Stockholm Whirlwind

Or how to do Stockholm in three and a half days with 13 people....

Saturday - August 2, 2014

• Airport and Arlanda Express pickups at noon
• Lunch at home
• Watch Pride parade for an hour or so (one kid naps at home) - parade goes on for about five hours!
  
  
  
  

• Ice cream in Ostermalmstorg

yes, Sofia has (temporary) red hair

• Quick walk and happy hour at Strandbryggan with Lynda and Jen

this became Lynda's favorite place... she could be found here once a day

the view from Strandbryggan

• Dinner at home

business as usual, feeding the herd... we look very old-school in this photo with Gordon and John at the heads of the table... hope they didn't get too attached to that idea!

Sunday - August 3

• John, Lynda, Jen, O'Jer, Dan, Nancy have lunch at Flickorna

• Meet Gordon with six kids (Gabby, Ben, Audra, Ella, Zeke and Sofia) at the Abba Museum boat tour.  The boat tour travels around the island of Djurgarden telling the story of Abba in their heyday.  The boat tour was underwhelming but the adults who went on said the museum was great and the kids would have liked that more.

lovely views of Strandvagen from the boat tour

• After the boat tour John, Lynda, Jen, O'Jer, Dan and Gordon go on to the Abba Museum

  

  though the kids didn't go in the museum I got them to pose for this

• Nancy and six kids get ice cream, walk to SIS to show Ben, Ella and Zeke the girls' school
• Gabby and Ben go see 'Fault in Our Stars' and have dinner

  

  Gabby and Ben kill time waiting for the movie to start by taking these photos...

  

  they finally realized they were in the wrong theater, when they found the correct one the only two seats left were theirs (you reserve your seats when buying movie tickets in Sweden)
• Nancy, Audra, Ella, Zeke and Sofia walk through Tunnelgatan to get home

Tunnelgatan - nice and cool with great acoustics!

• John, Gordon and Jen go to the Skepparholmen Art and Music Festival for the rest of the day (Neil Young headlined)
• Lynda, Dan, O'Jer and Nancy sit around the kitchen eating crayfish (not Nancy) and decide to learn how to sing the Swedish drinking song Helan Går while drinking Aquavit 

 

Monday - August 4

• Dan and Nancy make a crazy 10 hour round trip drive to Älmhult to visit the home of Ikea (more on that later)
• Gordon, John and Lynda take six kids to Grona Lund for the day

John, Ben, Gab and Gordon - Free Fall ride

 

• O'Jer and Jen spend an enriching day visiting Langholmen and the Nobel Museum 

Tuesday - August 5

• O'Jer makes Zeke's dream come true and takes him to the Army Museum one block away while the other 11 people in the house try to get their act together
• O'Jer, Jen, John, Lynda, Ben, Ella and Zeke all visit the Vasa Museum

  

  lunch at Stranbryggan after the Vasa

• O'Jer and Jen squeeze in a visit to the Spritmuseum (Spirit Museum)
• Nancy and Gabby take Dan to the world's largest (and round) Ikea at Kungens Kurva
  
• 16:00 at the public dock on Strandvagen, Gordon picks up Lynda, John, the six kids and literally a boat load of supplies
• 17:00 O'Jer, Dan, Jen and Nancy hop on the ferry (Cinderella I) to Finnhamn
  
  
  
  

Even though we had just spent two full weeks, 24/7 with the Damariaons we were so excited to have them, O'Jer, Dan and Jen visit five days after we returned from the USA.  We wished we had more time to show them Stockholm and are hoping they will return!