Awesome Shepards Pie

Just made a special shepards pie, it was quite good so here is the recipe:

1 lb potatos (Optionally you can peel the potatoes but I think the skin is good)
1/2 lb ground beef
1 can kidney beans (drained)
1 can corn (drained)
salt
~7 tbsp butter
~ 1/3 cup milk
1 small red bell pepper
4 cloves garlic
1 yellow onion
cumin
chili powder
oil (vegetable or olive)
6 strips of bacon
tin foil

So this shepards pie has a lot of set up but then it all comes together really fast. To speed up set up you should do all the "Set Up" steps below simultaneously but I will describe them one by one. Preheat oven to 200 C ( 400F).

Garlic Mashed Potatos
Set a small pot of water to boil with salt. Peel garlic and cut in half the long way. Make a little flat box out of tin foil and put the garlic in one layer then add some oil so they are completely coated. Place in the toaster for about 15-20 minutes or whenever garlic becomes soft. Wash potatoes and cut off bad parts. Cut into rough pieces. (to speed up cooking time put in microwave for 6-7 minutes) put potatoes in boiling water. When they are soft drain then add milk, butter, and salt. Take the roasted garlic from the tin foil and cut into small pieces then add to potatoes and mash til smooth. If needed add extra milk salt and butter until they taste good.

Meat Mixture
Cut onion into rings and then quarter the rings. Put in frying pan with 2-3 tbsp butter and cook on medium heat. When onions start to turn translucent add the ground beef. Once the beef starts to brown add cumin, chili powder and salt as much as you like of each. Cook until beef is browned then remove and put on cutting board. Further dice the onion and meet mixture until they are in small bits.

Bacon Mixture
On medium low heat cook some bacon strips. Cut up red pepper then dice until small pea size cubes. Cook bacon until starts to brown (not yet crispy). Remove bacon and dice until it is also in very small pieces. Pour some of the bacon grease into the baking pan that you are going to cook the pie in. Use a tissue to grease the pan with the bacon grease. Mix the bacon and red pepper.

Assembly:
Take 2/5 the mashed potatoes and make a potato layer on the bottom using a spoon to smooth out the potatoes. Then add the layer of the meat and onions. Followed by the corn and then the beans. Finally add the bacon and peppers. Cover the top with the rest of the mashed potatoes so that they form a solid top layer. Place in oven on a shelf nearer to the bottom and cook until the edges and tops of the potatoes start to brown (~20-25 mins)

And enjoy!


PS, after further review I found a key ingredient that needs to be added. The pie tends to get dried out quickly and as a leftover was very dry, to solve this problem add a cup of water and 1/2 a beef bullion cube.

I am back and I am busy

Hello, sorry it has been soo long. I will post the pictures and a brief description of Berlin when I can, perhaps I will make the paragraphs have themes so you can just read what you are interested in...

The reason I have been so slow is since I have returned it has become full force project time. In face on saturday I had to be in my group room at 9:00 am and today we "slept in" and did not have to arrive until 10:00am. Also when I went to Berlin I printed a full copy of the report which at the time was around 75 pages and edited it in the airport, so it was a working holiday. Now the report is really coming along it is almost a 100 pages total (we are caped at 160 pages not including the appendix). Also the lab work has finally started. Thanks to the improvements that I suggested we actually are getting so very good results. The prototype is the same skeleton as last years group (they also had the same project but we are doing completely different experiments) but there project was very inefficient and at wind speed of 32 m/s (~68 mph) they could only get 0.7 Watts of power and the maximum rpm the could get with no loading on the shaft was about 130. However the improved version we have gets a smashing 1800 rpm when unloaded at a slower wind speed of 18m/s (37mph). We have yet to test the amount of power (Watts) that our project produces however due to the fact that it has limited torque on the shaft I doubt it will be bigger than 5W but that is ok because we expected that. (Our prototype is not very big so high rpm and low torque is an expected result. So that was really exciting. Also are other tests on pitching angle and camber lines have generated the results I expected which is nice.

Ok I need to get back to work. More quick posts like this, because I can do them in between work breaks.

Out of scandinavia

Tomorrow I take my first steps outside Scandinavia since arriving in the EU. I am leaving for Berlin bright and early with a 6:30 flight to Copenhagen. This means I have a very small window of time if I wish to catch the bus. To be safe I had a better plan which is to bike to the airport. It is by no means close at around 13 km away. However it is more reliable because there is only one bus and if I miss it I will not make it on time and if it is late I may not make it on time. So I decided better be safe then sorry. Especially because the sun will already be up at that time of day so it is not like I am riding in the dark. It is still project time so I printed out what has been written on the report (currently around 75 pages) which I will edit on the plane ride/layovers. It seems like a lot but a lot of that is filler space that LaTeX adds in as well as some diagrams etc.

This weekend went by very quickly. We were blessed with more wonderful weather which I took advantage of. Also it is getting to the point where the sun is up past 9:00pm so I am getting really thrown off when it seems like midday or late afternoon but actually it is like 7:30 and I should be eating dinner. Again we had some barbecues but smaller and less organized.

On saturday I went down town to look for a barber shop because I am in desperate need for a hair cut. However I was skeptic that I would have any success. This proved to be true because all the shops were closed. Unlike in the US shops close early on the weekdays and are barely open on weekends. The grocery stores are a little better as they are usually open until 9:00, 10:00, or even 11:00 pm on weekdays and have decent hours on weekends although some close on sunday. Still it was a nice bike ride down town and I enjoyed pedaling around my small but nice city.

Strange Weather, Nice Customs

This weekend went by all too quickly. It was warm and sunny as it always seems to be and we all took advantage of the nice weather. For those of us in my collegium that were around for the weekend and not traveling we enjoyed the sun to the fullest. On Saturday about 20 of us spent the afternoon having a barbecue. I became grill master due to my extensive experience in the field and by 1:15 I was frantically grilling about 20 burgers 10 hot dogs and some corn on the cob. A copious amount of meat had been purchased for the barbecue. Enough so that everyone could have 2-3 hot dogs and 2-3 hamburgers each as well as a corn on the cob. The corn was pretty good considering it was frozen corn and not fresh but it lacked the excellent flavor and crunch of a late august corn in New England. After we played a little Frisbee.

Before I knew it I was sitting in my project room on Monday morning wishing I was still outside. As I said before it is crunch time for my project but my group mates had an exam to study for on Thursday morning so I got the lucky job of working on the written report while they were studying. Conveniently for me that means that I didn't have to go to the University again until Thursday afternoon.

That was a real blessing that I did not even predict. As stated in a previous post they tend to under predict the weather here. They said it would be around 8 degrees C (mid 40s F) and possibly raining on Tuesday. In reality it was snowing when I awoke Tuesday morning. That is right, after three plus weeks of sunny and in the 60s and 70s the ground was white, and below is a picture to prove it. However it did not last long because it all melted by the afternoon when the sun came out and it has been shining warmly ever since. In fact this weekend it could get up to almost 80F!   

The View from my window Tuesday morning

Another surprise for me, and this was a welcomed one came on Wednesday. I had lent a friend of mine my sleeping bag because she was going to Germany for a long weekend and wanted to save some money at the hostel. However when she returned she returned with the sleeping bag and a box of chocolate that says "Dankeschöne" (thank you) in German. Apparently they have these in many European countries, for instance in France they have chocolates that come in box titled "Merci" I have to say America, we are behind the times here. I mean if I lent my sleeping bag to someone at home I would probably just get a thanks a bunch... I mean I did not expect such a nice gesture, so to my fellow Americans we need to step up our politeness...

One last thing, if there are any good movies that you guys know that have come out in the last five years could you tell me what they are, I am looking for some good movies to watch because I have seen most the recent ones.

Thanks for the help

I recently got some much needed critique on my blog. I was told it was long winded... A shocker, me long winded? It was so surreal how could I be considered long winded?

Nevertheless I breathed a sigh of relief. For those of you who read my bit about stockholm if you thought that took a long time to read, then think how long it took me to write it. That is why it took so long for me to finish. But thankfully I was told I had gone off the deep end in terms of length and detail. I do love my details but I didnt enjoy spending hours writing each of those posts. Therefore future posts of my trips will be more along the lines of pictures with long captions to describe what I saw and want to show you. So for those of my readers still reading along because they havent abandoned the blog due to lengthy boredom I thank you. And I have heard your plea, so there will be some changes. For those of you out there who like my lengthy detail I am sorry if you want to know more please feel free to ask me.

Before this posts gets too long ;-) I will just give a quick heads up. I am going to Berlin next week so look at the end of next week for some photos from Berlin.

I Become Champion for a moment!

So last week was a short one after not having class on monday due to the Easter holiday/ being in Stockholm. As with the previous two weeks the weather was amazing with sun and every day in the 60s and 70s and little wind or clouds. I enjoyed the nice weather with some afternoon workouts (runs) after class as well as copious amounts of ping pong. I had my last class of the semester on tuesday afternoon so now I am completely focused on working on my project which is due May 26th. We have a lot left to do. We still have to do all the tests in the wind tunnel although we have already run a test to determine the location of the boundary layer however we could guess where it was based on the results from last year. Also we have to finish the computer models and last but not least write the report. So it is crunch time is a bit of an understatement especially with all the delays in the fabrication of out prototype. Hopefully at the beginning of the week of the 16th of May we can run our tests and finish them by the 20th so we have 6 days to finish our report. The models are almost complete however we are stuck in finishing the last few little difficulties with them as well as we must make sure they are producing results that make sense by comparing results to experimental data from already existing models of a straight bladed giromill type VAWTs like the Windspire.
On friday I was getting ready to enjoy my weekend with the friends that would be around including a barbecue on saturday. But before that I got something better. I was playing Vincent, the master of ping pong whom I have yet to beat at that time. He usually just destroys me and every so often I come close but I try again and again just about every day. However on Friday in the second game I started out strong with a 5-0 lead after my round of serving including 4 aces in a row. I had already lost two close games to him so I was heated up and ready to go and I was well focused. Whereas his mind was on other things like his flight to Copenhagen in a few hours. So I battled him the whole game. He was constantly fighting to comeback but I was able to hold the lead even though it shrunk to a score of 19-18 me. But then I scored again and it made it 20-18. At this point I had to use all my strength to suppress my fear of dropping the ball. It was not the first time I had been on the cusp of winning and every other time I could not finish. It was especially difficult because he was serving. But for some amazing reason maybe because he was nervous that I could actually beat him that game he missed the serve and like that I won! I could not believe it. My hard work for three months had finally paid off in that one victorious moment. It definitely phased him as well because the next game due to my momentary victory high and his low I started off with a good lead. He was angrily smashing every single point and missing a lot too. But unfortunately we both settled down and his smashes got more accurate and he snagged another win from me. The rest of are matches we in his favor for that day but none the less victory was mine and I am very proud of it.

Stockholm Part 2b

Ok the fourth and final chapter of my trip to with my family is here! This is about Sunday and other than our trip on the ferry we did not do soo much on Sunday. We did get up a little earlier in order to get to the ticket office. But there was a huge line and so we were unable to take the first trip of the day and the second one was sold out so we settled for the third trip a 1:30. We knew that the store that sold the jackets did not open til noon so we took the tram as far as it would take us to another island. That island was primarily comprised of a park as well as Tivoli. There was a small castle on the far side but we did not have enough time to see it. Also there is a place like Old Sturbridge Village or Plymoth Plantation but a Swedish version but we decided that was unnecessary to see because we could do that in the US and we wanted to do other things. We wandered around the park for a little bit again enjoyed the glorious weather that we had. We came across this little play ground with a very interesting see saw. It was a see saw that could move in all three directions. It could move up and down like a classic see-saw as well as rotate and sway side to side. So my dad and I gave it a try because it looked strong enough to hold us, which it was. At first we just went up and down and then we realized we could make it a ride by going up and down and then spinning it at the same time. If you timed it right with the bending from side to side it would whip one person around at a pretty good clip. My sister who was initially too cool to play with a kids toy wanted a try. So my dad got off and the two of us really got it moving. But we realized we had to go back because it was almost noon and my store was gonna open so we left the park and rode the tram back into the city center. We got to the store a little early so we checked out a church that was nearby. The the store opened. I got my jacket I wanted and my dad found another that he liked so he got that as well. With our new purchases we made our way back to the boats to grab a french hot dog before it was time for the boat tour. It is a little unclear why it is a french hot dog other than the bun looks a little like a mini baguette but the french dont agree with its name.

The boat tour was nice. It was 2 1/2 hour tour of the Archipelago. Unfortunately the best place to see the stuff was outside on the bow deck but you could not hear the person on the speaker talking about the stuff that we were seeing because the speakers out there were horrible. Still I decided to spend most of the trip out there taking pictures and soaking in the sun. Mostly we passed by small islands with a few houses. Some of the houses were pretty cool And I have some of the best ones in my opinion shown in the pictures below. It was cool to see that part of the city that was not as metropolitan like the rest of the city. For only a few minute boat ride away it was like being on a lake in New Hampshire not like being in what the Swedes call "The Capital of Scandinavia" In fact it was very hard to believe that we were in an ocean or sea at all. Never have I been on an ocean where I could see land on all sides.

This is obviously not a house what it is I am not sure but it was big and beautiful

On of two very cool and unique houses overlooking the water that two brothers built

A classic style estate from long ago, note that the red walls and green roofs are because of copper. Apparently that was a resource Sweden has a lot of which is why many of their older buildings are red and the roofs were made of copper which oxidizes and turns green like this house

On the way home on the tour I got some last great shots of the big houses on the water that the nobles lived in. Apparently they used to be right on the water but at one time a king decided he did not like the nobles and made them give up much of their rights and powers as well as building the road in front of their property and taking some of the buildings which he turned into centers for the arts. For instance the Royal Theater is at the end of the street with all the big houses below:

Some beautiful buildings that the wealthy used to and probably still inhabit

A close up of one of the buildings the flat brown things in front are trees that had their tops shaved off...

After the boat tour we returned to the crowded narrow streets of Gamla Stan for some shopping which we were rather successful at and then went to another part of the city to check out some landmarks we had not yet seen. Below we have a Drick Coke sign and the planetarium. My dad thought that they have forgotten the 'n' hahaha and added a 'c' silly. Remember we are in Sweden so that still means Drink Coke...

Drick Coca-Cola, enough said

The planetarium

After we went back to the hotel and them went out to look for a place to eat dinner. After dinner we walked around the town for a while and then finally stopped by a seven 11 for some Ben and Jerry's. Yea interestingly enough they are the only American ice cream company that can be consistently found in Scandinavia. Yea Vermont!

Stockholm Part 2a

Ok now that I have recapped through friday we have the weekend in stockholm.I will skip to the end first because it is boring. Monday was pretty much a nothing day. We had a late breakfast in the hotel and then packed up and took a taxi to the airport where I left my family. I took a flight home to Copenhagen then from Copenhagen to Aalborg and then a bus ride from Aalborg airport to the university then a 10 minute walk back to my apartment. My family took the plane from Stockholm to Reykjavik, Iceland and spent a day in Iceland before returning to the US. The only cool thing was due to the nice weather there were few clouds in the sky. It was spectacular to look at the Archipelago from 30,000 feet and I watched out the window the whole flight home guessing where I was based on landmarks on the map. As a cool way to finish the flight I looked down s we flew over Helsingør and Kronborg castle. Ok but now back to saturday because I did not have my camera with me so there are no pictures of this outside of what is in my head...

Saturday morning we decided to do some shopping for a birthday present for me because we learned that a store called Intersport carried a Swedish brand called Haglöfs from which I wanted a jacket. We checked out a few sports stores but even though they had the brand they did not have the jacket I wanted nor the backpack. So we went to another store more like EMS or REI and they had a ton of stuff by Haglöfs including a jacket very similar to what I had wanted although mine was an old model so were told to go to a discount store to see if they had it. They did have it but only in womens sizes and mens XXL so a little dismayed we gave up the hunt and decided that we would go back to the outdoors store and buy the other jacket tomorrow before the boat tour. We had also decided that we would take and Archipelago tour on Sunday. So we returned to the palace and after some trouble with the lines found our way to the royal armory where we could see royal carriages, clothing, wedding outfits, and armor as well as learn about some of the famous Swedish kings like Gustavus Adolphus II and Charles VII. It was a pretty cool exhibit and I think Lindsay really like the entire area that was wedding and other royal gowns that were sorted by color so each room had a different color. However there were attractions for the guys which included full sets of armor guns swords etc as well as nights atop their horses in full scale and a few of the horses were real taxidermy so they were not just fake animals. Also we got the occasional glimpse of the "royal mouse" which was a mouse with a Swedish flag sash and a crown that was put in some of the exhibits across the museum which was located in the Royal Palace. After the knights and gowns we ventured to the basement of the Palace to see the carriages which were impressively large, lavish and seemingly technologically advanced.  Many of them were gifts from other European Royal families to celebrate the weddings of significance in Sweden.

A full set up of what King Charles II would have looked like in battle

Royal wedding garments, and King Charles VII in the background

Various guns used by the Royal family

A Royal carriage of the french design held up by a suspension system made from looks like four of the worlds larges belts (like that would hold your pants up)

The Royal Mouse in all his glory

After that museum we decided to go to look for lunch but in a new location at a park. The park had lots of outdoor cafes which were a bit pricey but had large portions. So we finally stopped at one that had an appealing menu and ordered. We wanted to be outside because it was sunny and in the 70s and beautiful and we could not pass up this weather. I got a fantastic burger for lunch that included fresh mozzarella cheese sauce, bacon, ham and other things. After lunch we headed over to some more small islands that we wanted to explore because there was a lot of daylight left and we had some renewed energy.
On the first island was an architecture museum. So we split up and my dad went to enjoy the museum while the rest of us plodded on to the next smaller island which had a castlette. This Castlette was the only military establishment in the city that was of any note because like I said before the Swedish military designed their defenses so battles would take place outside of the city. At this island we had a great view of Tivoli the amusement pack that was on the adjacent island. It was not yet open however it looked to be much nicer and more developed then the one in Copenhagen. Also we say this strange circular pool of water that formed and then disappeared a few minutes later and we have no explanation for what could have caused it. We continued to explore the island and came across an old boat that they were rigging for its voyage. Apparently it is a tour boat that runs only in the summer. Also I found a very small bunker at the tip of the island where the tour boat was moored that looked like it was from the WWII era. It was maybe only big enough for three men but had an unobstructed view of the sea north of the city and was probably used as a very small last line of defense if machine guns were enough to stop the enemy. After that we made our way back to the architecture museum to grab dad and then headed for the wealthy part of town where the nobles lived so we could check out the buildings etc that were there.

The castlette in all its glory, not exactly big but it is still run by the Swedish Navy which raises the flag on its top at noon every day.

The strange ring of water that formed in the sea, why and how we have yet to figure out but it was big and weird

The tour boat that they were putting a rigging on, you can see men climbing on the sails

We went to the the nice string of houses on the water and walked around that area for a while. There were the offices for the tour boats so we learned about which boat we were going to take on Sunday. Also interestingly there was a tram operating in this part of the city. I came to the a conclusion that stockholm has the largest smorgasbord of transportation I had ever seen in a city. First off there were taxis and cars that could drive on almost every road in the city, much unlike Copenhagen. Then there were city buses for in the city as well as those that left the city. There was also the high speed rail to places like the airport, as well as express buses from the airport. Also there was a commuter rail from outside the city as well as a subway that was in the city. And now as I found our there was a tram system in the city. Additionally there were bicycle lanes and pedestrian streets. If that wasn't enough there were more trams on another island and interestingly enough they were all very loosely connected if at all yet the same card could be used for all means of public transit. It was as if 10 different urban planners each with their own idea were hired and each implemented their own strategy for the city. So it was a little nuts. This was also when I really realized how many old American cars were roaming the streets of the city. We saw a 50s coup de ville (tail fins and all), several corvettes most of them old, mustangs of all generations from the brand new mustang gt to the old '67 convertible, and a GTO. Also we saw the viper shown in the previous post, we saw so many American muscle cars it was pretty interesting On top of all that a new but very dirty Ferrari F430 drove by us later that day.
In this part of the city there was a beautiful row of old houses which I had the pleasure of snapping a cool picture that highlights the various different roof styles that they had. Also there were two obelisks that were showing the environmentally friendliness of the city in real time by having LED columns that acted as graphs to show various data such as, air quality, green energy produced, and the amount of water being treated and returned to the city.

The nobles houses in their splendor and glory

Where our boat tour would leave tomorrow

The environmental obelisks

The rooftops of these nice buildings with their spires pointing and perfectly square manicured trees in front

After a brief tour of this area we decided we would come back the next day because we were going to go meet my friends who were returning from a boat tour themselves. After some complications in the plan we finally met them in the plaza where the cafes are on Gamla stan. They were going to a barbecue at a friends place in the city so they could not chat for long but I think they liked meeting my family and my family liked meeting them and putting faces to names. Below is a picture of me with my friends in Sweden.

From left to right: Guillaume, Xavier, Charlotte, Vincent, ME, Fanny, Sandro, Sebastian

Ok to make things shorter and simpler I have decided that this is the end of this post and Sunday will be recapped in Stockholm Part 2b however I still have to talk about Saturday night. After my friends left we decided we were tired and wanted to go back to the hotel and get dinner somewhere. We were making our way to the train slowly when we stumbled upon a restaurant. It seemed German from the looks of it but as we were reading a menu a man stepped out (who we later learned was the owner) and asked us if we had any questions. He explained what some of the foods on the menu are: for instance Swedish Bubble and Squeak. We decided to give it a try since it was an opportunity to have some authentic Swedish food. Also he said the place was German inspired hence the look as such. We learned that it had been moved from its original location in the middle of the city when they created a large plaza now dominated by a huge shopping mall among other things. As he said it since there was no war Sweden decided they needed to destroy part of its capital anyways so they could do some "urban renewal." He said there are 12 other authentic Swedish restaurants that were moved and they all still exist as some of the oldest restaurants in the city but they are all spread out now. The food was excellent and we also were informed that is was blues night in the basement. We went to check it out. It was very cool they were playing some pretty god blues (which is surprisingly popular in Sweden, along with wearing Yankees hats (BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!)) Also the basement was a cosy little place with a low roof and a small bar. It was quite a sight so see and really cool. After that we hopped on the T which was right around the corner and headed back to the hotel for the night.

Stockholm Part 1 Finally

Ok so here is the rest of the trip to Stockholm. We arrived at Arlanda Airport (45 km from the center of Stockholm) in the evening on Thursday. We got our stuff and took a taxi over to our hotel. It was in a good part of the city at the end of Drottninggatan which is a long pedestrian street filled with restaurants bars and shops that runs all the way through to Gamla Stan the small island with the palace. Stockholm is built on an Archipelago and the central part of the city is broken up onto about two dozen islands that touch the "mainland" where were staying. In fact the archipelago surrounding stockholm is comprised of over 30,000 islands. Therefore unlike Copenhagen, Stockholm was not covered in fortresses and not designed to have major military engagements in the city but rather on the islands out of the city. For instance the city of Vaxholm which is slightly north of  stockholm has a fortress designed to protect Stockholm from a northern attack. The taxi ride was weird especially for me because besides the fact that the signs were in Swedish  and the billboards were designed to look like metal trees, it felt just like a highway in the US. The roads in Denmark are filled with small "european" cars the dart down small roads along side bicycles. However in stockholm there were wide straight boulevards with bigger cars most common were large station wagons made by Volvo (of course), Saab (duh) and BMW. However there was also a huge presence of American cars mostly made by Ford which makes sense because they have had their fingers in with Saab and Volvo. However the small little Fiats, Pugeots, Renaults, Toyotas etc that cover the streets in Copenhagen were not as commonly occurring. Also Sweden is currently in a period of great economic growth (I know a little surprising huh....) and so there was a lot of development especially in high tech along the highway as we approached the city. Every major company imaginable was represented here, which was very different from the quaintness that Copenhagen has without the gigantic high tech buildings.  And boom we get off the highway and we are in the city and a few blocks later at the front of our hotel. We squeezed into our little room there and due to the bed complications from the last place I opted for the smaller but more comfortable cot that the room had. We then walked down Drottninggatan and found a restaurant to eat at which was expensive but had some classic Swedish dishes and we all ordered some type of fish to enjoy something different than the meat and potatoes from the previous nights.
 The next day we started our tour of the city by walking down Drottninggatan which would take us through parliament and then on to Gamla Stan which is where the old city was as well at the Royal Palace. It was another day of beautiful weather in the 60s and 70s and sunny. We made it down to the Palace just as the changing of the guard was wrapping up. Unlike the guards in Copenhagen with the giant hats similar to the ones they wear in England these guards wear small metal helmets that look like they get annoyingly hot in the summer. Unfortunately all the museums in the palace were closed on account that it was good friday so we decided to stroll around the old city. Below are some pictures of what we had seen until then.

This is the city hall for Stockholm which looks surprisingly almost exactly like the one in Copenhagen

Looking north on Drottninggatan and through the arches that are part of parliament

A small old french (Citroen) in Copenhagen

A little taste of a car in Sweden, American made Dodge Viper SRT 10 just compare this and its 500+ HP to the car above...

The Royal Guard of Sweden, note their far more spacious booths than the ones in Denmark or England despite not needing as much space because of there much "smaller" uniforms

Another interesting thing of note about the royal guards is like in Denmark they are almost all very young. I am not sure but I am guessing that also like in Denmark when boys turn 18 they must join the military in some fashion unless they can prove some disability or other thing to bar themselves from service. I know that many of the young Danes do not need to join up and go and serve in Iraq or Afghanistan instead they can be in the civil service, national guard or royal guard. Therefore I am guessing that like in Denmark most of these guys were 18. Later on we saw a bus full of what looked like "new recruits" and they looked about that age so I am betting I am correct in that guess. Also interestingly in Denmark the guards held American made Colt M16s with Bayonets but here in Sweden they are armed with British made SA 80s which probably makes their job easier since the SA 80 is lighter but they have a bayonet that looks more like a combat knife then a pocket knife. Ok back to the important stuff.
We looked on the map and say there were a bunch streets with narrow alleys and I thought they may be interesting to check out so we headed that way. We came across a plaza that has some famous cafes in some interestingly colored buildings and my mom remembered that her friend Annette had taken a picture in front of the cafe with the orange building with one of the green fleeces on while sipping a coffee. The Scandinavians love to be outside even when it is not so warm out. So their cafes often have tables outside with fleece blankets and heaters so that people can dine outside even in the cold months. It is kind of a traditional Scandinavian thing to do this, however due to the recent nice weather slightly unnecessary (although we learned from the taxi driver there was snow on the ground only a week before). The cafes were very full and busy so we decided to maybe come back later and for now do some walking and shopping.

The very old and famous cafes we later stopped by the skinny orange building in the center for a coffee

One of very many narrow roads and alleys in Gamla Stan the whole island pretty much looked like this

A larger more crowded road with some shops on it

This snows truly how close the buildings were to one another and that they get bigger as they go up almost to the point of forming a tunnel out of the alley

We walked though the entire island and finally came out to the southern most part of the island. I wanted to loop back around and check out a section we had missed as well as get a front view of the Palace and my family agreed so we set on that course. And good thing I chose to do this. First off we got some great views of the rest of the city as seen below. But secondly we got to witness a religous parade coming one way down the street to the church and then the royal guards on horseback going the other way and literally walking right past us.

We found this statue and it just made sense

The buildings on the southern end of Gamla Stan, you can see how narrow the roads are that run between them

An old ship on a neighboring island that we later found out was a cafe and a hotel

Looking across the water to the wealthy part of town where the nobles used to live

The Easter (good Friday) parade

The royal guards on horseback tromping through the city, however here we see them with the Royal Palace in the background and to the back and left you can see the church that the religious parade had traveled to for a sermon just minutes before.

I really just like this picture especially because both times are different and they are also both wrong...

Lindsay got a white hot chocolate at that cafe and was very much enjoying it

The oldest church and building in the city, although the spire that makes the steeple of the church is newer because of a fire that destroyed the old one in the 1800s

After this we returned to the plaza with the cafes and decided to do some more shopping and look for a place for lunch because it was around 2:00pm and we were a little hungry. We ended up at another Kebab shop because many of the restaurants closed for lunch after 2:00 and by the time we got to them it was past 2:30. However this was not a problem because after their experience from the day before my family really like Kebab shops and was telling me how they wished there was fast food this good in the US. Lunch was had on one of the small little alley ways on Gamla Stan which we meandered through for much of the afternoon before going to another island to look at a cool church which turned out to be the oldest building in Stockholm. Before doing that we returned to that iconic cafe for a coffee and hot chocolate stop. We finished the day by walking around more of the city near Drottninggatan and due to some tired feet decided we had enough walking so we took the T which is the subway in Stockholm back to our hotel.

However for me the day was not done. I had a whole group of my friends from Aalborg that were also visiting Stockholm. I met with them at their Hostel which happened to be on Gamla Stan. We went out to the cafe with the green facade two doors down from the one I had gone to earlier. You can see it in the picture above. We ordered some coffees and beers and just hung around for a while because they had an early morning the next day so they did not want to stay up late. We also planned for them to meet my family the next evening because my family really wanted to meet them.

Part two of the events in Stockholm will be coming shortly... (and I actually mean it this time)

Photos from Copenhagen

I know this took a little while but now I will continue the story from the past weekend and include a few pictures. Here are a few of the pictures from Copenhagen:

Kronborg Castle

In the courtyard of Kronborg

Painting in the Royal Apartments

The royal dining room, to appreciate the scale note that Lindsay is the person examining the picture in the middle

Hølger Danske: Protector of Denmark

Where the King kept his soldiers

Christiansborg Palace from the top of the spiral stair cathedral

Atop the Cathedral

The pipe organ in the Cathedral