This day, we were invited to go to Utö Island with friends. I met Marina when I worked at the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum. She, her husband and their 9 year old daughter picked us up at our hotel in downtown Stockholm.

We road a ferry-like boat through the Baltic Sea, which we were told is variably brackish rather than salty like the oceans.

The island is a popular nature preserve. Fortunately, we were going before vacation started for most Swedes, so not too many people. We walked through the forest to the opposite shoreline.

The Precambrian (very old) rocks on the shore were sculpted by continental glaciation and later waves from the sea.

Marina brought lunch, which we enjoyed on the rocks by the sea.

Marina’s daughter found a rock with a heart in it! Truly a geologist’s child.

Pretty flowers that look like columbines.

Marina’s husband called this bug a Beetle Bee.

Marina rescued a caterpillar.

We climbed up a hill to see the windmill.

We shared dinner on the island, then ferried back to the mainland.

A wonderful day! Thank you my friend!

We had reservations on a train to Sweden in the afternoon, so this was a short day. Again, we spent it walking around outside. We disturbed a palace guard.

From the flags, we believed that the queen was home. Or perhaps it was the prince; we weren’t sure which palace was who’s.

In a canal area, we found people playing what looked like water polo on kayaks.

We walked over the “Sliding Bridge” the previous day, and tried to figure it out. This day, we saw it working!

Cool engineering, eh? We also saw this interesting sculpture.

And then a train to Sweden.

We were getting a little tired of palaces and indoor tours (also the weather in Copenhagen was much cooler!) so we wandered around outside. The colorful buildings stacked close together on the waterfront reminded us of our visit to Curaçao last January (a Dutch island in the Caribbean).

The street markets were great, too. Some people were earning extra cash.

My favorite building had a spiral staircase on the outside of the spire. Notice the humans on the stairs.

Although the spire made of dragon tails was pretty cool, too. This was on the old stock exchange building.

All kinds of monuments decorate Copenhagen.

Outdoor restaurants often have blankets available, because the temperature can change quickly. This was lunch time!

In the afternoon, we visited Tivoli Gardens, an amusement park similar to Disneyland and 6 Flags, with tons of gardens interspersed. You pay separately for the rides, so it wasn’t too much to get in.

We had dinner at “Sushi and Sticks,” close to our hotel, listening to some street musicians playing at the nearby gas station.

We could hear the musicians from our hotel room, so Brian took some pictures.

Our last day in Berlin, we went to Lustgarten on Museum Island. The garden is near the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral). It is also near Alexanderplatz, as can be seen.

Mickey Mouse was greeting people in Lustgarten (much better use than Nazi propaganda speeches that occurred here in the 1930s!).

Random things in Berlin:

24-hour clock at Alexanderplatz tells you what time it is in many different cities.

Market near a train station.

Here is another dome we saw from Museum Island. It is a Jewish synagogue. An S-Bahn train is going by in the foreground.

An S-Bahn train ride of about 30 minutes took us to the airport for our flight to Copenhagen, Denmark.

At the airport, we saw the opening ceremony for the World Cup, as featured on a Beck’s beer can.