Sunset in Sundsvall

Finally, I'm getting the chance to sit down and write about our weekend trip up north. Had a job interview yesterday (! went well, I think! fingers crossed...) and I am feeling better after my first cold of the year. Looking forward to coming to visit the US in a few weeks. But, back to the weekend...

On Friday, we headed up to Sundsvall, which is located on the eastern coast of Sweden, on the Gulf of Bothnia. It's about 250 miles north of Stockholm, and takes about 3.5 hours on the X2000 speedy, vomit-inducing train (goes so fast, things fly by too quickly...). Unfortunately, our first train was cancelled, so we had to wait at the station for a couple hours, but that was an improvement over the 5 hour replacement bus ride. Once aboard, the train was running late, so had to speed at maximum allowed speed (200 kilometers per hour), which only made us feel queasier.

But when we arrived, we found the adorable city of Sundsvall (that neither of us had been to). After its founding in the 1600s, it slowly increased in population until the 1800s, when it sounds like there was a major expansion. In 1888, the entire down town burned down. It was probably adorable two story wooden buildings like in many cute Swedish towns. Using insurance money and other funds, the town was rebuilt in stone in elaborate, awesome style. As a result, the down town area is called Stenstaden, or Stone Town, which cracks us up, since that is the name of the (very similar, of course) core area of Zanzibar City (Tanzania).

Did you spot the picture from Zanzibar? Can you spot five differences between the photos? haha.

While the sun is setting around 3.10pm now in Stockholm, in Sundsvall, it set well before 3. (Ok, so that's not really a big difference...) The path of the sun in the sky became clearer in this town, somehow. We noticed better how low in the sky it is...

Here we have high noon in Sundsvall.
Seriously.

And gorgeaous sunset sky (around 3pm)

So, what could we do? Of course, we had some fika (post still to come)! The Barista cafe seemed to be decorated by architects and interior designers, with these awesome egg/nest chairs in the windows, chairs made of felt "rocks", and a lounge area where teenagers hung out on a platform of mattresses and pillows, complete with blankets. Very cool.

Yum!

More to come, but I thought it wise to split this trip up into two or three posts. Soon, a post on the fun Christmas lights of Sundsvall!