Stockholm

July 27th
Stockholm, Sweden

Today’s plan was to rent a bike and go for a ride for the first time since getting on this ship. After a drill in the morning, I picked up the bike and headed out with a friend from the ship, John. We didn’t have anything specific in mind, just to go riding and see what we came across, and for over three hours, that’s just what we did. Most of our riding was done along the waterfront, crossing from island to island, seeing as much as possible. If you remember way back to the first time I was in Stockholm, about 10 months ago, I did a biking tour that I enjoyed. I couldn’t remember where we biked in relation to the ship, but while John and I made our way across the islands, we soon came upon the exact place where I had gone on the tour way back when. So we continued on, seeing everything from dry-docked ships to gorgeous mansions on an 80-something-degree day. It was a great ride and really nice to get on a real bike again, these are always some of my favorite port days.
On the way back to the ship, we stopped at a café for some drinks. I ordered an orange juice, which came fresh squeezed and was delicious. Not knowing the actual conversion, I paid 37 kr for it, which upon returning to the ship, discovered is over $7. Well…what-cha-gonna do? I was thirsty, we stopped and sat down at a nice café and had a really nice bike ride through the city, fine, I’ll deal with a $7+ small glass of orange juice. We returned back to the ship following the drink stop and I went to my rehearsal.
At my rehearsal, Ben, the tenor player, informed me I had missed my tour that morning. For what ever reason, I was dead sure I didn’t sign up for a tour and had been planning on biking in Stockholm for the last few days, but after he mentioned something about a museum, I realized what it was that I’d signed up for weeks ago and that I did indeed totally blow it off. Now, this is a bad thing because the people in charge of the tour don’t like their tour escorts being unreliable and blowing off tours, and usually combat that with not giving them tours, something that I just can’t let happen. So immediately after the rehearsal I walked to the office to make my apology and beg for forgiveness. Luckily, I’ve had a good history with the tour people and they all like me, so after a quick explanation of why I’m an idiot I was soon forgiven. Actually, the main tour person that I was stating my case to then proceeded to talk to me for another 20 minutes about entirely different things, giving me the idea that she kind of likes me. I don’t quite feel the same way about her, but at least this means I’m on the fast track to getting whichever tour I sign up for! Well, that’s about it for my day in Stockholm, thanks for reading!