Julmagi på Skansen

Julmagi på Skansen translates to Christmas magic at Skansen. I didn't see any magic but it was a sunny cold day for strolling around the Christmas market at the big outdoor park. We picked up some local food items after taste testing a variety of interesting things. There were elk and reindeer meats, cheeses, breads, jellies, and a home brew beer being cooked over a fire.

We really enjoy the varm glögg (hot mulled wine) every time we find it. This one came with a flat gingerbread heart. We hit the donut stand several times because they had little freshly made sugar coated donuts in a paper cone. It reminded us of getting hot malasadas in a paper bag in Hawaii. it's a lot colder outside here but the memories warmed us up along with eating the warm treats.

We stopped by the fire pits every now and then to get a little heat. I didn't take too many pictures but here's some people dancing around a tree with a band playing Christmas songs and one of the many fire pits.

Stockholm Lights

Daylight is getting shorter with an 8:13AM sunrise and 2:58PM sunset right now. The shortest day of the year will be here on Dec 22nd when it will be 8:44AM and 2:49PM so not too far off from how it is now. The sun is usually hiding behind overcast skies so there's only been a few hours of clearly seeing the sun this month. The temperatures have stayed a little bit above freezing and we really haven't had any snow yet so it's not that bad of a winter here so far.

Winter, cold, and dark dreary skies aren't too hard to deal with for a few months anyway. The real time to ask how it is will be after it's getting warmer everywhere else and winter is still dragging on here. That's when we may not enjoy it as much. Until then though, we can walk around and see a bit of how the Swedes deal with the darkness by putting up a bunch of lights around the city. Here's some pictures. A few may look like they're inside a mall but they're all outside.

Rome and Florence Italy

I assumed at some point in life we would travel to Europe and visit Rome. We looked at flights and prices from the U.S. several times and it always seemed so far and too expensive. A nice benefit of joining the Foreign Service is moving closer to other places we've always wanted to visit. We finally went to Rome for a week and it was just a 3 hour flight from Stockholm.

Rome was a bit more crowded, faster, and aggressive than Stockholm. It was also warmer and brighter than the shorter daytime we're experiencing in Sweden. During the off season for tourists is a great time to visit Rome since I can't imagine visiting there in the heat and crowds of summer. It was crowded enough for us this time of year. The weather was great for a light jacket in the morning to take off during the day and the rain on a few days didn't slow us down much.

We visited the Capuchin Crypt and Sistine Chapel but weren't allowed to take pictures at either of them. I posted some pictures from my phone on Facebook for family and friends but these are pictures our daughter took with a better camera. She took a gazillion of them so I'm just posting a select few. I'm sure they're still too many. Click on them for bigger pics.

Vasa Museum

We had our first friend fly from the U.S. to visit for the weekend. We spent most of the time checking out different restaurants and bars for the Stockholm Jazz Festival with a wide variety of jazz bands. We did many of the basic tourist sites that can be done in a couple of days. I already posted about most of them like the Gamla Stan area. The new one we hadn't seen was the Vasa Museum since we've saved many of the museums for the winter when we're more likely to do indoor activities.

Located on the island of Djurgården, the Vasa Museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa Museum opened in 1990 and, according to the official web site, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia. (Wikipedia)


Here's a few pictures but it's mostly one of those big things you have to see in person:

Lisbon Portugal

I had to go to Lisbon for a week of information systems security training. Life is just so rough sometimes. :-) I hung out for the weekend before returning to Stockholm. I had a wonderful time and highly recommend it for a vacation based on just the weekend.

We started down at the docas (docks) to eat at one of the nice restaurants. It's near the 25 de Abril Bridge built by the same people that built the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. Lisbon feels a bit like San Francisco built over many hills with trolleys rolling around town.

Monteliusvägen in Stockholm

Here's pictures of our walk towards and along Monteliusvägen in the Södermalm neighborhood. It was a beautiful day for a walk!

Berlin Germany

We took our first of many weekend excursions to another country. It was slightly more than an hour to fly to Berlin which is about how long it'd take to fly from San Antonio to Dallas. Flying around in the European Union feels strange because we didn't have to show passports. I didn't really expect to get around as freely as moving around the United States. Sweden isn't a part of the Euro economic zone so sometimes I forget they're a part of the EU since we did have to get different currency.

The other odd travel thing about Berlin is their transit system with proof-of-payment enforced with random spot checks we never witnessed. There's no turnstiles or any other kind of barriers or toll attendants. There's just fare machines on the platform to buy tickets for 2-3 euros. If undercover Kontrollers catch you not paying then the fine is 40 euros. We bought 72 hour city passes for our tourist weekend which included various discounts and unlimited transit rides. I felt kind of ripped off because it seemed like we could just wander on and off the rail system without it. The bus drivers didn't seem all that interested in the validity of the tickets we flashed them.

Berlin was an interesting trip. We obviously spent some time on the Berlin Wall and the history of the city but we also just soaked in Berlin and did a little shopping since things there are a good bit cheaper than expensive Stockholm. OK, enough writing. Here's a variety of pictures from the trip.

We stayed at Hotel Gat Point Charlie with these cool light boxes over our beds.