Day 7 (Posted a day late): Last day in Stockholm

Sitting in Stockholm Skvaska Airport, past check-in and security, in the one café area of the airport. No wifi here, so I will post this when in London. One little anectdote about this airport- I can seek at least 10 people near to hwere I’m sitting having beer or wine. It’s 8:15am.
So after spending two full days in Stockholm, I was already set to head on to London. While I really enjoyed the museums, the attractions, the café culture and all the Swedes that surrounded me (and being spoken to in Swedish and being mistaken for a real Swede all the time), it was a little lonely being a tourist by myself for two days. I had planned to meet my cousin Martin at 2:30 for coffee. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as I had hardly heard of the man before this trip, however, I was looking forward to doing something other than sightseeing by myself.
I spent the early part of the day at Skansen, an open-air museum with old houses from all over Sweden, brought to Stockholm. Also, it includes a mini-zoo of Scandinavian animals, like bears, seals, wild boar, etc. Also, as I was entering the museum, this random girl approaches me and starts asking me questions in mediocre English, thinking that I’m Swedish. We ended up seeing the museum together and chatting for an hour plus. The best was when, after telling her that I’m from New York and American, she asks how do you ask “what’s your name in Swedish”. My heritage, yet lack of actually being Swedish really confuses people in this country. Every person at stores or cafes always speaks to me in Swedish, and when I get to the point of the conversation where I cannot continue without blowing my cover (usually when they say the price) they always jump a little bit, like I duped them a bit. Hilarious.
My second event of the day was visiting the Royal Palace, specifically the Royal Treasury where they keep the Royal sparkalies, such as the crowns, scepters, orbs, and baptismal pools. Ver interesting and a little bizarre. Definetly a very foreign thing for an American.
At 2:30, I met up with Martin by the train station, and we walked to go meet his wife. Both work for a major TV station in Stockholm. When we finally met up with Anna, we sat down at a café, but coffee quickly became a pint, as Martin was finished with work for the day and it was a nce day outside. We sat for maybe an hour, when Martin asked what my plans were for the rest of the day, and that I should come over for dinner. I ended up going with Martin to pick up his adorable 7 year old daughter from kindergarten, and going grocery shopping with him before we finally went back to the family apartment. They have a beautiful apartment overlooking Lake Malern. I ended up spending the rest of the evening at their appartement, chatting with Martin about all sorts of things (like his tattoo of the family crest on his arm!), splitting a bottle of Austrian wine (definitely not my plan at the beginning of the evening as I had to get up at 5AM this morning to catch a bus to the airport), and watching the Swedish hockey championship. He also made a very good mushroom risotto, and after not having very much Italian food at all in several months was a delicious meal. Anna resturned later because she had a meeting, so I stayed a little later than her return, but I left their house at around 10:30 PM, very happy to have spent the eveing with them and getting to meet another part of my father’s side of the family.
My grandfather was one of six children, and he was the only one to move to the US. The rest all stayed in Denmark or Sweden, so there are still plenty of other family memebers to meet when I return to Scandinavia. However, this was definetly one of the best and most interesting trps I’ve ever done. Meeting or getting reaquanited with family is so much fun!
On to London and part 2 of spring break. London-Dublin-Nice in the next week plus.