The Girl with No Dragon Tattoo: capital city

I really need to be more on top of this blog, I apologize.

Let me rewind back to Sunday where I visited the capital of Sweden-Stockholm.
It was a spur of the moment decision that I made on Saturday night when a friend told me about a laid back tour/free-day that was put on by a group. I was hesitant at first but then on that Saturday night, I thought, "well, what the hell, why not go to Stockholm on Sunday", and so I went.
10AM and raining I arrived at the train station in Uppsala--known as CentralStation--and met up with some friends to tour Stockholm.
The distance from Uppsala to Stockholm is about 35 minutes, which is equivalent to the distance from Concord to San Francisco by BART plus the cost being 162 SEK round trip (24 US Dollars total) equals to many trips to Stockholm in the future.
And math wasn't my forte in high school.

Unfortunately the weather was a little gloomy, but it didn't take away from the beauty of the buildings in Stockholm.
Stepping out of the train station in Stockholm and construction and modern buildings surrounded the area. Gigantic buildings of malls and the hustle and bustle of people gave the feel of Union Square in San Francisco and long walks through the downtown area, small shops, and the wind gave the feel that I was actually in the city and not thousands of miles away.

But then time warp a few hundred years when I entered the palace and Old Town Stockholm.

The Palace:
I know what you are probably thinking....
Did I meet the gorgeous, heart stopping, handsome Swedish single prince of Sweden?
No, unfortunately I did not...he wasn't there sadly but I still got 7 more months of seeing/hopefully marrying him.

These are Swedish guards. Similar to the famous guards in London, England, these guards cannot smile and are super serious, however, I did have a friend who made him smile so challenge was accepted and completed.

Old Town Stockholm:

One of the main reasons I chose to study abroad in Sweden was how beautiful and colorful the buildings were here. It's weird to say but it's totally true. Rarely do you see this many colors in a city that blend together and isn't an eyesore.

People always look at me weird when I say that Uppsala is colorful and that the colors of the buildings are beautiful, but maybe that is just a casual thought that they don't think about. But when you live in a city where buildings are tall, dark, and gray a little bit of color is kind of a big deal.

Which is why I loved Old Town Stockholm because of the colorful buildings and the literal "old time" look.

I mean who thought olive green, brick red, orange and mustard yellow would blend in so well together.
The Swedes have very nice sense of color coordination.
Surrounding Old Town Stockholm are modern looking coffee shops, which is normal in Sweden.
Everyone drinks coffee and there is at least 2-3 coffee shops per block (also another reason why I came here).

After this our tour was a free for all and we split up and got to walk around anywhere in Stockholm.
The group that I was with decided to find some second-hand stores in Stockholm, but it ended up being a long walk due to Apple Maps lack of good directions, but some good pictures and sunny weather made up for it.