Cruise Holidays in Stockholm

Moi! :D

I am so happy! This week I travelled to Stockholm - by ship! ;3
Let me introduce to you:

MS GABRIELLA

Though it's not that far away from Helsinki, it was still about 16 hours afloat, but that wasn't a nuisance at all, since the cruise was pretty awesome iself and there was a lot to do: "Viking Line" offered everything from shopping mall to spa area - including sauna of course! You could relax in the lounges or have fun in the Youth room, playing Wii or surfing the internet. If you're hungry, there were restaurants and snack bars. As for the night, it was a choice between pub, casino or nightclub (shows and karaoke as well!).

Sunrises and sunsets were always most beautiful on the outside corridors and on the sun deck - especially since the weather was so nice these days! Hardly any clouds, pure sunshine and a lot of little islands to pass by in the icy waters of the northern sea. <3

The only thing that was missing was Isa, my friend from Costa Rica that was supposed to come with me :/ I was sure everything would be fine until they told us at the Check-In, that she, 18 years old, is actually too young to go on the boat. Due to some special students' holiday's offer, they set the age limit for this certain cruise to 21. I'm only one year older than her, 19, yet they considered that it might just be okay to let me on the boat. Isa, however would be too young. I feel like this was a big exaggeration since there were also a lot of small children with their parents, plus I met some 18 year old guys on the boat as well. What difference did it make if an 18-year old has a 21-year old companion with him or not? The result of consuming alcohol to the limit is the same.


At any rate I had an awesome time! And from the moment we arrived at the port in Sweden's capital at 10:00, I didn't have time to rest - after all, it wasn't even a whole day that I could spend there since we were leaving again at 16:30! :O

So I rushed to one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited - "Gamla Stan" - the historical old town of Stockholm, housing some amazing churches, the Royal Palace, tight strees, old houses, countless souvenir shops and a lot of places selling antique/viking stuff *-*
Gamla Stan is actually an own little island - as a couple of Stockholm's other districts.

Then I travelled northwards to see a little bit of "Norrmalm". I went a little shopping there before returning.

There were 2 main differences to Finland that I didn't expect:
- The time difference of 1 hour! It's actually the same time that we have in Austria.
- The sun was out and it was actually warm! So warm that I felt like putting of my jacket and that snow was melting away to reveal small places of meadows.

As for souvenirs:

I found the necklace in one of the viking shops and the little bag is where I'm going to deposit the Swedish "Kronor" that I still have, since I'm planning to return to Sweden this summer.

Another interesting surprise was the backside of the money, by the way:

...anyone recognize this? ;P (treasures of my childhood!)

Travelling back to Helsinki once more gave me a chance to  catch the last glimpse of sunlight above Stockholm and the Baltic Sea...