stockholm

i know this sounds like a total contradiction, but at this point this cruise had really exhausted me. admittedly i'm not well versed in the world of cruises, but from what i understand the general idea of a cruise is to excessive eating and moving from beach to beach for a nap each day in a different country. not quite the theme on this cruise. it also didn't help that despite the plethora of purell being handed out by the staff, many of the passengers had fallen ill, including me.

despite a slight case of the sniffles and a serious lack of sleep, the next day my family and i basically slept walked our way off the ship and into the town of stockholm.

the weather was gorgeous so we decided to buy tickets for the hop on hop off boat. normally i actually sort of hate that hop on hop off nonsense(with the exception of the time my friend alex and i took one in madrid and brought a bottle of dewars with us...) but we decided to be easy on ourselves and take the lazy tourist route.

casually waiting for our hop on hop off boat.

lazy view of the amusement park from our boat.

we got off the boat in old town, and decided to have a stroll through the shops. you'll be surprised to know that not only was i able to resist the urge to buy these adorable striped ballet flats i found, but i was also able to resist all the delicious foods they were toting at lunch and had a salad. a salad that had freshly caught shrimp, crab, salmon, and amazing summer fruits that puts in it the running for one of the best healthy meals i've ever had, but still proud that i passed on some more delicious but less healthy options.

old town.

the dala horse. and, if your vision is amazing, the story behind it.

just trying to blend in.

of course this choice was cancelled out later when my mom and i bought ice creams to eat by the canal. again, there were several delicious choices available, but we chose what looked to be the safest option - a basket shaped cone with vanilla ice cream and a chocolate shell. little did we know there was a sneaky little bit if strawberry jam in the center. yum!

eating my ice cream. and not even remotely posing for this picture.

beautiful cakes i passed up in lieu of the ice cream. hopefully, worth it.

another plus about stockholm - there were attractive men ev-er-y-where. i was aware that this was somewhat of a stereotype for sweden, but as i'm not partial to the whole blond hair blue eyed ken doll thing, i didn't expect to be blown away. i wasn't stealth enough to get any sneaky photos of said gentlemen, but take my word for it. there's a good gene pool going on up there.

in the short time i was there, i could tell stockholm is an amazing city that i would love the opportunity to visit again and spend more time in. and find a husband.