Swede to Swiss (7th August)

Sweden has a much loved royal family and this morning it is time to check out their jewels. First up is a Swedish breakfast aboard the boat. We have to pay for it, but totally worth the 65SEK. Bread, cheese, ham, garlic sausage, pickles, cucumber, tomato, cream cheese, fruit, yoghurt, cereal, tea, coffee, and boiled eggs. It's enough to sink the ship and we tuck in to fill up for the day. The Swedish treasury has the most crowns on display of any we have seen to date. Crowns from past princes and princesses (the princesses are smaller than the princes), scepters, swords, horns and jewellery for various occasions. There is even a funeral crown on display. We are not allowed to take photos and the English version of the guide book is all sold out much to Mike's disappointment. It would have been good to have some pictures to show you all. The day is hot but it's time to check out changing of the guards. This is a 40 minute ceremony and we get great views in the shade and over a group of short people. YAY for being tall. Like the English there is a full band that plays at different points throughout the ceremony. We liked the xylophone dude and that they played the superman theme! We can't help ourselves as the guards change over to imagine what they are saying to each other. "How was your shift?" "The usual, saw a heap of tourists and had my photograph taken 44 times." "What time are you on to?" "3pm." "Cool have a good shift!" As the day is hot an ice cream with mango, licorice and pear flavours does the trick to cool us down. It's only two stops from our local train station to centrale-T (Central Station), but it's 29 degrees with a pack on our backs, so we pay the fee rather than walking across the two bridges to get there. We are hot and sweaty but make it to the bus in good time. Not so good when the bus driver announces that he will be stopping at all terminals. Our travel agent hasn't advised which terminals we are flying out of and we didn't realise that Arlanda was a big enough airport to have no less than 4 terminals (#2-5). Just as well that the bus driver knows SAS leaves from terminal 5. No big dramas travelling around terminals this time! They say bad luck comes in threes - first, our bags arrive off the airplane saturated. It was raining when we left Stockholm, but not that badly. They must have been outside for a very long time. Michele (the sister of Shona's boss) is waiting for us in Zurich and it is lovely to be able to see a smiling face that we know! She navigates us back to the apartment that we are staying in. Bad luck #2 is getting on the tram and a bag drops down from Mikes shoulder with a loud thud on the floor. The duty free vodka has broken and is proceeding to clean the floor. (Bugger, when travelling between all these EU countries, Switzerland is the only time we have been able to buy duty free) at least we still had the mailbu. But they didn't have any immigration because we were coming from an EU country and so we don't have a stamp in our passport :-( The apartment we are staying in is a studio right in the heart of old town. If we look out the window we can see the river. Awesome and thanks so much Michele! Bad luck #3 Mike's button on his shorts pops off and we don't have a sewing kit. Not so bad, but still a real pain! We spend the night wandering around the city, to the lake. It is gearing up for the big party tomorrow night. We find food in the old town along a strip of restaurants. They have an English menu, which is helpful. Shona has a greek salad to get some greens and Mike has the fish. It's a great night and we snooze off to the sound of the city outside our window.