Our last full day in Stockholm, today was a free day so we could go visit whatever we wanted to. Becky and I opted to check out several of the cathedrals and do some more touristy shopping.

We headed over to see Riddarholmskyrkan first, since we were intreigued by the cast-iron spire. We got to the church, only to discover that you had to pay to go inside, and decided just to sneak a picture from the door. Riddarholms is no longer an operating church, but rather the royal monument and tomb.

We then headed over to Gamla Stan to see Storkyrkan and the German Church. Storkyrkan has very many sculptures, and you almost can't take a step within the church without stepping on a grave-marker for someone entombed within the church itself. One of the more impressive sculptures is one of St. George and the Dragon, which is supposed to symbolize the struggle of good versus evil, which, apparently, at the time of its creation was respectively Sweden versus Denmark. While we were in the church, we heard a band outside, as well as a general ruckus, and upon investigation discovered the daily changing of the royal guard in the neighboring palace square. The guard paraded about, and the guard band performed as well, including a very well executed music-marching routine, which blew my mind, as a former college marching band member. The German Church was very pretty as well, and featured several coats of arms in various locations around the interior, as well as a plethora of paintings - virtually every wooden panel in the church was painted with saints, prophets, and scenes from the Bible.

We then did some tourist shopping as we worked our way back to the island our hotel is on. On the way back, we decided to visit one last church, S:t Joseph, the Lutheran church. S:t Joseph was probably the most ornamental out of all the churches that we saw, including a podium completely gilded in gold.

Becky and I finally found our way back to the hotel in time to go to dinner with our professor, Mark, and another classmate, Shawn, as well as Mark's cousin and her daughter, who ive in Stockholm. We went to a nice restaurant to sample a traditional Swedish meal. As an appetizer, we ended up sharing shrimp on toast with bleak roe (the roe was small enough that it had no real taste, and blended in to the flavor/texture of the shrimp).
Mark's cousin's daughter is about 5, and named 'Sara' as well. Shy at first, she warmed up to Shawn, and was eventually running wild by the time we parted ways after dinner.

The four of us from our group headed back to the hotel to get packed to leave for Kosta, Sweden in the morning.