Baltic Adventure - Day 5

The Stillwells in Stockholm, Sweden

Saturday, June 26: Stockholm, Sweden

I was looking forward to our visit to Stockholm -- not only because I've been a lifelong ABBA fan -- but because I work on The Dead Zone television series, which is based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. This may seem odd, but it's true.

During The Dead Zone's first three seasons, we've received an incredible amount of support from the fans -- both Stephen King and Star Trek fans -- and fan websites from around the world. One such website -- which has been particularly loyal and supportive in promoting the show -- is Lilja's Library: The World of Stephen King. The website is an incredible resource for anything and everything related to Stephen King, including The Dead Zone. The webmaster is Hans-Åke Lilja, who lives in Orebro, Sweden. He and I have been exchanging emails for the past three years, and when he learned we were coming to Stockholm on our cruise, he agreed to travel there himself to meet us. Orebro is more than 100 miles west of Stockholm.

We made all of our arrangements via email as to when and where we would meet. Because it was a major national holiday weekend in Sweden (Midsummer), many of the regular trains and buses would not be running regular schedules. Many shops and stores would be closed. Still, he would find his way to Stockholm and we would meet him at the main train station.

After we had breakfast on the Westerdam, Mom, Dad, Deb and I decided we would grab a taxi at the peir to take us to the main train station in downtown Stockholm. We could have taken the bus transfers arranged by Holland America, but with more than two people in a taxi, it was cheaper (and faster) to take a cab round-trip than pay for the bus transfers. Truth be told, you could probably walk into the city from where our ship was berthed.

We got to the train station early, so we took advantage of the down time to buy postcards for friends and family back home. We'd already purchased our Swedish postage stamps when we were with Johan in Lund earlier in the week, so we were ready to roll. When Hans arrived, we introduced ourselves and set off by foot to Gamla Stan (the old town area). Along the way, we passed through the more modern city center, and followed the pedestrian-only street, which seems to be a staple of Scandanavian cities. This led us directly to the bridge connecting to Gamla Stan, which is a small island. Stockholm itself is situated on a number of different islands within the Stockholm Skärgård -- or archepeligo -- which is composed of 30,000 islands.

We toured several sections of the Royal Palace, including a museum in the underground portion of the palace where we watched a brief film on the history of the castle, including the story of the catastrophic fire of 1697 which destroyed the original structure. The new palace (which is still more than 200 years old) is the official residence of Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and family.

We had time to grab lunch at a local eatery before returning to the Palace for the changing of the guard. Afterwards, we found time for souvenir shopping at the Palace gift shop, and at several antique and souvenir shops along the cobblestone streets of Gamla Stan. During this time, we enjoyed our opportunity to visit with Hans and ask him lots of questions. He told us a story about his stint in the Swedish military. He told us he'd been assigned guard duty at the Royal Palace on one occassion and had been given strick orders not to allow anybody through the castle gates. When a car approached, he quite nearly denied admission to the King himself! It was fun to spend the day with somebody "local" to get an insider's perspective on things. As it turns out, most people around the world are just like the rest of us. The names, places and languages change, but day-to-day life is pretty typical everywhere you go. And there's a certain assurance in it, that someday, perhaps, the whole world can live in peace.

Next we headed down to the harbor area where we could see the Westerdam in the distance. We stopped at a local Pub for a couple rounds of drinks, then it was time to say "goodbye" to our new friend Hans and return to the ship. The visit seemed extraordinarily brief, and I felt terribly guilty since he had come so far from home to meet with us -- and spend part of the holiday weekend away from his family. There was also so much more I would have loved to have seen in Stockholm, including a visit to the Viking ship museum. But I guess that will have to wait until next time! As it turns out, we'll be joining our Cruise Trek friends for another Baltic cruise in 2005. So look out, Hans! We'll be back on July 7th next year!