Unfortunately, the amusement park of Stockholm opens in the earliest in may and most of the museums are closed on Mondays. Nevertheless we did not even missed the snow of Helsinki as it started snowing around midday in addition to the cold wind and temperature. The ones following the theme of the cruise “Pirates of the Caribbean”  might have a cold by now.

Stockholm was beautiful. The old architecture and the long streets of old buildings put their magic on me. Even so it is quite similar to Finnish buildings Stockholm is older and bigger than Helsinki. Most of the governmental buildings are concentrated in one area and completed by one of several palaces of the monarchies.

We walked around several islands over at least a dozen bridges, went to one H&M store checking out the prices (btw it is neither cheaper nor more expensive than Finland) and watching guards guarding an empty palace. Finally we had to head back to the harbour to get back to Helsinki and guess what – the weather go better every minute, it was so sad.

Back on the ship the evening program was about to start inclusively ESN Speed Dating.

But the attraction of the evening was not the parties, alcohol consumption or the entertainment show – it was a storm on the Baltic sea.
It started around 10 pm with slightly swinging.
I am a fan of rollercoasters, swingboat and amusement parks, I often spend 4 days in a row there.  Just for the records: I never puked there. But after one or two hours my head started hurting and my stomach clinched. I even took the sea-sick medicine which they handed out at the information desk.

Maybe it was the location of my cabin under the water line on the lowest possible level but hearing engines working and swinging for hours is not the best environment to take a nap or get a decent night of sleep.

My inner ear still is balancing the not existing swings but after all we are all back in Helsinki 35 minutes later than expected.

We did it. The trip is over but we survived alcohol and storm, snow and wind and approximately 600 students on one big ship.

Related articles

• Stockholm Calling! (metropoliablog.fi)