Day 183: Official Midway Point of the Trip — Jason and Zia Forbes Arrive — Djurgarden — USWNT World Cup Victory

by Ted · Published July 7, 2019 · Updated July 11, 2019

Today is the official midway point of the trip. It’s hard to believe that we’re here — and that we have 6 months left. We are planning to write a post on the first 6 months so I’ll save any further thoughts for that.

Jason Forbes and his 5-year-old daughter / my goddaughter Zia flew in from London for a 24-hour rendezvous in Stockholm. Jason is from Dublin, lived in NYC for years and moved to London with his family 3 years ago.

Consistent with his brand, Jason waited until our last two days in Europe but eventually delivered. He is as loyal as any friend I have.

He even had to fly out of a secondary airport 60 miles outside of Stockholm to make it happen. When asking hotel reception for directions they said, “That’s not Stockholm.”

We finished school, then caught the ferry to Djurgarden, an island filled with museums.

First things first: we took a pic in front of the ABBA Museum.

Then we took a tram to Rosendals Tradgard for lunch based on an Instagram recommendation from old friend Damien Gray. If you give us a recommendation, we will likely take it.

Jason and Zia met us at the restaurant and we had a tasty lunch in a very warm greenhouse. I had a zucchini, onion and polenta “stew” which was delicious. The three grownups shared a carafe of rose.

The grounds around the restaurant were very well maintained, thanks to this robot lawn mower.

We then walked to Skansen which is a huge property featuring a combo of an acquarium, zoo, kid rides, old timey Swedish homes, playgrounds, pottery classes, coffee shops, and various other attractions.

We wandered around, the kids played some old timey games like tug-o-war, jump rope and tried to walk on stilts, we hit a playground then rode some kid amusement rides.

We barely scratched the surface of Skansen but it was fun to explore.

We hustled back to the ferry at 5pm, heading for O’Leary’s, an American / Boston-themed sports bar in the Old City to watch The US Women’s Soccer Team beat The Netherlands in the World Cup Final.

We walked in and every table was full and the host claimed he couldn’t seat us. Gut punch. But I complained, stating that the bartender from the day before promised us that there would be space so we didn’t need a res. The host felt sorry for us so he opened a back room to make space.

We drank gin and tonics and cheered for goal scorers Megan Rapinoe and Rose Lavelle. It was really fun — so fun that we got over terrible food: an appetizer of only 3 mozzarella sticks and the worst nachos ever served at a sports bar–stale chips with one little cup of cold queso and one little cup of salsa.

The food was bad enough that Jason was motivated to find a good restaurant for dinner near by. We hit the jackpot with The Flying Elk. The kids had Swedish meatballs and spaghetti. We allowed them to watch Moana on Zia’s iPad which gave the grownups time to enjoy our meal — shared meatballs, cod and roast chicken. Everything was really good.