Day 157, 158 & 159
Stockholm was our first stopover in the great land of the European North known as Scandinavia. Whilst for us it was very much a wait around until we headed further north to Kiruna, we managed to pass the time with a lot of walking around and a whole bunch of shopping. Being there for only 2 nights our sightseeing consisted of solely walking around the old town and then walking around the new. Whilst we could of done more with out time there we were very much limited by the cold, the early sunset and the fact that everything was ridiculously expensive.

One of the funner parts of Stockholm actually didn't occur in the city itself but rather on the way there. A few days before we had realized that the cheapest albeit longest way to get to Sweden was by boat. This turned out to be probably one of the best journeys have made so far.

This boat was huge! And when I say huge I really mean huge. It was most definitely the biggest boat any of us had been on. The minute we saw it we knew we were going to have a fun 17 hour trip. Leaving at 5:30pm on Tuesday and arriving the next morning at 10:30am we had some decent time to kill. However that time flew by as there was so much to do on this gigantic boat. With a club, games room, three different restaurants, disco, duty free store and even a TV in a room we had some good fun. We found ourselves running out of time to do things rather than running out of things to do. We even managed to get a decent sleep in, something previously unheard of on any form of transport.

We did see some cool things whilst we were in town however the majority of our days consisted of us walking in and out of stores looking for souvenirs and clothes for our upcoming adventure. We found a massive outdoor ice rink in the middle of town, something we had been wanting to do ever since it got cold here. Yet, as always, it was still being made and wouldn't be opened until well after we had left. We explored the old town, walking through the markets, the castle and saw some of the changing of the guard. We also explored the new town finding streets filled with people both day and night. We discovered many cool shops around town including one that only sold trolls and another that sold only 'Cheap Monday' Jeans.

Our nightlife was pretty much non existent as not only was alcohol ridiculously expensive but club entrance age was between 21 and 25. Instead we just walked around the town and relaxed at the hostel with everyone else that had nothing to do. The one night we actually went to see a movie but then came straight home after.

As I write this it sounds like Stockholm was a very boring place and to tell you the truth it was. With dogsledding on the horizon we didn't really feel the need to do any serious exploring. To do most things cost a lot of money and after what we had spent lately we needed to cut back. So it was a very chilled couple of days, which none of us were really complaining about. I will have much more to say 5 days from now.

Speak to you all then.