Sweden (Day 2) !

I am so behind on my blogging!  I am sorry it has taken me this long to get to day two in Stockholm!  Thanks for being patient!  Here goes nothin'!

On our second day in Sweden we visited an open air musem called Skansen.  This was by far one of my favorite places we went to on our whole trip!  Unfortunately we didn't have as much time there as we would have liked, but we still had a good 2 hours or so!  Skansen is very cool, it is like stepping back in time!  It is the firs open air museum to open in Sweden and was founded in 1891! There are a ton of different areas, like an old town, viking era village, etc.  It is meant to show the way of life in different parts of Sweden before the industrial era.

They had many animals and shops, cafes and rides, and gardens.  I loved it!  There was a seal in the aquatic area that swam by us multiple times.  And a ton of reindeer!  They did have moose too, but unfortunately they weren't outside that day, so my dream of seeing a moose in real life lives on.  I did however, get to pet an adorable goat!  I made a clicking noise with my mouth for it to come over, and it came over right away!  I was amazed!  And I just stood there and rubbed his fur and talked to him for a bit.  He was such a sweetie!  I don't know, but I've always felt like I have a special thing with animals.  They come to me easily, and I wonder if it's because they can sense that I just love them.

The only bummer thing about this side of the world in winter is that the sun sets at about 4:30 pm.  Which means everything closes really early!  But before we had to leave Skansen I was able to take a bunch of photos and a few videos of the amazing views from on top of the hill!  Skansen is very high up compared to the rest of city, so the views are just unbelievable.  I could have sat there all day and just looked at the city.  It was truly magnificent.  One of those moments that make all of the hassle of traveling totally worth it.

Once we left Skansen, we decided to try to find a place to eat in Old Town.  We headed back there for a while and then eventually went back to our hostel.  That night we met a guy named Kristian from Denmark.  He was traveling to a lot of the same cities as we were and he was very attractive.  We chatted with him for a while and he asked us some interesting questions about America and it was just nice to talk to someone from another country who was traveling like us!  The funny thing is, a few hours before Caitlin had come into my room at the hostel, and asked where another girl in our group was.  I said I didn't know and then tried to nonchelantly nod my head toward Kristian who was in the bed next to me, because you know, he was really hot!  I guess she must have thought I was saying that the girl she was looking for was in that bed, so she climbed up to look and as she looked straight at him, he turned over and found her staring at him! It was so funny!

As much as I wish I would have had more time here, I am still thankful I got to see it at all!  There is so much left to discover, and maybe one day I will make it back!

Until Next Time!

~XOXO

-Keeley

Sweden! (Day 1)

Sweden was my favorite of the three places we visited!  Stockholm is absolutely breath-taking.  The only down side was that we didn't have as much time there as we would have liked.  So we really ended up only seeing the Temple, Skansen, and Old Town.  Which was a huge bummer, but eventually I'll get over it...  When we got off of the ferry, we followed a friend of someone from our group to the metro station.

From there we went to the Stockholm Temple.  Some of our group members decided to go in and do a session, but unfortunately, most of us didn't have renewed recommends.  But sitting outside and taking pictures was beautiful, even with the rain!  I just sat on a bench for a while and wrote in my journal about how even though I was so far away from Colorado, being on the temple grounds felt like home.  I also wrote about how unique the design of the Stockholm temple is.  I really have never seen a temple like it!  It is a six spire design with windows on the front of the building.  You could peek in and see everyone in their temple dresses and clothes, and it was very interesting!

Fun Stockholm Temple Facts: 

-It was the first temple built in Scandinavia.  

-Swedish architect John Sjöström was selected to design the Stockholm Sweden Temple. He went to great lengths to harmonize the temple with local architecture.

-In preparation for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Stockholm Sweden Temple, a torch was used to through the ice so that the earth could be turned. It froze again overnight, and the ice had to be cleared a second time.

-The cultural diversity of the Stockholm Sweden Temple District was evidenced in the translation of the dedicatory sessions—four of which were translated into Swedish, three into Finnish, two into Norwegian, and two into Danish.

-On August 23, 1995, Swedish eyes turned to the Stockholm Sweden Temple where President Thomas S. Monson assisted in welcoming Their Majesties King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia to the grounds of the temple for their annual "Eriksgata" excursion.

After we left the temple, the journey to find our hostel began.  Let me tell you, that was not an easy journey, nor a fun one!  It turns out, that walking around the city in the pouring rain, dragging and carrying huge bags for hours trying to find a place you have no idea how to get to, isn't much fun.  By the way, my bag weighed like a thousand pounds and I had to carry it, while most everyone else had ones that you could wheel around.  That's the punishment I get for not bringing a suitcase carry-on to Russia I guess.  Once we finally found it, we were all pretty annoyed with each other!  The funny thing is, we were super close to it the WHOLE time, and were even just a few yards away at one point!  But the nice thing is, the hostel was really nice!  I had never said in a hostel before this, which made me a little uncomfortable at first.  But I quickly realized that we were staying in a nice place.  There were nice bathrooms and showers (although you had to buy towels), and a kitchen with tables and utensils.  Also, each bed had it's own light and electrical socket.  We did sleep in the same room with some unbelievable snorers the first night, so that was not the most fun, but over all we had a really great hostel experience in Sweden!  

After getting settled into the hostel, I went to Old Town with Caitlin and Jess.  It was kind of nice just to spend time with them in a small group.  Old Town is really cool.  It's the oldest town in Stockholm, and it's full of shops and restaurants!  It reminded me a lot of the shops in Salzburg, Austria.  We shopped around for a while, and I bought Kian some Christmas gifts.  After a while we passed by a Ben and Jerry's ice cream shop, and I grabbed some of course!  Because the traditions with our group is to try a pastry and ice cream in each country we visit.  And since I can't have pastries, I just try to get the ice cream.  I ordered a cup with three scoops, thinking they were going to be pretty small.  But this guy scooped me a mountain of Fish Food flavored ice cream and I wondered what I had gotten myself into!  I should have taken a picture of it, it really was HUGE.  So I told Caitlin and Jess to grab two extra spoons and forced them to eat some of it.  It was delicious.  After a while we decided to find a place to grab some dinner.  Yes, I ate ice cream before dinner.  And it was magical.  We came across this super cute cafe that was all decorated for Halloween.  I ordered some chicken and rice with salad, and Jess got a pizza.  It was pretty darn good.  We met some Americans in the cafe who were studying abroad in London.  It was nice to meet some people who were kind of having the same experience as us!  

After we looked around for a bit longer, we headed back to the hostel, but stopped at a grocery store for some breakfast food for the next morning.  I was so thankful to find yet another gluten free shelf!

Stay Tuned for Day 2!