Photo by Edi Weissmann

The party out in the Stockholm archipelago was a great success: a weird mix of Swedes and people from further afield. As with all great Swedish parties, copious amounts of alcohol were consumed, people did crazy things, a few sundry items were broken, people stayed up long after it had begun to get light (which, to be fair is only about 2:30 a.m. in the height of the summer) and many ended up sleeping in places they hadn’t expected to. Everyone was appropriately pale and queasy the next morning.

Me, I had wisely paced myself, so I was fresh as a prästkrage – that would be daisy in English.  My Swedish husband, however, was a bit worse for the wear.

Photo by Edi Weissmann

We took the ferry home in the afternoon. For my husband, and the various other guests who left with us, it was probably a good thing that it was a big new ferry, fast and comfortable, and not one of the ancient steamboats – or converted steamboats as many of them are these days – that ply the Baltic year round, hauling Stockholmers from the city out to the thousands of islands that make up the Stockholm archipelago.

Photo by Kriskaer

I love the old ferries best, with the faded elegance of their saloons – some have full-service restaurants even – and all that highly varnished wood, the sloshing of the water, the polished brass. You haven’t really seen Stockholm if you’ve never taken one of the old ferries from the quays outside the Grand Hotel.

By the time we made it back to Slussen, everyone seemed to revive a bit as we stepped off the ferry.

“Should we have dinner?” our friend from France said. “It’s half price at Torget on Sunday evenings, and it’s really good.”

Why not? As long as the music isn’t too loud…