Sweden McDonald's Lets Me Down

             My 3rd day in Sweden was a hangout with Emily day, which, because of the company, was great fun. Emily and I originally planned to go to Ikea, because IKEA. But the shuttle that takes people from Stockholm to Ikea runs every day except Saturday, something we both did not realize until it was too late. So we nixed that idea and decided to walk all around Old Town instead. I thought I had seen all there was to see in Old Town the first day, but it turns out there was much more to discover. There was so much more to Old Town that Emily and I actually spent hours going in and out of shops, going into every souvenir shop in sight (I ended up buying a onesie with a moose on it for my baby cousin), and walking along the harbor where we saw a tour boat stylized as a Viking ship.
            So this next part is going to sound ridiculous to most of you, but I find it extremely necessary to talk about. At a certain point, Emily and I decided to head over to another island in Stockholm and it was once we had walked over that we started to find a public restroom. Here in the States, you can find restrooms in most establishments, some in which you may need to be a customer, but even random free public and park restrooms are not few and far between. These restrooms are not usually very nice, but they serve their purpose. Parts of Europe, however, do not believe in free public restrooms. Stockholm wanted to you insert 5 kroner into the slot to activate the bathroom door. If you remember any previous posts, you know that Scandinavia is a rather expensive place to travel, so every krone is essential—or, at least, money we didn’t want to spend on a basic human function. Our search was unsuccessful on that island, with the exception of noticing some very interesting people, so we headed back to the bigger island where we knew there was a McDonald’s—a place we thought we could count on. McDonald’s let us down. Yes, they have restrooms; no, they are not free whether you choose to eat there or not. So we cheated. We waited ‘til someone came out of the restroom and caught the door. You may think this is a completely weird thing to talk about. But when you’re in a foreign country and you need to go and find out there are stipulations for that particular human function, it bothers you, ok? Moving on.
            The day was so nice, that after Emily and I shamed ourselves by eating American food at McDonald’s, we decided to walk back to the ship. On the way back however, we ran into the huge Pride parade that took up several streets and crowded the sidewalks. There was a whole pride festival going on for the week, and while Emily and I stuck around to see what was going on in the parade for a couple minutes, it was so hard to make any sort of progress in the direction of the ship it was so crowded. So, we decided to duck into a café and relax until the parade passed. I may or not have ordered a very, very pink bellini and immensely enjoyed it. Once it quieted down we were on our way. 
Morning in Stockholm
One does not simply visit Scandinavia without seeing Viking references everywhere
Another view of beautiful Stockholm!

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