A Quick Trip to Stockholm (Part 1)

Early in the morning on Monday, December 3rd, Wes and I traveled with students via bus to Stockholm.  This time our group was smaller than usual as only the College Line American students took this trip. By now, we have seen what this group is like - they are wonderful students, to be sure.  They show up when and where they are supposed to show up, they are a group who genuinely seem to care for/about each other and flexibility appears not to be a problem.  
Once we got to our hotel (Yay! A hotel, not a hostel for these two geezers - a complete bathroom in our room!),
we quickly dropped off our baggage and headed to Gamla Stan.  We were meeting up with our tour guide, George, at 3:00.  As you can see by the following pictures, darkness was coming earlier each day. I wanted to get a quick shot of our group before the sun was totally gone.
I love you guys!

George met us in Stortorget - the oldest square in Stockholm. How fun is it to see a Julmarknad
in progress when we arrived? Mycket kul!!



I took this picture especially for Anne - she looked for the building with the cannon ball embedded in the wall.
The guy on the horse is the French king whose bloodlines now flow through current Swedish royalty.
Nicknamed "The Happy Church" because this is where Royal Weddings take place.

By the end of our walking tour, we looked out over  the Stockholm harbor and froze our stangas off!
 

 After the tour, the students were on their own for the rest of the evening - meaning that we were, too.
Wes and I so enjoyed walking through the streets all decked out for the holidays.


Take a look at the time on the clock - this is dark as night by this time.

Every street we passed had lights hanging overhead.  It was lovely.

We weren't quite done for the night, though. We had plans to dine with friends! 
We met up at at restaurant that served tapas.

Our dining companions were Doreen and Mark Olson.
We ate our way through eight "small plates" served up by the most charming Chilean waiter who kept referring to us as "family." 
It really did feel good to converse with fellow Americans who were in our age group; after nearly five months of being here without the interactions of our English-speaking peer group we had plenty of wonderful adventures to talk about!


Tomorrow we will have another full day of such adventures here in Stockholm!

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