Copenhagen and Stockholm - Yay!!!

Thursday, was a very full day of Copenhagen exploration. Vee put together a walk based on one provided in our book, and as a result, we had a fantastic time discovering the city. Plazas, cafes, canals, towers, fountains, sculptures, wonderful architecture, and LOTS of bikes and baby strollers! We shared coffees and pastries in the morning, a take-away focaccia and loaf of bred in the afternoon, and an order of fish & chips for dinner and a few sinful snacks at a little shop in the train station before the end of the night. We agreed that Copenhagen is one of our most favorite cities thus far, up there with Madrid and Prague. It seems as if the people here have a very good quality of life. Many men were out walking there newborns in strollers, or in bicycle carriages. And swarms of women with the newborns were everywhere. The Danes are doing there part in their attempt to keep up the population in Europe. Alot of people were out running, and a huge number of people ride bikes for their main means of transport; so many in fact, that they actually create relatively heavy lanes of traffic on the streets and therefore obey all traffic lanes, lights and signs. For tomorrow, we need to get up early, and catch the earliest train to Stockholm Sweden. We made arrangements for this B&B through a guy, Roland, who I spoke with on the phone, and who runs a website that recommends B&B's in Stockholm. We got to the website from a terminal in the coolest Internet Cafe I've ever seen called BoomTown, and I even got to demo the new XBox 360 there!

Friday, we got up early, checked out by 7:30, and made the short walk to the train station. We eventually found the right que for our reservations and learned that there was not a single seat available on any trains headed to Stockholm from Copenhagen for the entire day. We got a table at a cafe in the station to discuss alternative plans and were considering Oslo, Helsinki or heading back South to Western Germany. At the last minute, we found another city (Goteborg) in Sweden that had a direct high-speed line to Stockholm, and so we looked into that option, and it worked! Though a bit stressed, and with absolute chaos at the train station, with our first scheduled train having apparently disappeared out of thin air, we eventually made it out of Copenhagen on an even later train. Because of our original trains disappearing act, we missed our connection to Goteborg. Luckily, there was another connection in about an hour, and we were also able to book our final leg to Stockholm. The ride to Goteborg was cramped and took forever. The ride to Stockholm was much better, since the seats were more spacious and we didn't have to sit face to face with strangers. At 6:30pm, we arrived in Stockholm, actually a bit early. We were to meet with Kenneth, from the B&B agency, in the middle of the atrium in the train station. We stood there for about 15 minutes, and I finally called him on his cell phone, and learned that he was standing right above us on the second floor but just never realized it was us right there below him. Anyway, we hooked up, he gave us the keys, and excellent directions and instructions, I got more money out of the ATM and paid up. I didn't have enough money left for the metro, so he gave us 2 kroners, and we were on our way. The apartment actually belonged to his business partners mother, but she was to be out of town for the weekend. We weren't sure what to expect, but Kenneth seemed like a good guy, as did his business partner on the phone. The metro ride to the apartment only took about 10 minutes as it was just outside the city center. A woman asked us if she could help us with directions when we got off the metro, and she confirmed for us where we supposed to go. We were very very happily surprised and found the apartment to be excellent! And it's all ours, until Sunday! We have all the comforts of our own home. We dropped off our bags, and tried taking the metro back into the city for a night on the town, but I had no cash, and we couldn't by the tickets. The ticketing agent told us where to find an ATM, and so we started walking in the general direction he pointed us, and I asked another lady if she could confirm where the ATM might be. Turns out she had worked in DC for two years at the Sweden embassy, and loved her time in the U.S. We ended up talking for about 10 minutes or so. We found the ATM, but by this time, we had changed our minds about the night, and decided to find a supermarket, and just have a quiet dinner at the apartment, and take advantage of the kitchen and terrace. We asked two guys for help getting to the supermarket, and they got us straightened out. We loaded up with goodies, and lugged everything back to the apartment and had a beautiful evening. After dinner on the terrace, we watched Braveheart on TV, and called it a night. We are looking forward to a long day in Stockholm tomorrow!

Saturday the 6th, we slept in until about 9:30. I cooked egg sandwiches while Vee showered and we had a hearty "American" breakfast. Vee cut my hair, I showered, and then we headed out for the city. It was time for us to make some decisions. We needed to find an Internet connection and figure out where we were going next, and make accomodation reservations accordingly. Outside the metro station we found Peter's Cafe, where we had capuccinos, and got onto an Internet terminal. We researched hotel prices in Oslo, Norway, but they were ridiculous. In Helsinki, Finland, we found a sharp looking hostel that was dirt-cheap. Also, we found a discount airline, German Wings, with cheap flights from Helsinki to Cologne, Germany which was exactly where we wanted to go. The clincher though, would be whether or not we could get a reservation on the Ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, and to get that straight, we had to take the metro to the port, and find the ticket booth and see if anything was available. With some help from the guy in the Information Kiosk at the metro station, we took the metro to the stop where the port was, and with very clear signage, found the ticketing office. To our amazement, we learned that not only was there availability, but it would be free for us, since we had the Eurail pass! We were ECSTATIC!!! With our Ferry reservations taken care of, and a few high-fives, we metroed back to the Central Station, and eventually made our way back to Peter's Cafe, got back online, and reserved a room for 2 nights at the EuroHostel in Helsinki. Score! We decided against buying our airline tickets just in case we wanted to extend our stay once we got there. From there, with our newly purchased Stockholm map in hand, we headed out for a full day of exploring the City. We found it to be crazy! Apparently, the winter was very harsh and very long, and yesterday and today were the first nice days of the year so everyone in Stockholm was outside. The city is beautiful, but dirtier than we expected. It is also much more diverse than what I was expecting. Denmark, and Munich were much less so. It is also a very big city, so the map we had was deceiving in that everything in reality was much further than what it appeared on the map. Our favorite area thus far has been the old part of the city called Gamla Stan. We also walked through Norr Malm, the new part of the city, as well as Sodermalm and Ostermalm. Inside one of the churches, there was a boys choir practicing, and we got some video of that. In Gamla Stan, we were lured into an ice cream store because of the fresh waffle cones they were making right there in the front of the store. After finishing our ice cream, we walked into an art gallery and had a real nice conversation with the proprietor. He was an Argentinian who married a Swedish girl, moved to Stockholm, and opened the gallery with an MBA-friend of his. From there, we talked with Roland on the cell phone to make arrangements to drop off the key to our apartment, and then headed home. On the way, we made a stop at the grocery store for some dinner munchies. We had another wonderful, romantic dinner out on the terrace and watched the sun go down before coming inside to finish off the night. Tomorrow morning, Roland is coming over at 9:30 to collect the key, and we'll spend the rest of the day in the City before heading out for the Ferry to Helsinki at 5pm.