The Royal's

Saturday morning we went to Drottningholm Palace to see where the royal family lives. On the way, I quizzed Kristy on the royal family members names, because I think it's important that we know them as guests in this country. They are all pretty easy to remember when you do word association. For instance, King Carl Gustaf (King Carl does the goose step), Queen Sylvia (Queen watches a Sylvania television), Crown Princess Victoria (Crown Victoria was a popular Ford automobile), Princess Madeleine (Madeline is a popular childrens book), and Prince Carl Philip (Prince Carl watches Philips television). When we got to the palace, it reminded Kristy and me very much of the White House in Washington D.C., except the place and the artifacts were a lot older, and there was a lot less security. The royal family lives there, so that part of the Palace is off limits. But you can pay to tour the rest of the place, and most of the grounds. As you can imagine, the palace is jam packed with statues, carvings, paintings on the walls of historic figures, and also murals on the walls and ceilings. The front walks out to Lake Mälaren, and the "back yard" is huge, and includes a lot of very well groomed hedges and trees, statues, and buildings. As with everything else, we kept thinking to ourselves that it would be great to visit in the summer time to see the place. Many of the buildings on the grounds are only open seasonally. But being that it's off season, there were not a lot of people there, so I guess things balance out. The one complaint I think I would have about the place was that when you looked out the windows of this ancient building, you saw traffic going by 200 yards away. Kind of took away from the experience for me for whatever reason. 

Went to a party at our neighbor Malin's apartment on Saturday night. It was one of those things where you don't necessarily want to go because you're going to walk into a room where you don't really know anyone, and feel like you're there out of a sense of obligation on your neighbors part. So we decided we were going to just go over there for one drink and then come back to our apartment. We went over there and ended up staying for 3 or 4 hours I think. Malin is the neighbor who had mentioned to us that Reese was "screaming" a lot, and she's very sweet. Her friends are all really cool, and funny. We were especially fond of a guy named Chris, who spoke very good english after a year of schooling in Idaho. He was also a huge smart ass, and funny, which is really why we liked him. Everyone here speaks really good english, but not everyone is so good at being a smart ass! We played a game similar to Trivial Pursuit, except that it's in Swedish, and geared more towards adults. Let me tell you that the game was a great ice breaker, and a lot of fun. And, of course, Reese had to make an appearance later in the evening, and made many new fans. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people don't really care to know us, but they have to if they want to see Reese. :D  I decided it was time for me to leave when they pulled out the Rock Star: ABBA Edition. Me and singing don't get along so well. I don't mind if others sing, but when I feel pressured to join in, it's time to go. And speaking of ABBA, it's amazing how they are so revered here in Sweden, even after all this time. As a matter of fact, they are opening an ABBA Museum in Stockholm this June, according to what I read. 

Yesterday, we got up and went to a place called Sirap. Kristy keeps asking what I want to do, and I told her that one thing I've had the urge to do is go out to breakfast somewhere for waffles. We never found a place for waffles, but she did find a place that served all kinds of pancakes. So that's where we went, and it was really good. After that, we just started wandering down the street and stopping into shops here and there. Before I knew it, we were downtown. It's strange when you feel like you're nowhere near where you think you are, and all of a sudden you pop out of a little neighborhood into an area you recognize. I realized that more than ever yesterday? I realized yesterday that the apartment Kristy found is pretty much right across a bridge from where Stockholm begins, for lack of a better way of putting it. It's like you go from suburb to city across the bridge. It's a cool location in many ways. It's a convenient spot as far as catching the bus, being close to one of the better grocery stores in the Stockholm area, and close to Haga Park where we can walk Reese.  It's also a reasonable distance from where she practices and plays her home games for Bandy. 

For everyone wondering about my watch, there is nothing new to report. It's still flopping around on my wrist, with only one post keeping it attached to the velcro watch band. 

Later.