Hello Everyone! Me again! I seem to be addicted to checking the internet whenever I see the opportunity as I´m not sure how available it will be in Russia or Mongolia. I´m currently on the computer in the hostel in Stockholm. We are staying on a boat!!! On the river, its amazing! Such a novelty! Well I will now try to update you since the last blog about Gothenburg.

We all agreed that Gothenburg was a bit of a nothing city. Really beautiful and full of character (as all of Scandinavia seem so far) but lots of nothing to do really. We got the train from Gothenburg to Stockholm yesterday and it was the first time we had been on a Swedish Train. Has to be said the Norwegian service is far superier! But we still had reclining chairs!!! Just a bit more shabby. As per usual I slept most of the distance!!! I must say im a little bit disappointed that I haven´t seen an Ikea in its natural habitat!!!!! Everywhere we go tho I point out what furnture is Ikea!!!! In our hostel rooms we have Ikea bunkbeds. Well the hostel is actually really close to the centre, only one tube stop away from the central station so was really easy to get to off the train last night. We have the Stockholm card which means all public transport is free so made used of that. When we got to the hostel we met a v v v strange guy from Finland who I thought was actually capable of murder (prob v drastic thought) but he was freaky! sam being sam (and polite) let him text on his phone so he clung for a while before we realised how odd he was! After heading into the centre for some dinner we came back and had some beers on the deck with another Canadian guy from our room called Ian. He has been travelling around Europe since July and so far likes Scotland the best!?!?!?! He was a laugh but left this morning before we got up.

Today we have been quite productive, Mum emailed me yesterday morning with a list of recommendations of stuff to do, and we have managed quite a lot! First we went to the Old Town, Gamla Stan, and had a hot chocolate in a 16th century cafe in the main square. That was amazing as the drinks came in bowls (huge!!) and i ordered a cinnamon swirl which was literally the size of me face! When I upload some pics (prob not today now) you will be able to see. After that we wondered past the palace and made our way to the Tourist Information, picked up some info on cafes etc then went to the Architecture and Modern Museum on another island - Skeppsholmen. I was on cloud 9 as basically the temporary museum (which is actually the majority of the museum) was on Barcelona - mainly Gaudi and Cerda.....so I resorted to geek mode!!!!! By the time we went over the Modern Museum we were all a bit shattered and not as impressed!!! So we got the ferry over to the Vasa Museum which is basically a ship that capsized soon after leaving Stockholm and then was brought up in the 1950s. Really good condition and in one piece compared to the Mary Rose! Still, once you have seen one ship, you have seen them all, so I looked round very briefly compared to sam and karl! When we finished we got the bus back to the Central Station to make ourselves back to the hostel, and we decided that basically we have been living in too much luxury considering the prices in scandinavia - eating out every meal!!! so we went to the 7-eleven (co-op style shop) and stocked up on bread, ham, cheese, crisps, jam etc to make ourselves breakfast and lunch for the next couple of days to cut down on costs as basically we have been spending over 50 pounds a day!!!! Thats stopping now!!!! At the moment we are in the main ship (there are 2) having just eaten, playing cards etc! Have to go as my time is running out, but I will update again in Finland now. We have another day in Stockholm tomorrow (Fri) and saturday before getting a ferry to helsinki saturday evening. We plan to go to the Gunnar Asplund library and viewing tower tomorrow.

Hope you are all well.....keep the emails/facebook messages coming.....I like to hear from you all. Missing everyone loads xxxxxxxxxxxxx