Magical Train, or Day 11 in Stockholm, Olso, and eventually Bergen

I was able to post this thanks to magical train Internet.

We checked out of the boat hotel this morning. (Rygerfjord, for those that might be thinking, hey, I'll be in Stockholm, what's that boat hotel Corinne stayed at?) We walked our stuff up and down a few sets of stairs and over a few bridges to central station. (Yay for packing light!) Thankfully, not rush hour, so we could move and not be swept up by the human riptide.

We deposited our suitcases and headed to the Riddarholmkirkan (church of the city hall island, I think). The kings and queens and royal families had been buried here from the 1600s to 1950. (Now I think they have some more picturesque spot out in the countryside.) It was our first church in Stockholm (that wasn't attached to a palace), and we were commenting that it isn't nearly as ornate as the Catholic ones other places in Europe. Also, graves everywhere.

We next wandered by the Slottsholmen (Royal Palace) and saw the changing of the guard. Blue uniforms with shiny silver helmets marched around, sometimes leading horses, sometimes riding them, sometimes playing an instrument, sometimes actually relieving another guard.

Next to the palace was the coin musuem (technically the museum of the economy, but most of it was coins). We saw the biggest coin in the world (a plate of copper), a Nobel medal (actually, quite a few), and a lot of text in Swedish. It is good it was free on Mondays!

We wandered for the last time around Gamla Stan. There was an incident involving not enough cash (which was solved by finding a coin on the ground), and some grocery buying for the train trip, but mostly I was enjoying walking around in the nearly 70-degree weather with my jacket off (though I wasn't nearly warm enough for the shorts and strapless tops I saw some wearing.)

Our first train was mediocre at best. It was an older car, with more people, including one very shrieky three-year-old (and his sometimes waily little sister). There was a drug-sniffing dog at the border, but other than that, it was just six hours of sitting and wasting time.

We made use of our slight layover at Olso to figure out how we are going to our respective airports on Sunday. Alisa has a train to get to Guardemon (or whatever hers is called) and I have a 6:30am bus to get to my 9:55 flight to Edinburgh.

Now, just time to rest easy in our luxurious seats (we were too cheap to spring for the bed compartments) and be in Bergen in the morning!