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When I arrived in Stockholm I called Carola. She was arriving from Bangkok at the same time I arrived in Stockholm. Her mother picked me up and delivered both of us to Carola's flat. We had just enough time to unpack and repack for...guess what...a rock cruise on the Silja Symphony. That's right, I got off the boat at 10am and got back on the boat at 5pm. Then the boat sailed directly back to Helsinki. Carina, Carola's friend managed to get tickets for us so we had a cabin about 10 meters from my previous cabin. Now, the purpose of this cruise is two-fold. To listen to live rock groups and to drink copious amounts of duty free liquor. By stopping briefly in the middle of the night at Aland (a province of Finland with special status) the passengers are allowed to purchase duty free goods. Liquor and cigarettes are so expensive in Sweden that the cruise can almost be paid for by savings. For example, a beer in a restaurant costs about $4 versus a beer on the boat for about 50 cents. Well, anyway it's a great excuse for a party. Being an elderly gentleman, I gave up and went to sleep one night at midnight and lasted until 2:20 am on the second night. The "Party Princess" and Carina lasted until the music stopped (almost 5AM). I was amazed, there was not one ugly drunk on the ship. Lots of happy drunks, but everyone was really having fun. They were quite curious how an American found out about the cruise since it's only promoted in Sweden. After we arrived back in Stockholm, Carola took me on a tour of the older parts of Stockholm and taught me how to use the metro. She goes back to work on Tuesday and will have a day off on Sunday. During the week, I'm going to wander around Stockholm and try to bring her computer back from a near death experience. |
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I took the Silja Symphony from Helsinki to Stockholm. It's a very
comfortable ship with lots of good places to eat and drink. 