Last Day in Stockholm

When we arrived in Stockholm yesterday, I suggested to Jim that since it was Friday night we might be able to find some local festival or show to go to. With very little effort we discovered a city-wide cultural festival that featured music from around the world. We headed to an area that had several stages in it, had a quick beer and salmon dinner and then found our way to one of the stages. Here we discovered group called Pickadoll that was high energy and played, in my opinion, good music!
Jim compared them to Rochester's Skycoasters band. Most of their songs were in English, but none that I recognized. When they took a break we went to another stage where we heard a group that described their music as Finnish retro soul. They were OK.
We returned for Pickadoll's second set and thoroughly enjoyed their music and were sorry when they didn't come back for a second encore.

Our third band was described as Danceable's Electro Techno Kraut, and I did not enjoy their music at all~ although at first they were very entertaining to watch. We left after their first song because I did not like the feeling of their hard-driving beat, taking the place of my heart beat in my chest!

We then walked to a third stage, where by far the largest crowd had gathered and we heard alternative psychedelic rock, by a group from Mexico City. We didn't hang around here too long either.


But we were out and about for Stockholm's night life! One funny thing that we saw was at one of the stage sites, there was a large tent set up that had the word "Sauna" on the outside and all these people on the inside wrapped in towels! These must have been the transplanted Finns! Another thing that we saw but didn't really understand were all the posts and wires that were decorated with hand-knit wraps! And I'm not talking about small scarves here, these were major projects decorating the performance areas.


After a late night, we tried to sleep in, but that is not a skill that we we're too good at. But we had plans for today anyway and were ready to get on the road (or in this case, water).

We boarded a small ferry boat for a trip through the archipelago to the small island of Vaxholm.
Since the archipelago is a what makes Stockholm Stockholm, we decided to visit one of the islands a bit further from the actual city. The trip took about an hour and we arrived about 11 AM.

We spent most of our time walking around the small town and on a nice coastal trail. Early in our walking we discovered a small restaurant right on the water that was away from the main shopping area, so after working up an appetite, we returned to this place for a simple lunch and entertainment provided by passing boats and kids swimming in the harbor area. Here are a couple of photos from our time on Vaxholm.



Tonight we will be spectators at the annual Midnight Run, a 10K road race through the streets of Stockholm in which 21,000 runners participate! Jim looked into how to enter, but the entries filled up on July 8th, so we will cheer on the runners tonight. Fortunately, the race starts at 10 PM with the post-race festivities lasting well-past midnight. Actually the race goes right by our hotel and we will have a window view of all the action.

Then I guess we will pack up our stuff because we have a 1 PM flight outta here tomorrow! Of course we need to take a subway and a bus to get to the airport, so we will get an early start to make that all happen.

So from Stockholm, hey!

Hope all is well.