As mentioned in pervious posts, I’ve been most intrigued by how progressive Stockholm is with its low-impact transportation. People of all ages are riding bikes, scooters and Segway’s in dedicated lanes clearly marked just for them. Of course we were on one of many islands and walked everywhere or took a ferry to adjoining islands where there were relatively few cars.

Stockholm is quiet, clean and beautiful. The Swedes aren’t particularly outgoing, but I wouldn’t say unfriendly, they seem to be just moving through life doing their jobs seemingly happy enough. I know that in the past decades they have graciously invited in immigrants from all over the world and that was somewhat evident, but society is still dominated by light-skinned blonds with blue eyes!

We did enjoy the Nobel Museum, learning about it’s history and founder Alfred Nobel, and his inspiration for creating the Nobel prizes was actually quite noble. As the inventor of dynamite he made large sums of money and was very impressed by people who were also inventors and innovators. He also greatly admired people around the world who sacrificed their personal well being to insure peace, equality and democracy for their countrymen and women. It’s amazing that Nobel’s legacy has been able to sustain these annual awards for over 120 years. Each laureate chosen is awarded approximately one million dollars.

Just a few casualties today— I forgot my hat (that was supposed to last me for the whole trip) at the hotel. Then, going through TSA they found a small scissors that has been through security more times than I can count and confiscated it. Bummer, I used that scissors a lot.

Next up . . . Bergen, Norway and the infamous Fjords! Stay tuned!