The stereotypes are true. Russia was pretty much as I expected.

If you like Russia, Putin, Socialism, Communism or Obama (specifically his foreign policy or, really, lack thereof), you should probably not read my posts about Russia.

When we looked out into the city from the 11th deck where the Windjammer Cafe is the buildings (they were a kilometer or so away) just screamed communist block housing. They were tall, white, ugly buildings made out of cement. It appeared that they were still making apartments like that in the area because we saw one under construction.

We woke up at about 8:00 today, ate breakfast, and got ready to get off the ship. Mrs. Coco had booked a kayak tour for us to go see the city by boat. So after the ship docked at about 10:30 we all walked out and met the guide for our kayaking tour. His name was Marti (with a rolled R). We rode by car to the shore of an inlet to the bay where they had already put the kayaks. I went with mom, Hannah and Sebastian (the oldest Coco boy) went together, and Mr. and Mrs. each went with one of the twins: Nico and Sergio.

We started today earlier than any of the other days at around 8:00. We headed up to breakfast at the Windjammer Cafe. The food selection was good for a breakfast and the bacon was cooked to my liking, unlike the bacon at the hotel which wasn’t that good. After breakfast, we got ready to go back into Stockholm for the last time.

Today we embarked on our cruise. We woke up and had breakfast at the hotel and then had the hotel staff order us a taxi to the cruise port. The ride was fine and went without an issue. To check in to the cruise ship, it’s like airport check in and security. We had to “check” our bags and at a little stand, it was very easy because we’d already printed our luggage tags. Then we went into another line to go through security. It isn’t quite as rigorous as airport security (we were able to take water bottles through) but it still took a while. Then we got in a new line to get our key cards for the ship. After these three lines (in total they took an hour or so) we boarded the boat. Then we waited forever for the elevator. Eventually we made it in to an elevator and went to the 11th floor where the Windjammer Cafe is. (The Windjammer is the lunch buffet.) By the time we were done with lunch our stateroom was ready to be occupied so we went to check it out and drop off our “cary ons”. We then went back into Stockholm for the afternoon.

Someone didn’t get up until 9:15 today. I won’t mention his name. (Oh wait, I’m the only guy, oops.)

After breakfast in the hotel, we got ready and went out to the bus stop which was about 100 metres from the hotel. We got on bus line 69 which took us straight to the Historiska Museet, the Swedish History Museum.

We started this day very late. (I’m sure it had nothing to do with some individuals sleeping in till 9:30… oh wait, that was me.) We ate breakfast which luckily ran until 10:30 and then got ready to go.

We walked down to the central tram station and got on the 7 tram which took us to our first destination: Scansen, an open air museum featuring various Swedish buildings and animals. We started out by walking around a reconstruction of a Swedish village around the 1840s. There was a glass blowing shop, a woodworking shop, a factory, a few houses and a school. One interesting thing about school during that period was that the amount of light dictated the amount of school done because they only used natural lighting. In one of the houses we went into, the guy said that it was the house of a middle class family. There were only three rooms in the house, but the room we were in was the one where you would entertain guests. It had a piano, nice furniture, and wallpaper so that you could make it look like you were wealthy, even if you really weren’t. Things really haven’t changed much have they…

We arrived in Stockholm at around 12:30 local time. Unfortunately I did doze off in the plane on our way here for about an hour, so I didn’t succeed in my original goal of not sleeping on they flight. I’m going to try and make up for it by staying up until 21:00 tonight.

Two of our bags took forever to come out, but we finally got them and found the train into Stockholm. We had gotten the wrong tickets (Hannah had a pensioner’s ticket) but the lady was nice and told us that both Hannah and I were free and that we should just ask for a refund once we got to the station in Stockholm. The guy at the station didn’t ask any questions and gave us the refund. It was a good introduction to Stockholm.

7:26 2015/7/23 Reykjavík, Iceland, 1:26 MST: I am sitting on the airplane getting ready to leave from Reykjavík for Stockholm right now. We have another little kid behind us on this flight. I am hoping to not sleep this flight so that I am closer to Stockholm time (we will be arriving there at 12:30 local time). We will see how that goes.

I am on an Icelandair flight right now writing this post. We are about an hour and a half into the flight. We were able to check in online, so we ended up being fairly early to the airport, but it gave us plenty of time to eat a lupper (Lunch/Supper) at Panda Express. We are currently somewhere over the US still but I don’t know exactly because the flight map is not working for me. Right now I am waiting for the flight attendant to come and ask if we would like drinks. Right now she is having trouble scanning a Discover card for the people in front of us, so it is looking like it might be a while before we get our drinks…

My family and I are going on a vacation! We will start with a cruise on the Baltic Sea, and then we will spend about a week and an half in England.

I will be maintaining this blog throughout the trip. I will try and write a post every day (though it might be a few days between when I actually post while I am on the cruise as internet connectivity is limited). I will be posting to both this blog and our family blog: basheracademy.blogspot.com. This blog will only contain posts from me, whereas the family blog will contain posts from my sister, Hannah, as well.