Sorry there wasn’t a post last night, everyone. Completely slipped my mind.

Yesterday we had a relaxing, but fun day. We slept in, then went into town looking for the street festival. On the way, we took a wrong turn and ended up in a swedish flea market. There were a lot of random little things that none of us had ever seen before. The item that stuck out most in my mind was a bunch of copper kettles no bigger than a salt shaker. They had little tiny legs! They couldn’t of held more than a couple ounces of water. What in the world would you use one for? There was also a lot of old pottery and dishes, shoes, handmade clothes, and children’s toys.
The street festival was less exciting. A couple tents, a popcorn truck, and a little voodoo tent thing. There was a magician performing in the middle of the square, but everything was in Swedish (gasp, in Sweden? Nooooo…) and was only doing card tricks.
So we ditched that and wandered up the street to an old church.


Well, I say old but it was from the 1500’s, so it was probably the newest church we’ve been in the whole trip. After getting a picture of city hall-

We meandered back home via the souvenir shops and amazing street performers on Drottninggaten street. If you’re ever in Stockholm on a Saturday, walk it. Serious fun. Musicians, puppeteers, and break dancers galore.

But that was pretty much the end of our day. We lazed around the apartment and got packed up to go.

Which brings me to today. We left Stockholm bright and early and got a rental car from the airport. Then we drove the five hours out to Lindvallen ski resort (technically in the town of Sälen) It’s so quiet and peaceful up here. Well, apart from the poor dog locked in the room underneath us. This is the pretty view off our balcony though-

And the ride up here was gorgeous as well. Again, it reminded me a lot of rural Washington, except with more little lakes and lupin covering the sides of the roads. There isn’t much in the way of mountains though- I think we’re too far south for that. The ski resort itself is built onto a hill no higher than Mt Scott (1000 feet, for those who don’t live in our area). But getting away from the city is already great. Also, as we’ve moved father north again, theoretical nighttime only lasts for five hours. I say theoretical because even in Stockholm, the sky was never black. Only a darker blue.

We’ll be here for a full week, taking a vacation within our vacation. There’s bike trails, beautiful walks to take, and plenty of relaxing to be had. After that, we fly to London for two weeks intense weeks of museums, tours, and exploring. The boys go off to Venice for a couple days (Michael’s pre-high school present), leaving us girls to go to the Downtown Abby castle whose real name I can never remember. We’re nearly to the last leg of our trip.

I feel the need for a nap after a long day of nothing, but here’s another view from our balcony.

You just can’t escape them.