The Daily Ju with an entry entitled "It's Raining Men"

First off, i LOVE stockholm...but we'll get to that. We got up early on Monday morning on the first train out of sundsvall to make it to stockholm (a quick 3 hour trip, no big deal)...we met our two friends Lauren and Casey in the train station and all of us took a cab over to our hotel called the Park Scandic. We stopped in front of this shady building with PARK in bright pink flourescent letters, and i'm trying to match the hotel to the picture we got online, and i was getting nervous - but the cab driver started laughing and going "No No don't worry, this is the Park theatre, you are around the corner" and minutes later we showed up at a wonderful hotel...a room with 4 beds and a nice little washroom. rach and i had piled up on Dansk vodka at the duty free to save money on booze (sweden = expensive) and to save even more money we tried to mix it with water (we call it Vod Wads) i still don't really get our logid on this trip about saving money, because we save on things like not renting blankets and not buying a 3 dollar drink to mix, but the next day we splurge on things like 10 euros for a pair of Holland underwear or a nice pair of shoes i just bought today that is PERFECT for work (i had to justify the purchase somehow, but rachel was behind me the whole time saying "oh yeah, what job do you have? but i'll look like a superstar in january at my new job, whatever it may be!)

soooooo we all get ready to go out, ready to go in to any bar on a monday night. dad's swedish hockey scout told us to try the Cafe Opera, but it was closed (we're going there tonht!) so we found the next closest bar - Victoria's. it had a nice crowd, looked friendly, so we go in!! mix and casey are fired up over the swedish men, and we're looking to make friends. we even sat at some nice tables outside wthat had heaters, and i'm looking through the window, and i notice something peculiar...i say to rach and lauren "hey, remember that guy you that was cute? i think he's gay..." and they say "whatttt? how???" and i go "oh because i just saw him kiss his boyfriend"...

then next up, there's this mini act on stage, two girls in gold shimmery dresses and one guy that lauren goes "i think he looks drunk....or gay..." and then we think back, 5 minutes ago, to when lauren walked in and some russian guy says to her "there are lots of beautiful swedish girls here eh?" and he meets me and rach and i say "oh we're sisters!" and he goes "oh, i'm soooo sorry, i didn't know, i'm sorry"...and then it CLICKED ---- WE WERE AT A GAY AND LESBIAN BAR! all of a sudden gayness was coming out of the woodwork - men skinner than me with suspenders were dancing feminine on the dance floor, one of the gay men grabs the microphone for a quick little number on stage, i turn around and there's men kissing on couches...but it was too late, we were already having a good time, the beer was cheap, and the act was very entertaining. i could have done without the male make out session to my left when i was leaving the bar, but we did meet a nice straight swedish girl who told us that 80% of the bar was gay and the other 20% was us.

it was a good night but i made the girls promise no more gay bars for the week. we met dad's swedish scout håkan andersson today to talk about the city, what we wanted to go, and we have good plans for the week! hockey game thursday, bar night friday...so stockholm is amazing and should continue to be so.

love you all

ju