The weather in Stockholm was just starting to warm up for the season when I arrived and there was almost no snow left on the ground. Lots to do here including visiting the Ice Bar, the Nobel Prize Museum, visiting the Royal Palace, and plenty of other museums.
I had a very interesting experience while visiting the Royal Palace. I was chatting with a “security guard” in one of the palace halls (she was about 75 years old and had a comfortable chair so she didn’t have to stand for too long). I asked if the building was actively used by the royal family. She said yes, in fact the king was in the next room over meeting with the president of Croatia. The door to that room was about 20 feet away and you definitely got the feeling that it would be inappropriate to go open it not because you’d be grabbed by the Swedish version of the secret service and wrestled to the ground, but rather that it would just be rude and so nobody would consider doing it. There was no security check when I entered the building, no metal detectors, nobody wanting to look through my bag. She said in Sweden they just don’t have the sort of security worries we have in the U.S.
