Blogs from Stockholm County, Sweden, Europe - page 66

I have been in Latvia for one full week, which was considerably longer than I had planned. But it has been great, and there are many places I didn’t get to that I had hoped to see. My bus arrived in Riga, the capital of Latvia, last Monday. The bus stop is right in the center of town, adjacent to the open-air market, a market much like any other massive and overwhelming market in Europe or elsewhere; I am told that the Riga market is the biggest one in Eastern Europe. I was loaded down with all of my bags—somehow I still had too much stuff even though I left much of my belongings in Kaunas. I was lost, both physically and mentally, for about thirty minutes while I wandered around the market looking for a ... read more

From Liepaja I took a bus to Talsi, a small town about midway between Liepaja and Riga. There I met up with Julija and Ingo, and stayed at Ingo and Jeva’s family’s country home (friends of Julija). Again, I failed to get pics that do this place justice. The story of this family’s country home is a story that is very similar to that of many Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian families. It is a home that was originally built by Jeva and Ingo’s great-grandparents around the turn of last century, that was then taken over by the Russians in the 1940’s. For about fifty years the house and the whole farm was lived in by a Russian family. Most Latvians in the region became part of communal farms that the Soviets installed throughout occupied territory—private property, ... read more

First, let me say that we made it from Louisville to Stockholm in one piece safely, but traveling, especially with airlines, is hardly ever a straight line. Our original plan called for us to fly from Louisville to Newark, layover for about an hour in Newark, then fly on to Sweden. Unfortunately our plans were doomed right from the start because the flight to Newark was delayed for almost precisely the amount of time we had for the layover, so we arrived in Newark about three minutes after our flight to Stockholm had taken off. We had found out, however, that there was another flight to Stockholm through Amsterdam that was going to leave about 6:40, approximately one hour from the time we had landed. Silly us, we thought we could actually make that flight. ... read more

Geo: 59.3328, 18.0645Jen, Anita and I caught the train into Stockholm. We changed lines so that we would be closer to Skansen. After a 10 minute we arrived at Skansen. Its an open air museum that represents architecture and the history of Sweden. We caught the cable car up the steep hill and headed to the zoo to see Scandinavian animals. We saw reindeer, elk, brown bears (that we being feed by people who throw food over the fence!), lynx, wolf, bison, wolverine and seals. It was then time to say goodbye to Jen, who had to catch the train back to camp to meet the others who were leaving our tour to join another one in Tallinn. She was catching the ferry from Stockholm to Tallinn. Anita and I then went to the aquarium, where ... read more

Geo: 59.3328, 18.0645Costa drove us into town this morning. The roads were very quiet, as it is a public holiday here, Midsummers Eve is tonight. It is the longest day of the year and it is a big celebration for the Swedes. We got dropped off at the Town Hall. Half of the group were going on a tour of the Town Hall for an hour, the rest of us had a brief guided tour of the city with Fred who has spent his childhood in Stockholm during summer. Stockholm is made up of many islands. We walked along the water and he pointed out places worth visiting. I then went to the Info Centre to get a decent map of the city. The ones Topdeck give us are crap and made to get us lost. ... read more