Sweden

Stockholm quickly became one of my favorite cities in the world. It's got the perfect mix of lively activity, clean air, and active citizens. People walk or bike nearly everywhere, and there are lots of cute shops, delicious restaurants, and fun sites. It's a bit less expensive than Norway, but can still be fairly pricey. The city spreads over about 14 islands and the buildings are as cute as can be. Despite being a fairly big city (around 2 million including the suburbs) the town has lots of green areas close by.

Spent the first day exploring with the wimmers and then drove up to their friend's house in Uppsala. Picked arman up from the airport the next day and then drove to their cabin on an island on the baltic sea. spent a wonderful midsummers eating strawberry cake, listening to traditional music, and watching kids play many traditional races. The kids were dressed to a t, and seemed to have been taken straight out of a polo/ralph lauren magazine. We also all danced around the maypole and sang songs....hands down it was one of the best holiday celebrations yet....everyone was smiling and laughing and having a blast. That night we had a traditional midsummer's meal, including herring and aquavit. The wimmers supplied us with wonderful french wines, so the meals were five course meals including the drinks;) champagne to start, a shot of aquavit, a glass of wine, a glass of belgium beer, followed by some brandy at the end. not too shabby;) Took a ride on the sailboat one day, as well as the little two-person sailboat. Went swimming in the freezing water (18c or thereabouts). also went fishing for herring...although I seemed to have brought the bad luck as we only caught about 6 and they claimed they usually grab a bucketful in under 30 min. went back to stockholm and explored the city more with arman. went to see the vasa ship, which sank 30 min into its maiden voyage due to being top heavy. an absolutely stunning ship though. so many detailed wood carvings and detailed work went into it.

Headed for two days over to vasa, finland to try to trace my grandma's family down. Didn't get too far as we think my great grandpa may have changed his name when coming to the states...we found a karl oskar nordberg who was born just 11 days earlier, but he had only sisters compared to my great grandpa's 7 brothers and only one sister. anyhoo, vasa was a rather dull town with common shops and not much to do. met an amazing bartender the first day at the hotel though, who brought us to vora, a geneological place that had lots of information. finland was quite different from norway and sweden as most people did not speak much english. they also tended to look much more russian. the swedes and norweigans have perfect english with hardly any accent, which they say they get from watching tv with subtitles. they are also the most beautiful people i have ever seen.

have been back in stockholm the last few days and have been enjoying the time strolling through the city, doing some shopping and snapping pictures. looking forward to being back in the states shortly!