this wasn’t just a drizzle or a mist, it was enormous and quickly falling giant raindrops. We purchased some ponchos from the gift shop and waited for the tram back into our hotel neighborhood. Once there, we popped into the local department store Åhléns, smelled the perfumes and put on some wrinkle cream (duh) and then grabbed lunch at a kebab house that our taxi driver yesterday had recommended to us. It ended up being filling and delicious. The rain still hadn’t stopped, so we went back to the hotel to relax a bit in hopes it would settle down in a couple hours as the weather channel app reported it was supposed to.
After about two hours or so at the hotel, the rain had kind of stopped so we headed back out again. This time we took the local train to the Sodermalm neighborhood. I had heard it was a hipster-y, Williamsburg, Brooklyn-type neighborhood with cute shops so we wanted to wander around there. I love trying to take local public trains when in other countries because it’s fun for me to figure out their systems. This one was easy to figure out, and I felt super accomplished understanding and riding it.
We got off the strain at the Slassus stop and got right on Gotgatan street, the main drag. We walked around and it was cute, but underwhelming, but am still glad we got to see a different neighborhood. Then it was back on the train to the Norrmalm shopping district which was a much cuter and walked around there. Unfortunately since it was past 7:00, most of the stores were closed. After wandering around that neighborhood, it was back on the train again (we were professionals at this point) to catch the tram to take us near where the museum was earlier today along the water so we could walk along the sea back towards our hotel. We walked most of the way back then caught another tram to take us back to our main train station to take another train to Gamla Stan one more time because we needed to get souvenirs (i.e. magnets) and perhaps grab something to eat.
Once we got back to Gamla Stan, we noticed how empty it was. It was around 9:00 PM (and still bright out) and kind of chilly (around 51 degrees), but for such a busy area of the city, there weren’t a lot of people. We got our magnets, stopped in Stortorget Square again for the views, and then got some ice cream that we decided to call our dinner. Finally, it time to head back for the night.
For a pretty crappy weather day, we sure made the most of it and once again, got so much done. Tomorrow we are off to Copenhagen to start a new adventure there.
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