Another Country, Another Kroner

We opted for a slow start to the day, possibly because the room was so cute and the staff so friendly.  Again, I loaded up on the free breakfast, and while getting general information from the front desk we learned that the hotel had previously been a rehab clinic.Possibly the closest I’ll come to partying like a rock star, but I’ll take it.  Walking towards the palace, we kept getting distracted by all the interesting shops that were closed the night before--my favorite was the thrift shop.  Apparently we were in the hipster district of town, and by the time we arrived at the palace the changing of the guards was already underway.  I was getting to be an expert on this, or so I thought, but the Swedes decided to take it one step further.  Like London, they had a band playing during all the marching around and there was a much larger group of soldiers than we’d seen in Copenhagen.  But towards the end they made an announcement.  I knew just enough German, which is remotely similar to Swedish, to catch that it was the Royal Naval Band and that they were going to favor us with a disco medley.  I thought I’d heard that last bit wrong, until they started playing a lovely orchestral version of“The Winner Takes It All” (ABBA does it again) and a few other tunes I recognized, all while the soldiers were still marching through their paces.  Quite an enjoyable show!

Marching in time to ABBA

The Royal Palace

We then bought our tickets and took a guided tour of their crown jewels. Not as funny as the security guard in Copenhagen, but a lot more informative all around.  Like Denmark, their king isn’t coronated anymore so he doesn’t wear the royal robes, etc. but will stand next to them as a sign of his authority.  They also have royal orders(theirs is Royal Order of the Seraphim) and their crown princess is also married to a commoner—her personal trainer, in fact.  It ended just in time for a tour of the royal apartments, which were just as opulent as you'd expect.  Our guide loved talking about interior design and architecture, which was great, but I was hoping for more stories of their history.  It also went a bit longer than expected, so we were a bit "toured out" by the end.


After a little outdoors time enjoying the waterfront, we topped off the afternoon by visiting their national museum of art and design.  It was amusing to see Ikea furniture in a museum, but interesting to see other Swedish design styles through the ages.  Thanks to a good friend I was familiar with the work of Carl Larsson and enjoyed seeing his paintings and watercolors in person, and the Anders Zorn painting of a traditional Midsummer party got me excited for the days ahead.  Being the nerd that I am, though, the most interesting exhibit was about...how to exhibit art.  Specifically, they're looking at how their lighting affects our experience with the art since the only options when some of these pieces were created were sunlight or candlelight.  They had a few areas where you could flip switches to see a piece under current or proposed lighting schemes, and I realized that my opinion of a piece could be influenced by this totally external factor.

Speaking of light, as we left the museum at closing the sun was still high enough for us to take a canal cruise.  The late afternoon/early sunset light made everything look even more lovely, and I enjoyed switching between the German and English recordings to learn more about the city as we floated by business districts, a huge park with wetlands, vacation homes of the wealthy (including either Benny's or Bjorn's), an amusement park, the harbor, etc..

A vacation home in the heart of Stockholm

The oldest part of town, not far from the palace.

Finally, we took our leave of the downtown and grabbed our bags for a short hike to the train station.  We ate dinner on the train (again) and before you knew it we'd arrived in Västerhaninge, where the Stockholm temple is located, for the conference.  You could see the temple's spires and Moroni peeking above the trees, and it guided us from the train station to the hostel where we'd be staying.  It seemed so fitting that a temple would help orient and guide us, and even by this late hour the sky was only dusky shades of pink and blue.  We checked in and were so thoroughly exhausted (and in my case a little nervous and shy) that we pretty much went straight to our rooms and called it a night.