Stockholm, Sept. 28-31

Stockholm is an incredible city. It feels like a very small city, although it stretches quite far. I believe that it is the old part of the city, Gamla Stan that gives it this amazingly quaint feeling. The ridiculously narrow, old cobblestone streets wind around the only hill in the entire city, making me feel like I’m in the middle ages. The buildings lining the streets are all painted yellows, oranges and reds, giving the old city a bright feel that must be very necessary in the cold, dark months of winter.


Getting around in Stockholm is very easy because they have a fabulous subway system (Tunnelbana), which even has art installations at each of the stops along the Blue Line. We got an easy 72 hour pass, and then were able to go anywhere on the trains for the whole weekend. We arrived in the city around noon after taking a very short flight up there (flying can actually be cheaper than taking the train in a lot of cases). We met up with Johan, a guy who I met in my corridor, but who transferred up to Stockholm for school. It was very nice to have someone to tell us about the city in greater detail than our Lonely Planet could. We followed a walking tour that the guidebook told us about, and Johan added a lot, telling us that we were standing outside of the everyday residence of the Prime Minister! We saw the building where all of the Nobel Prizes are presented, except for the Peace Prize, which is given in Oslo, Norway. The whole city is an archipelago, so everywhere we went we were crossing bridges and looking at the water.


Apparently the water here is so clean that you could drink it, although it is not suggested that you try. Johan told us a story about when Stockholm was in the running to host the Olympics and each city made a promotional film to try to lure it to their city and an official in Stockholm jumped into the water, proving that it is safe to swim in and then started drinking the water to prove how clean it is. Needless to say, we did not go swimming because the temperature was very cold on Friday. To warm up, we got some coffee at a very cute little café in one of the Torgets (squares). Friday was very successful in terms of sightseeing and it felt like we walked all over the city, even though it was only a small part.


On Saturday Maria and another friend Zane, who was also visiting Stockholm, and I snuck into a cross-country race, Lidingö Loppet, which is considered the biggest one in the world. We had been thinking about registering for it, but race-day registration was quite expensive, so we just decided to run anyway. We hiked up the trail a ways because we couldn’t start with everyone since we didn’t have numbers. I just ran a 4K loop, but Maria and Zane did the 10K loop. It was a lot of fun, but it was a little wet out, however much warmer than Friday. This ended up being the most productive thing we did all day since we spent the rest of it with a group of people from Lund who were visiting to, and trying to figure out what to do with a huge group of people can be rather challenging!



On Sunday we went to the History Museum and learned about Vikings and their crazy violence, and then went to a huge outdoor museum, Skansen, that consisted of a zoo as well as many historical buildings with people dressed up for the time periods. Maria and I spent the whole afternoon exploring Skansen, and it turned out to be the Fall Festival because it was the last day that it was open for the season. It was also Apple Day as we found out and we got to roast some apples over a fire and then eat them with cinnamon and sugar.


There was a tent with over 400 varieties of apples, amazing! Skansen is a beautiful representation of Swedish history through buildings and culture. They have artisans blowing glass, working at a book press, blacksmithing, and making the best smelling baked goods in the world.


Because it was the Fall Festival, there was a huge outdoor market place where that looked a lot like a town fair in Vermont. Maria and I had to play in the hay for a little while, of course!














I was very impressed by the fact that there were historically-dressed people washing all of the dishes from the different food stands, with water that was being heated in a very ancient looking wood-burning stove. I don’t know if everyone will find that as interesting as I do, but in the US disposable paper or plastic plates and utensils are used when dealing with that many people, or a dishwasher comes into play at some point. Another amazing feature of Skansen is the Scandinavian Animals. I got to see a bear, a reindeer, a lynx, and a lot of other amazing animals. One of the most typical Swedish souvenirs is a painted wooden horse, and Maria and I found a life-size one and had quite a hart time getting up on it, but with the help of some other tourists we managed to climb up and have them take our photo.


All in all, it was a fabulous trip, although our accommodations were pretty expensive for what they were. We flew back to Lund on Monday morning, so we really got three whole days to explore the city. I would go back to Stockholm in a second, but I am still very content with the little city of Lund!