We went from the hostel to our new hostel up by the train station. It's a lot closer to everything, and a pretty cool place still.
We decided to go to the Royal Palace first, since it was close by. Outside they were doing the changing of the guards. It was the absolute worst changing of the guards I've ever seen. The soldiers were all about 18 and were incredibly disorganized and frigidity. We just laughed at them for about 15 minutes while they did about nothing. Really dumb.
We then toured the Royal Palace apartments, which were very fancy. After having been in some palaces before, the thrill sort of wore off, but these were incredibly gaudy.
We grabbed a rhubarb candy rope type thing off the street, which was tremendous.
After that we walked down to see the Vasa museum, which is very interesting. It was a huge warship that sunk in the late 1600s on its maiden voyage in heavily salted water, so the timber managed to be preserved incredibly well. They ship was discovered in the 1950s and raised. They put it all back together so that it is 95% complete now, including the ornate carvings and all. It was among the most unique museums I've ever been to. The strangest thing was that their signs translated to English seemed to be written in poetry.
We left and walked by where Dylan was going to play. They had a bunch of people outside for what seemed like some sort of lottery or something, they were calling off hilarious Swedish names and giving them numbers. No idea what that was all about.
Amy wanted to go souvenir hunting so we went into a couple stores and I bought a little dorma horse for the Christmas tree, it's pretty interesting, they're a huge deal here for some reason.
We then decided to go get some more candy from the awesome candy place we were at the day before, and then went off to find dinner.
We were close to the hostel so we dropped out bags off and decided to ask the reception for suggestions. We wanted Swedish food. They said there was a place two 'parallel streets' over and after struggling for about 20 minutes going in various wrong directions found it.
It was a fancy place, one where a guy takes your jacket when you go in. Amy had moose and I had gnocchi. It was good, and completely different than any sort of gnocchi I'd ever had before. It was sort of expensive, but not terribly bad.
After we went to 7-11 (they're all over here, the only European city that I've ever seen one in) and bought some more random Swedish goodies. I wanted to go try to see Bob Dylan leave so we went back down to the venue. It had been snowing since about the minute we left the Vasa, so the cars were covered in snow. I hadn't experienced snow since I'd been in Europe, it was kind of excited for a moment.
It was about 9:30 when we got to the Dylan place, and surprisingly his bus was still there. We waited around by it, and I started to get incredibly nervous, like shaking. No one else was around, he was going to have to see us. Finally a tour guy made us move across the narrow street, and Dylan came out. I asked for a quick picture but I didn't say it that loudly and he just went right into his waiting Chevy But it was the closest I'd ever been to him in my life. And Amy and I were the only other people there, so it was kind of a cool moment. I managed a not that great photo.
We then walked back to the hostel and there were three Israelis going to the Dylan show staying in our room, and a goofy German. They were all very nice. I'm excited to see Dylan in concert tomorrow. Amy has to leave at 5, so it'll be another sort of strange sleeping night. But tomorrow should be good.
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