Hej, Swedenland!

For the sake of continuity, I really should pretend that my trip to Sweden was inspired by my very positive experience at IKEA this summer, but the truth is that Barbara and I, being equally stingy travelers, based our destination decision solely upon flight prices. Thanks to RyanAir, we managed to narrow it down to either Stockholm or Bologna, and eventually decided that, since it would be cold no matter what, we might as well go big and head up north.

Somehow, despite the constantly freezing temperatures and the 16 hours of darkness that characterize Stockholm in November, the Swedish people manage to stay surprisingly upbeat. Maybe it's thanks to the government-subsidized UV rooms, but they were definitely the friendliest people we had ever encountered in Europe. Example: in the subway on the way to our hostel, a young woman fell, rather violently, on top of an old lady, who responded by laughing, pushing her off, and giving her a pat on the butt before sending her on her way. What?! In Paris, if you fall on anyone, the very least you can expect is a harsh reprimand and the silent judgement of the entire metro car.

Since it was late when we got to Stockholm, Barbara and I basically just walked around for a bit and had dinner at a very Swedish restaurant--Pizza Hut. I am less ashamed than I should be about this because food in Sweden is even more expensive than food in Paris, and we were in no position to go turning down a "cheap" meal, however American it may have been. Besides, the menu was written in Swedish (at least until we had the sense to ask for an English one), so we had a bit of a cultural experience trying to translate it. Anyway, Pizza Hut, like most American restaurant chains, is much classier in Europe than in the US. It's the same for McDonald's, which Stockholm seems to LOVE (at least one on every block, no exaggeration)--the restaurants are bigger, the food is photographed on a white background devoid of flames, and, at least in Paris, carrots are used as wall decor.

Our waiter was really nice and helpful. He actually seemed to LIKE that we were anglophones and took great pleasure in telling us that he wanted to go to America and to Australia until he watched the Discovery Channel and A&E and learned that he would be mugged in the US and mauled by wild animals down under. He also gave us free coffee and some recommendations for places to go during our visit, and, naturally, his number in case we had any questions about Stockholm.

So ended our first night in Sweden. We went back to the hostel and fell asleep watching As Good as It Gets and Paris Hilton's My British Best Friend. A bit cushy for a hostel, I know, but, in all fairness, our room was literally a prison cell. I mean literally-literally--the hostel was an old prison. Here is some photographic evidence, care of Barbara's facebook:

View from the bunk bed

Guillotine mirror

Fitting in

Sunday morning we saw Stockholm in the daylight for the first time. Since the sun sets unreasonably early up north in autumn, we had been in darkness since we arrived the afternoon before and, as a result, really enjoyed our morning walk to the next hostel. Here are some scenic highlights:

On Sunday, we also managed to make it to go see the Vasa, a 17th-century Swedish warship which sank on its
maiden voyage. It's almost a Titanic story, except no iceberg. The glorious Vasa, pride of Sweden, sank, not even out of the bay, when it was struck by a "slight gust of wind." Not even a mighty gust...a breeze. It sat at the bottom of the sea for three centuries until it was recovered and restored in the 1960s. Despite it's somewhat-embarassing (and tragic) history, it is still a really amazing, if aquadynamically (this may not be a real word) unsound, ship because it is the oldest one in the world. This is what it looks like now:


And this is what it would have looked like in the 1600s:


(Can you tell I've gotten better at posting pictures? I learned a trick!)

Sunday night we explored Old Town a bit, made free hostel pasta for dinner, and embarrassed ourselves in front of French tourists by devouring a giant bag of salt and vinegar chips and drinking light beer. We woke up early the next morning and took a ferry to an open-air museum that is meant to recreate traditional Swedish life. It was its off-season, but most of the animals were still there (not the wolverines, though, and I will never get over my disappointment) and a few of the buildings were open. We took about a thousand pictures of bears and pigs and saw a a glass-blowing show which blew my mind. The whole excursion took about three hours and was a lot of fun despite the biting cold.


The rest of the day was much less successful. After arriving at City Hall too late to see the Nobel Prize rooms and getting rejected from a Vampire Bar because we were under 23, we decided to go see not one, but TWO movies: Up and Capitalism: A Love Story. There was nothing at all Swedish about this activity, but we had a good time and were secretly delighted to be out of the cold. I cried my way through the first movie and hid my way through the second--nothing is more uncomfortable than being the only American in a theatre full of Swedes watching Michael Moore criticize capitalism.

That was basically the end of our trip. After we fought our way through the wind and cold back to the hostel, we slept for about 4 hours and woke up to catch our flight home.