North Sea Serenade – Day One

I'm posting for Christy about her Europe trip....I've slacked on writing mine. We'll see if it ever happens.

Our flights to Stockholm were relatively uneventful but exhausting.  When we got to Amsterdam – where we were connecting – they made us go through passport control and on the other side we had to go through the ubiquitous bag check which was super odd because we never left the secure area of the airport -- only this time they were concerned about the amount of electronics we had in our bags.  So they removed almost everything from Tom’s bag, x-rayed the extension cord, re-exrayed his now empty bag and then gave him everything back to repack.  Mine they pulled out my checkbook, my DSi XL – which he said made me think I was “hip and trendy” and laughed and wanted to know if I had “caught them all” when I told him I used it to play Pokemon, my wallet, and said to me please open and then took them from my hands and opened them himself.  Except the DSi.  Odd.  I guess telling him I used it to play Pokemon convinced him that I am not a terrorist. 

Well we arrived at our hotel after driving through an absolutely torrential downpour on one side and sunshine on the other which created some rather spectacular rainbows as we drove along.  I am taking that as a good omen.

We arrived at the hotel and checked in.  Our room is gorgeous and the floor in the bathroom is heated.  So after you walk across the cool wooden floor the floor seemed to us unnaturally warm.  Very odd at first.  The hotel is gorgeous but not as big as I thought which gives it an intimate feel.  It reminds me of the Hotel St. James in Montreal.  Nice moldings, modern touches but maintaining the historical ambiance.  Our room has a magnificent view – the Royal Palace and the Swedish Parliament.  We can also see the sightseeing boats going up and down the Norrström River.  The tooting and bells and whistles remind us in our room that we are not in Kansas anymore. 

We laid around for a couple of hours and then went down to meet our friends Ann and Whit (who are going on our cruise) and two of their friends Bunny and Guy (who aren’t).  We had a “typical” Swedish smorgasbord and I think it is probably very high end but it was absolutely delicious. 10 varieties  of herring.  Many varieties of breads, one of which was a brown bread that was so rich it tasted like cake.  Cheeses to die for.  Cold smoked, smoked, lox of several varieties absolutely delicious.   Gorgeous and yummy desserts.   I had so much pickled food I think I will come home looking a couple of years younger.  Ha ha.  I fell in love with mustard marinated herring.  Bunny and Guy have been driving across Europe and probably would have gone on for hours but I sadly had to poop out and say I ran out of steam and have to go to bed. 

We actually were very tired, and once we got to bed fell asleep for a solid four hours, whereupon our body clocks told us it should be day time and you should be awake.  So we spent a few hours talking until we fell asleep again and slept for another three hours or so.