Today we board the Seabourn Quest

Now we are waiting for the taxi to take us to the cruise dock. I have good reception here at the hotel, but still it has taken me some time to work out the wrinkles in blogmaking.  So as usual I am behind.  I'm praying for decent reception on the boat.

Yesterday was a lovely day and we accomplished a lot.  We decided to take a two hour sightseeing boat cruise around the city to get the lay of the land. The cruise was called Under the Bridges. It was quite interesting and surprisingly comfortable.  Through headphones we had a running commentary on the history of Stockholm and descriptions of the various sites.  We were able to get a feel for the way the city dwellers live.  Sweden is an archipelago of many islands connected by at least fifty large bridges and many more smaller ones.  With water everywhere, there are thousands of boats of all sizes.  Besides the myriad commercial craft, many are large yachts in private marinas, and many more are small boats docked at private piers in front of swanky apartment houses.  It appears that owning a boat is more likely than owning a car (though I don't know that for sure).  We learned through the commentary that Sweden's ruling party for the last 44 years is the Sweden Social Democratic Party and though more right wing groups have tried to oust it from time to time, it remains in power through elections every four years.  The city looks quite prosperous and we saw no poor sections, although there are quite a few beggars on the streets.  Unfortunately, there has been no opportunity to chat up a local on exactly how the people manage.  Everything is quite expensive and with well-known high taxes, one can only wonder how everyone seems to be doing so well.   All services are paid for such as health insurance and education, but they still have to pay exorbitant cost of living charges. There are many amenities apparent in the city--30% of the land is devoted to parks and greenways, for example.  Wages are proportionately higher here than in the U.S.

After the boat ride, we walked back to the vicinity of the hotel in Gamla stan and found a restaurant for lunch.  People watching is especially good here and we had a prime spot for watching the passing scene.  The younger crowd is plenty hip, maybe influenced by the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.   It's hard to know which are the more outrageous, the males or the females, but I found the females more interesting.  Pink hair, blue hair, purple hair is de rigeur and we even saw one young lady with half pink and half blue hair atop her highly tattooed and over-exposed body.  Black from stem to stern is a most common color palette, often accompanied by a shaved or partly shaved hair style.  Even though Gamla stan is a tourist hangout, many of the oddly dressed people seemed to be locals just living their lives. Tourists tend to be more standard.