This morning was supposed to be our 5am wake up call (time zone change, so it really felt like 6am) but I mean, really, it was still early, especially since we had been having a ton of fun the night before.  Nonetheless, we dragged ourselves out of bed because our first stop was going to be a bathhouse where we could shower, relax, and detox.  However, we started hearing rumors that the boat was nowhere near docking.  I went and found Jon and confirmed that the boat wasn’t docking until 9:15am, the time we were supposed to be leaving the bathhouse.  This was all a little bit before 6am, so we had almost 3 and a half hours, and I was awake, packed, and my bathing suit was on and ready to go.  Jon went a got us breakfast tickets, but told us that we were still going to go to the bathhouse.  Excellent.

I had the longest, slowest breakfast of my life, and it was very strange to be sitting and eating and watching the other ferry and cruise ships be right in front of and right behind us.  We later found out that two Viking Line ships had collided (no one hurt) but it messed up the rest of the time schedule.  Actually, the other group of the trip had their final Viking Line cancelled, and had to fly back from Finland a day early.  As we are getting closer to docking, the cleaning staff employees were coming around and collecting all the towels and linens, and at about 8:40, Jon ultimately decides we will not go to the bathhouse.  As in, remember that shower you were going to take?  Not going to happen.  So a bunch of us ran back to our rooms, took new towels from the cleaning carts, and showered and re-dressed (sans bathing costume) and made it off the boat in time.

Rough start, but we continued on to Hammarby Sjöstadgg in Stockholm, which is an area which is being built to produce a sustainable lifestyle.  Most importantly is the technical infrastructure that allows for more efficient water, energy, waste deposit, etc. etc.

We then walked around for a couple of hours to look at all of the different housing buildings, but it was so cold and the place was just a giant wind-tunnel, so most people lost motivation to be outside, and even if you did wander around outside, you didn’t want to sketch, let alone even take your camera out (missed my mittens today!)  But I did wander out to see this tiny, tiny ski mountain that just happened to be plopped in the middle of Hammarby, nestled between a couple major roads.  I can only hope that this is what they did with the excavated earth while they were building.

I was wondering by myself, and my next stop was by the waterfront, where I found a place called spoon which first caught my eye with their animal pelts sitting on the bench outside.  So I wondered in, and the place was adorable and the prices were great, and there was on of our tour leaders, Mark, sitting by himself so I joined him for lunch.

Our next stop was the Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm.  First up was the Resurrection Chapel by Sigurd Lewerentz (1925) and then “my” chapel, the Woodland Chapel, by Erik Gunnar Asplund (1918-1922).

photo by James Oh.

In order to get into the cemetery and to the chapels, we took the “adventurous” route, which led us through knee-deep snow down a hill, and we really did look this goofy while trying to get down.  I was leading the troops down the hill, so I had already made it to the bottom by the time this picture was taken, so this photo is courtesy of James Oh (thanks!).  This might have been more fun than sledding; we were laughing the entire way down.

I could get into a whole diatribe about why I was extremely disappointed in the Woodland Chapel, which is the chapel that I was building the model for on my first project.  But, DIS already gave us all a busy-work assignment where I was able to vent this, so I will spare you the details.

The actual cemetery did not disappoint, the area was beautiful.  The snow covered the gravestones so that they were just barely peeking out, and the sun shone through the trees casting shadows with no end.

Even though we were disappointed in our actual chapel, Holly, Juan, the inspiration of Fleming, and I took a picture together.

By the time we left the Woodland Cemetery, we were wet and frozen, so we were more than happy to get to the final hostel of our trip, the Zinkensdamm Hostel in Stockholm.  We had the night on our own, but our fearless leader Jon told us about a great place in Stockholm called Garlic and Shots, and a gigantic groups of us set out around 8:30 to make the almost hour walk into the city.  Somehow, Garlic and Shots was able to accommodate all of us, even though we sat in different areas.

The food was amazing, my little table had garlic bread, garlic nachos, and I ate pasta with garlic and garlic meatballs.  I was enjoying (loving) a Czech beer that they had on tap, but I didn’t realize until after we left that they had a garlic beer.  So I am a little sad I didn’t try that, but I’m pretty sure I was already marinated in garlic without actually having to drink it as a liquid.  By the time we wondered (got lost) on our way back, it was past midnight, even though we had only eaten dinner!