Drottningholm, and weird t-shirts

Drottningholm, from the east.

On our first day of sightseeing in Sweden, we decided to go to Drottningholm and see the palace there. This is a very nice place, and lots of tourists go there. There is no really easy way to go there without a car (you can take subway, and then bus the last stretch, but it is not very convenient) but my brother and his Japanese girlfriend decided to join us and since my brother recently bought a car he drove us there.

Drottningholm, from the west.

Apart from us, there were also many bus loads of tourists coming with chartered buses. At least three large groups of Japanese tourists were walking around, so we listened in on a Japanese guide in some of the rooms (joining a normal guided tour costs a lot of extra money).

Since I was wearing a t-shirt that says "I am not Japanese" in Japanese, quite a few of the Japanese tourists were pointing at me and laughing. They also seemed confused when me and my brother talked to each other in Japanese (we are blond, and thus do not look very Japanese). My brother's girlfriend was very unhappy with my choice of t-shirt. She even took a picture of me and complained about my lack of style on Facebook, haha.

Since the king and queen actually live in the palace, there are armed guards placed here and there.

It was raining when we were visiting the palace, but we walked around inside the palace when the rain was at its worst, so it was not so bad. The current king and queen of Sweden live in the Drottningholm palace, but you are allowed to walk around inside anyway, though not in the parts where they actually live.

Edible gardens

Redcurrant

My mom grows stuff in the garden that she uses when preparing various foods.

Gooseberry

Rhubarb

Potatoes

Spice rack

My friend thought that my mother's spice rack was impressive. And this is only the part that fit in the drawer. There are buckets of unorganized spice hidden away in other places too, we noticed when we asked for cardamon (to show our guest what spice we were talking about being an example of a weird ice cream flavor sometimes available in Sweden).

Breakfast

Bread, reindeer meat, and the white stuff is "Swedish wasabi" as we explained it to our Japanese guest (horseradish).

In Sweden, a standard breakfast is based on bread. Cereal and things like that are also common. Traditionally, porridge is also breakfast food.

Not exactly yogurt, but similar. It seems to be called by it Swedish name "filmjölk" in English too.

Dog

My brother showed up with his dog who is now about one year old. I met him when he was a few weeks old too, and he seemed to remember me.

First meal of Swedish vacation

Smoked reindeer meat

We arrived in Sweden at around 17:00, so we had time to have some food before the jet-lag made me pass out in a sofa (my parents have a guest room with a bed, which used to be my room by the way, but that was reserved for my friend so I got to spend my vacation sleeping on a sofa).

Liver pate with morchella mushrooms

Shrimps and stuff

Creamy cheese with shrimps, and fish roe spread. 

Swedish bread of various kinds.

Onaka

In Sweden there is a brand of yogurt called "Onaka", which is Japanese for "stomach" (and that name was chosen with the Japanese meaning in mind).