Archipelago & Motorcycles

Good news: I feel much better today! Still not amazing, but definitely on the upswing now.

We made it out of the house and to the harbor by around 11 AM and found the boat company that we wanted to use. There are so many boats lining the multiple harbors that I was nervous it would take a while, but with good directions from Helen and Hakan it was quite easy. After buying our tickets, we found a dock to sit on in the sun for about 20 minutes before lining up to get on the boat.

The tour we decided to go with was a 3 hour round trip island tour with an English guide. Although I really wanted to get out and walk around and spend time on the islands, I figured I was still recovering and it would be best to just admire the beauty from the water and have a nice day in the sun learning about the islands. The boat ride was not quite what I expected - the company combined two different tours into one. So inside the boat, there were rows of tables with white table cloths and buffets set up for people that had paid for the "brunch tour". Everybody else was standing outside around the boat. Then there were speakers placed around the boat. If you weren't within two feet of a speaker though you couldn't hear the guide at all. I spent a while close to various speakers but it turns out the guide was really less than memorable. Still though, the weather was beautiful and the archipelago was gorgeous!! I would love to come back to Sweden and to a much more thorough tour of the archipelago and spend more time on individual islands. Another reason to come back :)

We stopped by the food festival again since it was close by. I got some samples but didn't see anything that looked Swedish that was cheap so we didn't get any food. It had a really fun atmosphere that kind of reminded me of Seattle Center a little bit. Also, since today was their national holiday, there were TONS of Swedish flags out. People were wearing t-shirts with the flag on it, carrying them around, putting them on their boats or outside their restaurants. Everywhere was blue and yellow.

After the boat tour, we went back to the apartment to check in. Daniel and Hakan had told us that they would take us on their motorcycles!!!! Very excited about this. However, Daniel said he needed some time to rest since he just got back from work. Laura and I wanted to make dinner for them, so we said we'd just make dinner first, while he napped, and then after dinner we could go riding. Which works out here in the summer since you have full day light until 10 or 11.

I went to the grocery store alone while Laura worked on CouchSurfing stuff. It took me a while to find all the ingredients I wanted since I don't speak Swedish. Most of the time I could figure out the general sections of the store, but unless something had a very distinct picture on it I didn't always know what it was. The other more challenging thing was knowing how much of something came in a package. Anyway, I stumbled through it and came home with ingredients to make two pizzas, one Hawaiian type pizza with meat and pineapple and mozzarella on it and one Greek pizza with feta cheese, kalamata olives, and red onions. I've never made pizzas on my own before so it was a pretty fun artistic adventure. Then, since I bought a ton of garlic to help me get better I had a lot left over that I wanted to find something to do with. I got a baguette figuring that making garlic bread probably just meant mixing minced garlic with olive oil or butter or something you can spread on bread. Laura took over operation garlic bread. It was so nice to spend time in the kitchen playing with all the ingredients. I told Helen and Laura that especially pizzas feels kind of like finger painting as a kid, except here you get to eat it when you're done. Rolling the dough, spreading the sauce, placing the ingredients in whatever design you want. It's really fun. We let Hakan know dinner was ready and roused Daniel from his sleep and had a super cute little family dinner. Everybody said it was really good (Helen said it was the best homemade pizza she's ever had) which was nice but I know things could have been better. At any rate, it seemed like a great success, everybody said they were full and happy and seemed very appreciative. And it was really fun to sit with all 5 of us, because usually somebody is working or at school or busy with their lives doing something else.

Helen was kind enough to volunteer to do dishes so the rest of us could get on with our motorcycling. Helen busted out this awesome 1980's motorcycling suit that she was going to let me borrow. I put on the pant suit and jacket and helmet, but Daniel vetoed the pants saying that jeans were more comfortable to ride in, and then he also vetoed the helmet because it was ugly. He looked pained that I even thought about wearing it out of the house, he just said, "No, no, please...don't do this" as he took it off of my head.

So Helen let me borrow some jeans and shoes more appropriate for riding a motorcycle than anything I brought and Daniel gave me a covered helmet that he approved of. Then Laura rode with Daniel and I jumped on behind Hakan and we set off. Needless to say, it was so much fun!!!! I love riding motorcycles. It's always a treat since it happens so rarely. There was still really good daylight and they were of course careful with us. They took us all through the Stockholm country side which was really cool because we hadn't seen that part of Stockholm at all yet. Every once in a while Hakan would say something to me like, "are we going too fast?", "that's where the king lives," or "there's a special island just for dogs over there." Very helpful haha. We stopped eventually by some water somewhere and stretched our legs. Then we continued and went on a mission to find Daniel some coffee. We tried a couple of different places that were both closed and finally stopped at another place that was about to close. They didn't have coffee either so the boys settled for a Coke and we sat there for a few minutes.

On the way back, we stopped at one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Stockholm. It's an UNESCO World Heritage site - the whole neighborhood - because it's a really good example of Sweden's functionalism architecture. I personally thought the houses were really ugly but functionalism was an important architectural movement in the 30's and 40's I think and this neighborhood was kind of the guinea pig and the model neighborhood.

As we went home, the sun was setting and the air was clear. It was perfect; it was such a good feeling. We made it back safely and unpeeled all of our motorcycle clothes and helmets. Then we plopped ourselves down and settled in for a night of more....MAD MEN! Good times. We made it onto Season 2 so now it's new for both Laura and I which is great. We're super addicted. It could be a problem.