Stockholm, Birthday Times and a New Blanket

Hi there!

I am back to Blogland! As Michelle mentioned last week, I was on holidays in Stockholm for my 30th birthday and man, we had a splendid time there. Thank you for your birthday wishes - I was very happy to read them!

The boyfriend and I really love to travel during Advent. We love to visit foreign Christmas markets and enjoy the festive mood in different towns. Some years ago, we had an amazing time in London (during the snow chaos). During the time I taught at school, we couldn't travel before Christmas (as teachers depend on the fixed holiday times) but now that I have a different job, we are free to travel whenever we like. It's brilliant!

We arrived in Stockholm on the 15th of December and stayed for 4 nights. As we got an amazing deal, we were able to stay in the Hilton without killing our travel budget. In fact it was little more expensive than the hostel we planned to stay in first and there was breakfast included! Lucky us! :-) We got a very cute room on the top floor with windows on two sides - loved it! I know some people complain about the room size on the internet, but it had just the right size for us. The hotel is just a bridge away from Gamla Stan, the old town, which I fell in love with. Lots of little old streets and even a small Christmas market. Oh and a shop where we found our mandatory Christmas ornament. I might have mentioned before that we collect Christmas globes from towns we travel to for our christmas tree. This year there are two new ones: One from Vancouver and one from Stockholm. I will share pictures with you in a later post (we haven't put up the tree yet).

The Vasa museum is very well known and as the boyfriend is a bit mad about (sailing) boats, we had to visit the old boat. It was pretty impressive to see how well it was preserved! Plus they did some tests on the remains of the people who died when the ship sunk. Modern tests could tell one all different things, like what they ate, what kind of sicknesses they had and so on. I found that rather fascinating!

We also did a guided tour in the city hall (Stadshuset) where the Nobel Prize banquets take place. A quite impresssive place. I really liked how the architect tried to create an open rooftop feeling! Oh and how they took extra care to make the stairs walkable for women with evening gowns!

Other than that, we spent a lot of time drinking coffee and eating good food. Good times! Couldn't have come up with a better time for my birthday really. :) There was even snow (a day before my birthday but nevermind!). Oh how I would love to see more snow this year!

Apropo birthday - I am a very lucky girl and got lots of brilliant presents! New crochet hooks from my in-laws and new stylecraft special dk yarn from my parents (among with other things). They know we well, don't you think?

What are you working on at the moment? I started yet another blanket which shall become a present for a special, very sick family member. As you know, I have been a bit crazy about the corner to corner pattern this year. For this blanket I decided to use a different pattern though (gasp!)... The Neat Ripple Pattern from Lucy from Attic24. I wasn't too fond on it for the first couple of rows but it has grown on me! 

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Germans celebrate on Christmas Eve and I can't wait for it!

 I hope you all have a very merry Christmas with lots of love and joy (and yarn of course)!!

Take care

Anne