Tuesday, April 20th

“… Spring break brings people back together with friends and family from home. Will the brave voyagers be able to enjoy their time away from the group, and then return to it and still co-exist? …”

Hej Blog Buddies,

This blog entry will at least detail the time from when Shawn came to Sweden, and our time in Stockholm.


Friday, April 3rd:

The night before was the night of our final exam in Nordic Politics – and Aaron and I had gone to the Opera, if you’ll recall - Friday morning was our final time together as a group. After waking up too late for breakfast (like 8:30) I began to pack up all of my things from our tiny room. You’d be surprised how quickly stuff spreads out, even in a small room like ours. It took me a good hour and a half to pack up all of my things, although I must say it was great to know I was packing my winter jacket, boots, snow pants, etc., for the last time.
After getting everything ready, I went to the front desk of the af Chapman (our boat hostel) to figure out where my next destination was. They told me it should easily be reached by bus and subway, and told me how to get there. After buying a bus ticket from them, I dragged all of my stuff about 6 blocks to the nearest bust station, where I waited for about five minutes, before the bus came. When it arrived, I climbed aboard, not knowing exactly where I was headed. When the stop called “Slussen” came up, I quickly got off the bus, at which point I was supposed to find the subway and go two more stops. (This was an area I had not yet been to)… After going down the wrong set of stairs, which actually led to a grocery store and bakery, I went back to the street level and found the appropriate entrance and after seeking some assistance, I figured out where I was to go.
After taking the subway the five or so minutes from my previous location, I was at the correct stop. I exited the subway and made my up to the street only to find that the escalator was out of order (I didn’t see the elevator…) I had to haul my luggage up several flights of stairs, which was not easy. Then I had the daunting task of trying to find the address of the hotel I that Shawn and I were to stay at, something that should have only taken less than five minutes, but ended up being a twenty minute ordeal. When I finally found the place, called Noréns Malmgård, I had time to check in, drop off my stuff before I needed to go.
In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to seek out my destination before I had to find it with two giant suitcases and a backpack. I think I’ve learned my lesson…
I had to get to the airport, so I could meet Shawn when her flight landed. I got back on the subway and headed towards the Central Station, where I could buy and board a bus that would take me to the airport. After riding on the subway about three or four times, I started to understand how they worked, and in fact, they are laid out in a quite logical way (imagine that!!). From the Central Station, there are busses that leave every 15-20 minutes for the airport, which by bus is about a 45-minute ride out of the city, but quite easily reached.
When I arrived at the airport, it was a simple matter of waiting by the only door passengers could come out, until Shawn showed up. I had to wait a little less than an hour before her flight landed and she was able to pick up her (and my) luggage. Before I left for Sweden, I had packed a bag with spring/summer clothes in it that I could exchange out for my winter things. [I am now very happy that I did this – It is so nice to have ‘new’ things, rather than the same clothes I’ve had for the past three months.] With all of her/my things, we got back onto a bus that took us right to the Central Station in Stockholm again, where we got back onto a subway (this time with me knowing how to get to the hotel).
After a long morning/early afternoon, I finally had retrieved my friend from the airport, and we were to the hotel. The hotel was at one point a private residence that has since (I think the woman said about 50 years ago) been turned into a hotel, with 16 rooms. It came suggested by a woman we met in Mora. It was in a quiet neighborhood on a very lively island, named Södermalm. Our room/complex had a small kitchen, a breakfast/eating area, and two rooms one with a double bed and one with a twin bed, however, the bathroom and shower were in a room just down the hallway. It was a nice place, for a great price, and even had breakfast included in the price!
Shawn was suffering from a little big a jetlag, so after a short nap, we went and explored Södermalm (an area, which I had not been to). After walking down one of the major roads of the island for quite some time (and finding some unique little restaurants) we eventually stopped at a little Italian place and had dinner, after which we returned to the hotel.
It was really good to finally see someone from home; not that the group isn’t from home, but it was so great to see a friend who wasn’t in the group. After about three months, a little change of pace was well received.


Saturday, April 4th:

This day was Shawn’s first full day in Stockholm. I thought it would be appropriate to start with my favorite part of town, Gamla Stan (the old city). So we took the subway to Slussen, (which lies right between Södermalm and Gamla Stan) and walked from there into the old town, where we walked around and looked at many of the little shops, and saw most of the main sights in that area, including the Royal Palace and the changing of the guard, two of the large churches in the area, and the house of the nobility. From the water, we could see our hotel/house and the bluff that it sits on overlooking the city.
It was really weird to play tour guide, and to be responsible for showing someone around it. It really put a lot of pressure on me to make sure that we were both having fun and doing things that we both enjoyed.
After walking around Gamla Stan, we made our way over to Östermalm, where we had lunch at some random café in a shopping mall. After lunch, we went to the Opera House and bought tickets for a performance of “Ringaren i Norte-Dame,” which, was a ballet performance of The Hunchback in Notre-Dame. After purchasing tickets, we went across the street to the Dance Museum. Apparently, Stockholm’s dance museum has one of the best collections in the world.
I don’t know much about dance, but they had a lot of old historical costumes from famous dances throughout history, and traditional dance clothing from different cultures around the world. Shawn is a Dance major at Gustavus, so I think she really enjoyed the museum. I was able to appreciate a lot of it, but probably not to the extent she did.
After the dance museum, we continued to explore the Östermalm area, where there are a lot of little tacky gift shops, an open-air market with really cheap/fresh fruit and vegetables. This was a very interesting place. There were probably close to 50 booths, each trying to sell the same items, fruits, vegetables, or fresh flowers, and their way to attract you to their booth, is by yelling at you. We were very surprised to walk through and have “SPARRIS [Asparagus] 17 KRONOR!!!! JORDGUBBE [strawberry] 20 KRONOR!!!” shouted at us from every different direction. It was like nothing I would have ever expected to experience in Sweden. Although we didn’t buy anything, it was really interesting to see.
The ballet performance was set to begin at 6:30, so to give ourselves enough time, we headed back to the hotel around 5:00 or so. We got back and were getting ready, when we realized it was nearly six already. We had to hurry to get ready and get to the Opera House, where the performance was to take place. We got on the subway, and knew we were going to be late. We speed walked/ran from the subway station to the theatre, where we were probably the last to arrive to a performance that had begun five to ten minute prior to our arrival. Normally the ushers wouldn’t let anyone in, but they were nice enough to make an exception for us, although they couldn’t put us in the seats we were assigned to, they just put us where we wouldn’t disturb anyone getting situated. These seats were almost right where Aaron and I had sat two nights before at the performance of MacBeth. Part of the stage was slightly obstructed by a large pillar, so we were unable to see what was happening on the far right part of the stage, but after the first (and only) intermission we moved to our assigned seats, which were much better.
Unlike the opera two nights before, the ballet was much easier to understand, probably because there was no language barrier. If you’re going to see a ballet, I recommend doing it with someone who has studied dance, and is able to interpret it; this really helped when I was lost and trying to figure out what was happening. The performance was pretty long, so when it got out, we were both quite hungry.
We decided that we would walk from the opera house to Gamla Stan and find somewhere to eat. On the water between Östermalm and Gamla Stan there is usually a large collection of birds - - namely ducks, swans, and seagulls - - on this particular night there was some child with a large bucket of dead fish trying to feed the birds. As we walked through the area the birds - there were literally hundreds of birds, flying around, swarming the area, trying to get some of the fish - we were nearly attacked several times by the hungry birds. Once we made it past the area, fearing for our lives (and clothes) we went to one of the first places we found called, Michelangelo. As you can probably guess, it was Italian food again, but it was really good Italian food.
After a nice diner, we both were craving dessert, so we went to this bar/restaurant called Vapiano, and had some dessert and a few drinks. It was a really interesting set up, when you walk in they give each person a card. You can go to the counter and order any drink or food you want, they then register your order on this card, which records what you bought and the price. Before you leave, you hand your card to the cashier and he or she presents you with your bill. It was, however, a really fun atmosphere with a lot of mid-20-somethings year old people, comfortable chairs, and good food and drinks. I have decided my new favorite drink (even though I don’t like coffee) is an espresso with Bailey’s.



Sunday, April 5th:

Like most Sundays in Sweden, the hours of a lot of stores are significantly reduced. Because we had had such a fun time at Valpiano’s the night before, we wanted to return there in the daytime to actually try their food. We both had different types of pizza, both of which quite tasty.
After lunch we went back to Östermalm, again to walk around the various shops and explore a little more. We ended up taking fika at some bakery (well, fika minus the whole coffee part..) Around Easter, there are a lot of “limited time” things in the bakeries, such as Semla, a special pastry filled with cream, a lot of different marzipan creations and other things. We had a marzipan egg dipped in chocolate. I’m sure it was terribly unhealthy, but it was so good that it didn’t even matter.
After exploring this part of Stockholm, we went back to Södermalm in search of something to occupy the time and somewhere to eat. At Slussen, we went to the top of the tram that overlooks the city. Shawn is terrified of heights. Needless to say, we weren’t up there for very long. We then found a street that had a lot of artsy-type shops, much like the uptown area of Minneapolis. Though, by this point, it was already 6:30 or so, and all of the shops were closed; so we could only window shop, we found a few places that we wanted to return to the following day when they’d be open. But after walking a considerable distance, we found a restaurant that reminded us of Gustavus, and that was a restaurant named Patrick’s (there is a bar/restaurant in St. Peter with the same name…). We decided that was reason enough to eat there. It was an Irish bar, with good food. I, for some reason, was craving a hamburger (even though I avoid beef, mostly) so I got the biggest hamburger they had (I wasn’t disappointed).
After Patrick’s, we didn’t know what to do, so we went to some random bar across the street and had a few drinks, before returning back to the hotel.


Monday, April 6th:

This was our last full day in Stockholm. So we decided that after visiting the shops we had seen on the previous day, that we were going to go to an area of Stockholm known as Djurgården, where there is an open-air museum called Skansen. Its pretty much the whole country of Sweden condensed onto a large island. What I mean is that there are houses, farms, traditional shops from all parts of Sweden, north to south. So there were traditional Sami houses, farms that you can find in northern and southern Sweden, a glass blowing factory (really cool), an old fashioned general store, cafés, restaurants, gift shops, and a zoo, featuring animals found in Sweden (and throughout Europe). We spent most of our time there looking at the animals (and watching the glass blower..). The animals they had, were, bears, European bison, foxes, reindeer, wolves, badgers, owls, and elk, among others.
After spending several hours there, our feet were tiring (mine mostly…), so we returned to Gamla Stan, where Shawn wanted to buy some gifts for friends and family. But before we took care of those errands, we stopped at a café to get a drink and relax before continuing on with our day. When we had finished the brief refresher, we scoured Gamla Stan looking for what she wanted to get. She ended up getting herself and her mom matching Norwegian sweaters, hand painted wooden clogs (painted in the same style as a Dalahorse), and a few polo shirts for her father and grandfather.
Once we had sufficient time for shopping, we were quite understandably hungry from a full day of activity, so we found a restaurant, again on Gamla Stan, to eat at. At the restaurant, we had the most interesting waiter either of us had ever had. He was from Italy but now lives in Sweden. But what made him so interesting was his language. He was fluent in Italian, English, Swedish, French, and Spanish… but it was almost like he couldn’t separate the languages so when he would speak, we would get a mixture of all five in the same sentence. We often were confused by what he was saying, because of his language fluctuations. After eating, we wanted dessert again, so we went to this random place and ate there.



Tuesday, April 7th:

On this day, we had hoped to take a cruise around the Stockholm archipelago, so we specifically got up early and went to the terminal where the boat leaves from only to find out the only ship of the day had left about 45 minutes before our arrival. So unfortunately we were unable to do that, so instead we went to the city hall of Stockholm, the place where they hold the Nobel dinner each December, only to find that the last English tour had left less than ten minutes before our arrival. So we had to walk around the facilities on our own.
Funny side note, when we were in the gift shop, I was playing with this candle-mobile, and was blowing on it, to make it spin, when the mobile went crashing to the floor. Shawn, being the great friend she is, immediately walked away from me and left me to fend for myself. Thanks Shawn.Then we went to the largest department store in Sweden, Åhléns.
After this we returned to the hotel to gather our things to get ready to go to Uppsala.

Unfortunately, I am going to have to leave it here, I will write the next part of the entry within the next two days, I promise!!

Hejdå,

Andrew