Visit from the States!

Anne's Dad has come to visit! We went and picked Dave up at the airport on Saturday, taking public transportation up to Arlanda and reminiscing about how we did it the hard way our first time with our trip into Stockholm and too many bags... It's been great to show him around our new city, and having been here for a full turning of the seasons it does feel more like "ours", at least for now. Especially now that we're getting the chance to revisit old favorites.

Speaking of which, first, the horde: Dave brought us five jars of peanut butter, four boxes of hot cocoa mix, three jars of marshmallow fluff, two rounds of candy corn and a partridge in a pear tree. Anne is a very happy girl as this is truly the mother load... er, father? In any case, it's happily received and will be gone before we know it. None of these are that dear, they're just unusual here, which puts them on our Fall 2010 list of favorite things. (Hot chocolate packets, are for convenience at the office. Marshmallow fluff, have you seen those new jars? They're so light!) Yes, we now have more PB than one should ever have in one cupboard due to our previous stockpiling. But that means there is an excuse to make cookies. A Very Happy Anne, indeed.

The flight didn't allow my father-in-law much opportunity to sleep so we first faced a challenge and a decision of how to best manage the jet lag which was promptly met with a nap. Wise choice, I'd say. But to counter that we had to get out and do some walking. And walk we did, about five miles, give or take (Yankee miles, not Swedish). Down through to Gamla Stan we wondered. Ran into a men's choir promoting their concert and it filled the air with a charming, old-timey atmosphere: just right for the old towne as we took a fika in a medieval cellar near the Stortorget. (Site of the Stockholm Bloodbath in 152o the tale of which I related...)

Then we took a quick photo op at the corner of Kåkbrinken & Prästgatan for the runestone... I'd heard it was there and must have walked by it countless times in our visits to one of the cutest parts of town but only this time was I smart enough to write down the address.

How the runestone got there is an interesting story... And it reads, "Torsten and Frögunn had the stone erected after their son." Which I take as kind of an inside joke: there's all these fabulously ancient runestones left lying about and you'd assume they had some mystical, Stone Henge sort of use to them but they mostly amount to saying "Ragnar was here". Norse graffiti. Don't even get me started on cave paintings...

But Dave enjoyed walking about the cobblestone streets, and it was a really nice evening. We had gorgeous weather and I'm already mentally storing up sunshine for the winter months ahead...

I was impressed when Dave stayed awake until 9 in the evening and survived us walking him up Montelius Vägen. Another walk down memory lane for Anne and me.

Finally, we went for a beautiful walk on Sunday as well, through Djurgården and stopping for lunch at Rosendahls Trägården. So beware, a visit to Stockholm requires good walking shoes. But it really was a wonderful time.

Ah ha, and then, best of all. I got to enjoy a football game with my father-in-law. Packers won.

Here are cute pictures. A charming garden, and a lonely hat.