Norrmalm

Although I am the second oldest person staying at the hostel, I really like it. They have everything here for the traveller and are very friendly. It is only costing $Aus140 a night - you can't get a hotel this close to town for under $Aus250 and as I said, our double room with ensuite is so big. Grace is busy this morning so Mary and I decided to go for a walk, see the city sights and do some shopping.

I remembered that the mall has Lions in the pavement at each end so when I came to a Lion , off I went - problem is there are Lions in many places and these ones were a right angles to where I wanted to go. Nevertheless we had a good long walk. We resorted to SIRI who took us to the Nobel Prize Hall and the market outside - plenty of restaurants here.

The photo of Mary standing near a fungi display shows only a tiny part of the stalls that are selling all types of fungi and other produce. We went into a multi story deli - you should see the size of the cuts of meat - I asked Mary to put her hand nearby so you could see their size in the photo - huge!

Needing to go to the toilet we found a group of unisex toilets. problem was - no place for coins and certainly not for free - you had to use your smart credit card to get in - at a cost of SEK8, which is about 80 cents. I did notice a couple in one booth together - saving money I expect.

Grace had mentioned that she wished she had a record player. We found suitable ones in the UK and Ireland, the problem was getting it to her. I took the risk that we could buy one in Stockholm - even though all the web sites I looked had only had HiFi systems at super high prices.

We found what we were looking for in Stockholm, a record player with inbuilt speakers. Before buying we searched other stores but could find nothing. So we bought it for Grace and a second hand record to boot - all worked out well - I'm happy we were able to solve her problem.

Grace invited us to drinks at the end of a marketing workshop at her workplace - Stockholm Music. Met a marketer who worked on the Optus account in Australia in the 90's - very interesting. After a few drinks we headed back to the hostel with Grace.

Over dinner Grace booked the ferry to Gotland and connecting buses - we need to be at the Central Station by 9:30am - should that be easy as we are now familiar with packing routines.

So off the Gotland tomorrow - one of the highlights of our trip.

CheersRead more