Hi there, I'm a friend of your mother. She told me to pick you up after school...

It's a big day here in Stockholm. The Stockholmians, or whatever they are called, have heralded our arrival with a bit of rain and a little runaround. More on that in a min. They have also lined the streets to help celebrate my Grandparent's wedding anniversary and my sister's 40th birthday - the later is more of a mourning than a celebration. Sorry Chris, but dang you're old! I guess the real reason you didn't get to go on the trip this year is because your health insurance wouldn't allow it since your warranty was about to expire.

We got off the ferry this morning - yes it was called the Romantika Ferry, yes it looked a lot like the Love Boat, no the guy didn't laugh when we asked where Gopher was - and realized that the only money we had was Estonian kronor. Not to worry you say, there's got to be a currency exchange or an ATM around here somewhere, after all it's the entrance port to a country so they have to expect people to need money, right? Stupid American! After about 45 minutes of lugging our packs in search of money we found someone who pointed us in the direction of an ATM.

Long story short, we got on the subway and found our way to Langhollmen island where we found our hostel which was a prison until about 20 years ago. None of the rooms comes with a private shower so in an effort to eliminate any chance of "prison activity" while there I reserved one of their "Don't Drop the Soap" rooms that excludes the late night gang rapes the hostel staff re-enacts.

We couldn't check in until 3:00 so we dropped off our bags and headed into town to grab some food since we skipped the $30 breakfast buffet on the ferry. We ended up at a Thai place where we started to notice a trend regarding the patrons. We sat near the front door and noticed everyone who came in was an older male who quickly said something in Swedish to the woman behind the counter and then walked into the back seating area. This happened about 6 or 7 times. We thought the streak ended when a women walked in, but she was quickly given the about face and shuffled out the front door.

What was happening back there? The local Lions Club meeting? The Underground Swedish Meatball revolt? Judging by the look of some of these guys I'd have to say the children in the area shouldn't be sleeping so soundly. These guys looked like the ones you'd see on the news where the neighbors say "He was a quiet guy who kept to himself. Just a really nice neighbor who never bothered anyone", meanwhile the cops are in the background carting off 6 foot high stacks of child pornography from the guy's basement.

Either that or the Thai place was the front for some Swedish mafia activity and the old woman behind the counter was getting kickbacks. She did have the crazy eyes and continued to talk to us in Swedish even after we gave that international shrug of the shoulders and obligatory laugh that said "I have no clue what you just said".

I'm not sure which was more troubling, the men in that place or the fact that I was eating Thai food without easy access to a bathroom for another 4 hours. I was really taking a gamble. So far so good though.

Stockholm appears to be another great city and I can't wait to get out and see some more of it tomorrow. Has that same old world feel that Tallinn had but with a modern cosmopolitan flair. We are going to try to hit a couple of museums (one about a ship that went down in the 1600s) and then see the city center where the palace and old buildings are. Should be fun.

More to come.

B