day 2 - sweden

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July 26th 2009

Published: July 26th 2009

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JaneHayse

sweden

part of the LTPA group before dinner at the Sheraton Hotel

Today is Sunday and the only free day we have. I started the day on a boat sightseeing tour of Stockholm and its islands. Several people from our group went on the tour.

Stockholm is part of an archipeligo (sp?) of 100s of islands. It was founded in the 1200s. We learned about many of the islands. We saw many cruise ships. I found out that the Swedish language is Germanic in origin and very similar to Norwegian and Danish. However, Finnish is Hungarian in origin, so the Swedes cannot understand them at all.

The Swedish government has declared that they will not be in any more wars. They are peacekeeping only. Our tourguide is also in the National Guard. He told us about serving in Kosovo ten years ago and was threatened at gunpoint until they saw the Swedish flag symbol on his arm.

The guide also told us that when we was a kid (only about twenty years ago), he could ice skate in the harbor during the winter. Now, the harbor does not even freeze! Their winters have changed from dry cold to wet cold, more like Britian.

Our group meets again this evening

sweden

shopping district

for instructions on how to handle the meetings tomorrow with the Swedish government. Our leader has still not gotten his bags - he has been waiting for two days - and it has all of our administrative stuff in it. We may be on to the UK before he gets his suitcase. I feel fortunate that all I got was a broken handle.

Hope my photos post today. I will need to post photos a little later.

Additional photos below

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