June 28th, 2024. Stockholm.

Day 9: Stockholm

Up at 5am for a Ryanair flight out of Charleroi, south of Brussels…sort of a stressful drop off, the biggest crowds I’ve seen in an airport (or maybe just crammed into a smaller space), and tricky navigation, but we got there. They make you queue wayyy too early before the plane is even ready.

We hung out at the Stockholm airport (a good bit north of the city) for a couple of hours until our friends Ana and Alex could pick us up. They generously drove up about 5 hrs from their home in southern Sweden, but with the plan for a road trip through the Dalarna region next week, further north and west.

We’re staying at a hostel that used to be a prison, and it’s quite a trip. The rooms are literally the old cells with bunk beds. Tricky for two people to stand and move around at the same time, but we’re up for the challenge! We walked a bit around Gamla Stan and other parts of downtown, ate a huge Middle Eastern dinner, got fancy cocktails at a super hipster secret speakeasy, got caught in the rain, and squeezed onto an insanely crowded bus with the moist humanity of Stockholm!

My first impression is that Stockholm is more laid back than Brussels – things seem to move at an easier pace, and people actually WAIT for others to exit the train before boarding!