NFT: III

NFT, Sunday (Stockholm):
-struggled to get up from our comfy comfy beds
-ate a good breakfast at the hostel
-so much walking all day! We dropped our stuff off at the train station, and it felt oddly pretty warm outside at this point.
-The city felt actually pretty dead, even still at 11am. It was weird, it felt like we were walking around way before everyone was awake or something...
-We finally found a bunch of people in the courtyard of City Hall, which was a pretty interesting building
-walked to Gamla Stan, the old part of the town.
-there was a guy working in some chocolate shop there that was the most swedish-looking guy I've ever seen. He was awesome.
-walked over to the National Museum, but just saw a little free exhibit
-Went to a Dance museum, there were costumes and paintings and drawings and music videos (ballet to MJ)
-Then, it felt super chilly, so we went back to where we were storing our stuff to get more layers
-grabbed food at some Tex Mex place for lunch. There were cucumbers in everything, which was really weird. Also, I've been craving tortilla chips, but the tortilla chips we got had some nasty flavoring on them (mine were cheese, and they tasted like mac 'n' cheese powder), and they were not satisfying. But still, the Tex Mex was kind of exciting... don't have that in Rome!
-Headed over to the cultural center, saw a big model of the city of Stockholm and all its islands
-started heading towards an area with a few more museums and parks
-found a monster truck and an ice skating rink! Meghann was so excited...
-We wandered around for a while, then came back to the rink as it was getting dark (since it started to get dark around 3:30...)
-it was so weird to not be in total control of myself ice skating, the rental skates were so horrible (not unexpected, though). Dull blades and no support!
-Some guy was hockey break dance skating??? It was weird. It was a lot of figure skating turns.. on hockey skates, with hip hop attitude?
-went back to Gamla Stan, stopped at a cafe for some Glogg, the swedish spiced wine. yum.
-after more wandering, got some thai food for dinner
-then waited at the train station for our overnight bus

Monday (Oslo):
-the bus wasn't as bad as I was expecting, I did actually get some rest (or I must have, even if I didn't feel like it, because the bus ride felt way shorter than 6 hours)
-the bus arrived in Oslo at 5:30am, which was a half hour EARLY. We were not happy (Meghann was REALLY not happy)
-since it was still dark outside and we were sleepy, we just sat in the train station for a while, until things opened up and it started to get lighter outside. Then we got coffee and thought about starting our day. We stored our bags, then off we went!
-We walked down the empty main shopping drag, then out more in the town.
-FALL! It was fall here, crunchy leaves everywhere!
-Headed down to the water, there were starfish. It was exciting!
-after more walking around that part of town, we headed to Vigelandsparken, a park just outside of the center of town. There were lots of small children playing on the playground, and we went to look at all the sculptures and up the hill to overlook the park
-it was really beautiful, even though a lot of the foliage was dead and orange
-went back to the main part of town, ate lunch at a bakery. We got sandwiches and two goodies, and shared them. The fruit and nut scone we got was really great!
-headed out to the Viking Ship Museum. It was impressive how low the boats must have sat in the water and how well preserved they were. Definitely interesting
-there were skeletons there, too, of the bodies they found buried in the ships. They had all kinds of write-ups on all these crazy details they speculate about the lives of the people. Crazy how they can tell that from such a small amount of in-tact bones.
-for some reason, it was really hard for Meghann and I to play our cheesy postcard game.. they were just kind of boring, not any really bad ones. It's funny how much we both perked up when we actually found some bad ones, haha
-as it was starting to get a little dark and we were getting tired, we headed to our hostel and took showers
-We went back out to explore again. We were going to go to the National museum, but it was closed since it was Monday, so we just wandered around by the University. Then we found a really awesome coffee shop that looked like some mod 60s basement and got some hot chocolate. very cozy.
-then we picked up some dinner, and headed back to the hostel to relax and sleep before getting up early for our flight the next morning.
-we saw in a convenience store some cans that looked like cat or dog food, but had pictures of children on them... kid food?

Tuesday:
-We got up super early to catch a bus to the airport, except when we got to the bus terminal, there was not a bus to the airport we needed until 10:30, but our flight left at 10:20, so that was a huge problem
-luckily, people speak English pretty well, so we asked at the info desk (and ended up picking up some Italian guy who was also on our flight in the same predicament)
-Luckily, there was a train going, but the timing was going to be tight
-the flight got delayed, so we had extra time
-flight home
-there was a really pushy annoying guy for one of the bus companies at the airport back in Rome, making fun of us for buying tickets for a different company since HIS bus company had a bus there while ours did not. The last thing I wanted while coming home from a super long tiring trip was to deal with pushy Italians, but I guess we didn't manage to avoid that one..
-but, finally, it was great to be back at our apartment for a while.

Overall, I really liked everywhere we went. I thought Basel was really cute, and had a nice comfortable, old kind of feeling. Zurich was a little cold and uninteresting until we found the lake and the old part of town, then it definitely felt like it had a lot more personality. Stockholm was way bigger than I expected it to be, but it was really cool. Everyone there seemed so put together. Oslo was great, maybe my favorite of this trip. It was very friendly and cozy, and the people seemed pretty happy and genuine.