After spending most of the night working on technical issues, I went back to bed at 6 am just for a nap, and slept until almost 10!  While I was annoyed at missing my free breakfast at the hotel, I figured I needed the rest.

Happily, my gastric drama has not returned, and apart from a minor amount of lingering jetlag wooziness, I felt just terrific yesterday as I made my initial explorations of Stockholm.

Real Men Push Strollers

And in Stockholm, they seem to do it WAY more than women.  I see three or four men alone with children for every woman I see with the little darlings. I wonder why this is?

Dude, Your Time at the Gym Has Been Well Spent

I don’t know how to say that in Swedish, but this is what I wanted to say to several buff Vikings that I saw today.  Particularly the one on the Tunnelbana.  (No, that’s not Eric’s little brother, it’s what they call the subway here.)  He was wearing a long sleeve pullover shirt and you could still see the veins on his bulging arms.  You know, through the shirt.  Which would have made an impression on me if I wasn’t only and exclusively interested on what’s on the inside of a person.  Everyone knows this about me.

Courage?

I don’t usually think of myself as a courageous person.  True, I did see “Shoah” at an actual movie theater, by choice, and actually sat through the first four hours of it. But when it comes to real courage, I don’t think so.  I’d be the worst soldier ever.  I’d cry.  I’d desert.  On the first day.

However, I would posit that it does take a certain brand of something like courage to go to a foreign country, alone, where you don’t speak the language, and navigate the cities, hop on and off subways without getting lost, and just generally coping in an alien landscape without freaking out.  And whatever that oddball kind of courage is, I definitely have it.  It’s scary, but it’s a fun kind of scary.

I’ve been doing it since my twenties, so I guess I’m used to it and have a certain confidence.  This is my ninth trip abroad since 1987.  I wonder if some people would find it so daunting they wouldn’t go.  You know, like me facing the prospect of going to the movies at the Americana in Glendale.

HEY I’m on a boat!

Stockholm is a magnificent city built on hundreds of islands. There are fourteen major ones.  It’s really like nothing I’ve ever seen.  It’s like Venice writ large.  You’re never more than a dwarf’s toss from the water here.

I took two delightful boat rides today!  The first was to a tiny island where I had a lovely peaceful ramble for an hour.

The second was a circumnavigation of Kungsholmen (King’s Island),  the island my hotel is on.  Boat tours are peaceful and relaxing.  I love them.

Just How Many Spherical Buildings Are There, Actually?

Next I took a fun jaunt up to the top of the world’s largest spherical building. (Didn’t know there was a contest, did you?)  It’s called the Ericsson Globe, and it’s a sports and entertainment venue.  Very nice photo op on top full stop.

Lens-o-Rama

I’m already VERY glad I purchased the Sigma wide angle lens for the camera.  It’s doubled my shooting potential very clearly, as the shots it can get are so utterly different from the ones I get with the Nikkor zoom.  Today was a good day of practicing switching out the lenses.  I’m getting better at it on the fly.

Exhausting but wonderful day!