A Swedish wedding

Continuing my tradition of jumping all over the place in time, I'm going to interrupt the India travel story to give you some photos of our long weekend in Västerås and Stockholm. We were there for my friend Stina's wedding and it continued the tradition of beautiful weather and wonderful hospitality that have been the hallmarks of every trip I've ever taken to Sweden.

We helped them set up the venue (a beautiful barn) and then enjoyed all the festivities - despite everything being in Swedish! The food and wine was excellent, we loved the fact that the DJ played a ridiculous amount of ABBA, and it was so much fun being in the sauna and (wood-fired!) hot tub at 3am with the sky being nearly as light as the middle of the day. 

Stockholm was great as well and this time we finally made it to the Vasa Museum which was really interesting and well worth a visit. We also had the most delicious lunch at Nybrogatan 38 which is a little restaurant in the upmarket Östermalm area of Stockholm. We arrived late (the Vasa Museum had held us captive for much longer than anticipated) and even though they were operating a reduced menu it was still really good and great value. Just check out the size of my salad:

Thank you so much to Stina, her family and friends for making it such a great visit. We promise we'll come back and take you up on the offer of cross-country skiing!

The rest of the photos are online here.

Malmo and Copenhagen

From the comforts of being looked after by Stina (and her Mum and Dad) to the comforts of being looked after Stina's sister (Matilda) in Malmo. It was great to be able to relax in a house with some luxuries of home life again - a kitchen with a fridge, and a nice lounge with state of the art surround sound and DVD player.

Malmo is home to the tallest building in Sweden, the 'Twisting Torso', and some great museums. We spent our time looking around the beautiful town and went to the beach for a bit of a dip. A series of the museums have the one entry ticket to them all. We decided to hit up a couple of them.  The Science and Technology was a real find, they had a submarine you could look around, and a whole floor of hands-on exhibitions to explain different scientific theories. I'm not sure what we learnt but we had a great time playing on different games. We left with the high score for the geography game, (as you would hope with a Master in the team).

Watch Amelia on the oversized piano, again not sure what we learnt other than don't give up the geography.

Malmo is connected to Denmark by a 7.8km bridge, which takes you to Copenhagen. In the water under the bridge is a wind farm, good luck getting that past resource consent in NZ. We spent a couple of days looking around the town, seeing the Changing of the Guards, the Palace, the Little Mermaid, and the Calsberg factory. The port area which was also very beautiful (and expensive). 

The Bodies exhibition was on in Copenhagen so we decided to go have a look. It is amazing, they have all these real bodies that have been disected and preserved in all these different ways so you can see how the different parts of the human body works. It helps to not think that you are actually looking at someone's insides.

That was our time over in Scandinavia, after a great night sleep at the airport it was off to Paris.

Nybro and sailing in the archipelago, Sweden

What other way to travel than first class? After months of travel in the most economy class of economy class, travelling first class on Swedish rail was absolute bliss. Stina booked our tickets well in advance, which meant that a student fare and a ticket on first class was the same price - definitely something to remember if you're ever planning a trip to Sweden!

So, on our way from Stockholm down to Nybro we made full use of the giant seats, free headphones, OJ, coffee, tea, and fresh fruit. Spoiled us for all future train travel I reckon. We were heading to Nybro to see Stina's Mum and spend a few days in the countryside. She still lives in the house where Stina and her sisters grew up and we (again) were absolutely spoiled with delicious home cooking including one of Stina's favourite dishes, raggmunkar, which are potato pancakes served with bacon, cottage cheese and lingenberry jam. Yum!

We also visited the local history museum which included farm and house equipment that had belonged to Stina's family. Looking at all the old wringers and everything makes you glad that Fisher and Paykel was invented that's for sure! The weather also continued to be gorgeous so there was lots of sitting outside drinking home made cordial and reading books...

There's an end to all good things though, but this time it was onto something equally as good - two days sailing around the Karlhamn archipelago in southern Sweden with Stina's Dad. We cruised out past the million kroner homes (that used to be fishermen's huts) and stunning scenery, and then were lucky enough to get a bit of wind once we hit the edge of the islands so we could do some 'real' sailing. We anchored up for the night and then in the morning explored the island, picking our own blueberries, attempting to feed wild sheep, and checking out the biggest anthill I have ever seen! It was absolutely gorgeous and we were all even brave enough to have a swim in the chilly Baltic - although I don't think any of them lasted for more than 30 seconds...

Next stop, south to Malmo. (And here are the photos again if you missed them from the last post).

Stockholm

Now, everyone knows that I (Amelia) am normally a very organised and detail-loving person. Adrian, on the other hand, is not. The events of our first night in Sweden clearly show how much we are rubbing off on one another...

So, the plan was that my friend from uni, Stina, would come and meet us at the train station before taking us back to stay at her place. This would have been fine and dandy apart from the fact that a) our flight was delayed half an hour, b) our bags got lost for another hour, and c) I gave Stina the wrong day that we were arriving... (Yes, that third point may be the most important I agree).

I won't go into too much detail, but suffise it to say the youth hostel was booked out (only 10 minutes before we arrived at 1am I might add) and we ended up sleeping behind the Ethnographic Museum with a view of the Royal Palace. It gets light in Stockholm at about 3am but we persisted in our snooze till 8am when the threat of coming across passers by became a bit too real! Many hours, lots of internet checking and a few phone calls later all was well and we were safely ensconsed in the luxury of Stina and Vasco (her boyfriend)'s apartment.

Seeing a place with a local is the best way to travel. Stina showed us round her neighbourhood (an ecologically friendly, design heavy area near the central city) and then we did the tourist thing together and got a boat tour around the canals. She also wouldn't let us spend any money and we were treated to first class dinners courtesy of Vasco (including reindeer stew...mmm...) and packed lunches! It was so lovely to be able to see her again and we've concocted all sorts of plans for future European travel so it won't be so long between visits next time.

We checked out the Nobel museum and learnt all about the laureates from a booming voiced guide named Olaf, looked at a Lonely Planet funny signs exhibition, and watched the changing of the guards. Adrian has rated it as the best changing of the guards he has ever seen (and he's up to about seven so far) and the fact it went for an hour and included a gigantic marching band on horseback definitely rated it up there - I challenge you to watch the video and say if you've seen a better one!

Here are the photos of the whole of Sweden and Denmark as well, enjoy!