Day 4: Stockholm, 6/4/2014  I’m sitting in my hotel room while truckloads of engineering students circle the plaza outside the hotel playing Swedish pop (think ABBA) honking their horns and waving an screaming madly at everyone. On the side of the trucks, big open bed construction trucks, are signs that say “Keep Calm, We’re engineers in the making.” That’s all I know, but they seem to be having a good time of it. The overcast 61f day isn’t dampening their spirits, that’s for sure.

 

Maybe later I’ll ask the desk. Actually, no time like the present. Maybe this happens all the time and the desk will have forgotten about it.

Ah. The pretty blond concierge, wait, that’s redundant. I already said I was in Stockholm, right? Anyway, she said they’re not just the engineering students, it’s all the high schools. They’re graduating.

Speaking of which, shout out to Quintin Alexander Chambers Lilley, whose graduation ceremony is tomorrow. Won’t be there myself, see above.

EJ just came in, and added one interesting detail, which I might have picked up on from the general level of cheer. “They’re all soaked in beer. You can smell them coming blocks away.” See Q, you should have been a Swedish exchange student.

I’m a simple bear, with simple wants. Coffee and some sort of pastry in a little café near the hotel, then I’ll accede to whatever endless trek EJ has dreamed up.  Found one on the web, that looks nice, and it’s not far. Can we stop to get Kroners from the ATM? Sure, I’m easy. Hey, can we hop on a boat tour? We’re already at the waterfront?

Lord knows I’m not a fussy man, but I would like my morning coffee and a little bite of something. Sigh, a cup of joe to go and a stale cinnamon bun from the kiosk wasn’t the  romantic European experience I had in mind.

But it’s not bad coffee.

So, on to the “Royal Canal Boat Tour,” which should be described on the advertising poster with comments like “mind numbing” and “filled with tedious details about Royals and really wealthy Swedish people.” Fun for the whole family if you want to get even them. I wanted to make snarky comments, but restrained myself, or at least I told EJ, sotto voce,  that I didn’t want to ruin it for the guy sitting acros from us, to which he said, “No, please, ruin it. I’m not sure how much more I can take either.”

I’m not saying it was slow, but while traveling alongside what used to be the King’s private hunting park (…the park is now open to the public but on one day a year the prince hunts tourists on horseback with a bow…) a jogger in an orange t shirt (they like orange here almost as much as I do) managed to beat us handily (…on your left is the Swedish Museum, home of incredible artworks you can’t see because it’s closed. Just saying…).  We also saw a statue of Thor, hammer and all (…hey, where are the rest of the Avengers?…). The tour took us around Djurgarden island, which, besides houses and royal residences and stuff, has a vast historical village, with buildings transplanted from various eras that could take you days and days to walk through. One bright no..te, we went by the Museum of photography, the largest museum devoted to photography (….no pictures may be taken in the museum…)

Fortunately, our next stop after the boat tour was the Museum of Science and Technology. No, wait, why are we waling towards the entrance to the big honking historical village thing?  And it’s uphill? Both ways?

Sounds like a good idea, dear.

Actually, it was a very good idea. Turns out it was only uphill one way and we even took the “funicular” up the slope to the top. Funicular, evidently means “Fun Little Train that Goes up Mountainsides So You Don’t Have To Walk.” Briliant idea.

I had a great time wandering around the buildings, all of which had been transplanted to the island and peopled with folks demonstrating how to make those really flat crackers with waffle holes in them and stuff. You got the idea that for most of the year Swedes holed up in log houses waiting for the really short summer so they could run out and plant enough rye and barley to store up for the next winter. But I really liked the way they did it. A very  clever and practical people.

By the time we exited through the gift shop we’d both had enough fun and put the tech museum on the waiting list. Or maybe scratched it off the list, as I found the cunning little houses to be some pretty clever tech in themselves.

So we grabbed a trolley which went through the park back to our hotel. I didn’t get out at the ABBA museum to take a picture, but I did get “Dancing Queen” stuck in my head. Dum, dum, dum…da,, da, da, dum, dum, dum. Da, da, da, dah, dah da….” There, try to get that out of your head. No charge.

I found humming  “Super Troopers” works pretty well.

We split at the trolley stop for the hotel. She went shopping for little foodstuffs to take back to the room and I hit yet another exotic location (7-11) for coffee. I also stopped in at a shop call “Earth Fire,” which I’d assumed was a pottery shop, but turned out to be a tile company based in the UK. Nice tile though.

Back at the hotel, with the exuberant teens echoing through the windows, I settled in to relax and do a little sniping (this piece, to be exact) but EJ turned up and after a few minutes of enjoying the sounds of liberated youth’s suggested that we go off on another walk, this time across a bridge to where the old town is.

That sounded like another good idea, dear…and, as usual, despite my skepticism, it was.

Not only did we catch the fifteen minutes of actual sunlight provided for our viewing pleasure, but we wandered up and down great little streets full of fun shops. Including “Science Fiction Bokhanden,” one of the most impressive science fiction bookstores I’ve seen, regardless of continent. If I get a chance I may stop back and meet the owner, whose name may or may not be “Maths.”  Exciting news, space opera fans. While there I noticed that Chibola Burn, the fourth volume in James S. A. Corey’s “Expanse” trilogy is out. OK, it’s more aptly considered the first book in the second trilogy, but regardless, this is the best written space opera in, well, maybe, ever. It started out with Leviathan’s Wake, moved on to Caliban’s War, and finished up with Abbadon’s Gate. Great characters, great plot lines, plenty of action, and although the writing team that makes up the author are nominally fantasy authors, very good science. Collect the whole set. Even EJ is excited, and she’s much more of an elves and dragons sort of reader.

We slogged back to the hotel, which did seem to be receding into the distance in some cruel sci-fi special effect, and I stopped to take a picture of a really big red building, just as a legion of Swedes on Segways swirled past. Maybe not swirled, exactly, but there’s no alliteration in “rode.” Have I mentioned that the Segway is the dumbest idea Dean Kaimen ever had? He’s an amazingly bright guy, but seriously. The last thing the world needs is a device that takes up more sidewalk than a human and reduces the amount of exercise you get. Bike’s, on the other hand, may be the pinnacle of transportation technology, at least within their useful envelope.

Made it back to the hotel and dressed for dinner.  EJ rolled out a black and white number with diagonal stripes on it that made my jaw drop. If I’d known I’d be taking a supermodel out to dinner in Stockholm, I would have brought the number one suit. The dark gray job I’ve been saving for when I’m called in to advise the President. But no, the best I had to offer was my dress Yankee tribute; a navy two button blazer and a pair of nicely pressed stone dockers. We just weren’t in the same league.

Rather than have people ask why that woman was with that guy, she dropped it down a notch to a pair of white slacks and a stunning black top with an offcenter collar. Still the best looking gal in the quite nice restaurant we went to, and in Stockholm, they don’t set the bar low.

By the way, it was a great dinner, and I’ve now eaten Rudoph, as well as Bambi and Billy. He’s not going to knock Ferdinand or Habeas Corpus off my preferred list. Special credit to anyone who knows what series Habeas Corpus was in. Your clue: His owner’s name was Monk, who kept him around to annoy his friend “Ham.” Sigh, OK, it’s Doc Savage. Who? Forget I asked.

Another fifteen minute walk back to the digs and we get to settle in with comfy chairs and light classical music provided by “Jango” on the laptop I didn’t want to bring because it added weight. My bad. It’s been very useful. Jango, as you may or may not know, is a Pandora competitor, and I only found it when Pandora refused to play outside the US. Licensing issues.

Anyway, that’s a wrap for day four of the amazing Lilley-McClure Expedition to Scandinavia. Tomorrow we’ll strike out for a café with coffee and a croissant and hit the photography museum. Or my name isn’t Ernest.