Sunday: From Oslo I needed to get to Stockholm as it was my departure point back to London on Monday night. I was originally going to catch a train but that was going to cost about £35 and take 7 hours! Not the best after already being on a train for so many hours in the last few days. Got online and managed to find an airfare that only cost slightly more.

The weather was once again beautiful and from the airport, I headed straight for town and walked around the old part of town, Gamla Stan. This is a touristy area too, but it was worth negotiating the human traffic to get to the numerous gelati and hot dog shops!!
The bridge into the island, Gamla Stan.


Stockholm lazing is all about the water, particularly as the city is built over 14 islands, with people cruising around on boats and ferries leaving to visit some of the 24,000ish islands in the huge archipelago east of Stockholm. After chilling out by the harbour/lake for a bit, I found my hostel. An ex-cruise ship that is now permanently anchored and plays host to backpackers and hotel-goers. I was allocated a dorm with 12 beds and the only beds left were top bunks. I picked one with a port-hole nearby, but it only had about 2 foot of space above me when lying down - no sitting up in bed in the middle of the night!
Found the bar on the 'roof' of the boat.


Both Oslo and Stockholm have a photo exhibition by Steve Bloom on at the moment (till September), sponsored by WWF. Brilliant, stunning, emotive, fun photos of animals in their native environments, with captions explaining how they are threatened.

After the photo exhibition, I wandered around the Djurgarden island with extensive parks and Tivoli-Grona Lund - the amusement park. There's also a zoo, ritzy hotels, an open-air historical museum and an aquarium.
Some cantankerous geese. Cute but when I was crouching on the ground to get this picture a few of them started stalking me, hissing with their beaks open and tongues out!


And then I came across the highlight of Stockholm entertainment. Some free concert thing in a city square - some crazy Swedish group with a lead singer in lycra!

Ummmm, didn't realise there was space for underpants under those trousers!


I met a guy who lives in Sweden and we shared some beers while watching the bungee-jumping. Jodi was pretty interesting as his parents were from Dubai and Turkey and they moved all around the world, and as such, Jodi could speak Hindi, English, Turkish and Swedish. And a couple of his siblings can speak Arabic - all depending on where they were and for how long... So many interesting people in Stockholm, a big ethnic mix, which I never would have guessed.

Anyway, apparently the entertainment was all part of some free festival where companies put on things for free as promotion. So there were all these people bungee-jumping for free from a crane! Although I acknowledge it was a great chance to try bungee-jumping, I also realised that I'm a sook and I don't think I could actually let go of the railings in the tiny box the brave punters were raised in. A few people chickened out and were lowered back down. After that, it was back to the backpackers boat. Snapped the pic below of the view across to Gamla Stan (this was 12am).


And then I got back to the backpackers boat and a whole bunch of Americans were just heading out to the bars. So I went along :) I think it was about 12:30am when we were walking back into town and it still wasn't completely dark. Then, it got pretty dark for about an hour, and by 3:40am the sky looked like the following photo!

And John was also keen on taking pics of the dawn!