Christmas/2011/Stockholm

Both Alisa and I were lucky enough to return Stateside for a quick week for Christmas. We were actually extremely lucky to get out nearly on-time because there was another "snowstorm" in Dublin. Alisa flew back to Boston and I spent the week in Orlando at my Grandma's house. My parents flew in from Seattle and my sister came in from Chicago. Also my three Spanish cousins were there, which was great because I hadn’t seen them in almost 5 years. The weather was a little chilly for Florida and I got laid out by the flu for a couple days, but other than that it was a great visit.

A church in the Stockholm city center.

The highlight of my Christmas trip had to be going to the “The Villages”. This is a retirement community that my grandma lives near. It has over 100,000 retirees so it’s pretty large. It’s a funny scene, everybody in there drives golf carts instead of cars. My family went one weekday night and watched as the 80+ crowd got their groove on. The old ladies leering at me made me a bit uncomfortable but I figured I could always outrun their golf carts!

Alisa had a good Christmas too, including hosting her friends to a Christmas Eve Breakfast, and skiing up in Maine with the Kelly's. I’m always jealous when she gets to do this because I miss skiing a lot and look forward to my next opportunity to ski post-bball. Between the skiing and visiting with her family and friends Alisa was as busy as she always is. She also cleaned up on Christmas, probably due in part to her extremely large Irish family. Lucky!

We both arrived back in Dublin on the 31^st at the crack of dawn. Alisa was lucky because there was a massive blizzard in Boston and we were both fortunate to arrive at the same time...meeting before immigration. We took a minor five hour nap when we got home, and then packed our bags for our trip to Stockholm. For the new year we headed over to my coach’s house and just hung out. Our coach’s baby lasted longer than I did, as Alisa had to keep poking me keep me awake until midnight!

Alisa riding a swan. The church in the previous picture is in the background.

On the first we flew out to Stockholm. We arrived around midnight and had to take a bus into the city. Go figure Ryan air flies into this tiny airport 1.5hrs outside the city. We didn't get in until near 2 am so we ended up starting our vacation very unlike my family... sleeping in the next day! We probably didn't get out til about 11am (Alisa edit: omg!).

An area in the old part of Stockholm. This area is called Gamlastan.

First we walked around the city in search of a boat tour, which are usually pretty popular in Scandinavia. There were two winter options, a city tour and an archipelago islands tour. Alisa chose the latter, which was definitely the right choice. Outside the city the water turned into ice, and we were cruising along on an ice tour. It was pretty cool, the boat we were on was an old steamship that was built in 1906. It was a great time, but really cold. The city was about 10-12 degrees Fahrenheit, but outside on the water with the wind…it was easily below 0. After the tour we walked around the city and went to eat dinner at a Scandinavian restaurant. Alisa got some Swedish meatballs made of elk and they were absolutely………delicious!

Ice Cruise

The next day we walked around the old part of the city, which is situated on a separate island. Stockholm is made up of about 14 islands I believe. There was a cool castle/palace and some nice churches. Wherever we were people would speak Swedish to us. Probably because we are tall, very pale and exceedingly awesome. Another thing I loved about Sweden was the availability of large clothes sizes in the stores. I ended up with longjohns (can’t get those in the States) and a sweater and nice jacket (really hard to find in the States).

Wearing my nice new snow jacket Alisa got me for Christmas!

As mentioned Stockholm was very, very cold, and it snowed frequently. One of the stranger things we noticed in Sweden was a very specific, thriving job. Despite the apparent recession in other countries Stockholm was in fine form, and partially due to the good work of the roof snow removers. Throughout the downtown nearly every block had a small sectioned off area below which men were tied up on the roofs knocking the snow off. The first time we noticed it was a bit of a shock, and then it turned out to be totally common. I'd say they have great mountaineering skills in Stockholm!

Click on this picture, then look for the man clearing the snow off the roof. He is above the first window on the left. Crazy!

Overall our trip was great. The hotel we stayed in had a great location and excellent breakfast. Over the three days I ate so many Swedish meatballs that I think my body composition is now at least 50% meatball. The weather was cold and snowy, but it is a very clean, beautiful city. If I could pick any European city to live in Stockholm would certainly be in the top 3.