First day in my new home!

So I woke up in Stockholm in my new bed to the sun shining, as it always seems to be. When I went to bed it was still light out as well. Good thing I can sleep in the light. I woke up, made myself some tea, ate some breakfast, got dressed in my long pants, and sweater, odd to be putting that stuff on in the summer, but its cold here. And all the Swedes think its warm… they should come to Georgia. I met Jenifer at the subway and we walked around Old Town and in to downtown Stockholm.

(Here I am! In Stockholm!)

I bought some other stuff I needed and she told me a lot about Sweden and things to do while I am here. Then we got some lunch, and since she had woken up with a fever she went home and I figured I should enjoy the rest of my day. So I went back to the Old Town part of Stockholm and bought a ticket for the Royal Palace.

There was so much to see and stupidly I had worn new shoes to try to break them in. I now have blisters on my heels and my toes. Not so good. But anyway I went into the palace to the royal apartments and just my luck a guided tour in English was leaving in 20 minutes so I just waited for that. Oh man is the palace amazing. I had totally forgotten what it looked like since I had last been here. The palace was modeled after Versailles and the history of it was so interesting.

The tour guide talked about how the rooms we were looking at were just for show and there were other less decadent rooms behind these rooms where the king and queen actually lived, such as the bedroom. The king would sleep in another room then move into the “show” room and lay in bed for a few minutes until people came in to help him with the dressing ceremony. Each of the rooms was a different color, which was quite beautiful but my favorite part by far were these panels near the inset windows that had silhouettes on them, of a woman and child, they were black and gold and I enjoyed looking at them all, they added a quirky element.

(Hard to see, but those are the pannels I was talking about, they are fun aren't they?)

I also loved the floors, which were often like wooden puzzles, which lead to a unique design.

(A fun example of repeat pattern on the ceiling, the crowns are the symbols of Sweden)

( A really random modern room in the palace, a gift to the royal family)

After looking through the Royal Apartments, Guest Apartments and a few other rooms in the palace, I went down to the treasury where I got to see all the breathtakingly jeweled and intractably decorated crowns of Sweden. I wish I had been able to take pictures there, there was one crown that when you looked close at it had very small sculptures of people and animals on it. Really stunning. My feet hurt by this point so I found a nearby sculpture with steps that I sat on and just watched and looked at Stockholm and thought my new home and all that I will see and learn from this experience. My blisters prevented me from doing much else but I still decided to take the long way home, to walk down the main street of Sodermalm, and I’m happy I did because I saw a band from Berlin that just happened to be playing in the street and had gathered a crowd. They were called Old Fish Jazz Band, they all played different brass instruments and sang and were overall a lot of fun to watch, I stayed there for a while and then decided I should probably try to find my way back to my apartment.

(Old Fish Jazz Band, the guy in the hat behind them is just a random guy from the street who had a trumpet with him and they asked him to join them)

It was surprisingly easy to find, and along the way there was a bookstore where I picked up a Swedish/ English dictionary. Tomorrow I think I will try to pick up a book on learning to speak Swedish, just to try. We will see how that goes. I spent the rest of the night in my apartment, watching a movie with Florian, talking and catching up on email and blogs. J I start my internship tomorrow! Woo!