Stockholm

Now that it's been a week since I got back from Stockholm, I figured it was time for a blog post. Between the work that I should be doing and continuing to discover Paris, it's been hard to find time to blog.

But anyway, Stockholm was pretty marvelous. It's an incredibly beautiful city made up of a bunch of islands connected by a ton of bridges. Chris, my travel partner, and I were able to mooch off of a friend-of-a-friend and stayed for free in an apartment just outside the city. We would take the subway, called the Tunnelbana, each morning into the city proper where we would spend most of our time walking around Gamla Stan (the old town island) and Sodermalm, the young, artsy area. We made frequent stops to Fika, a word that a Swede told us meant "coffee with a little more." When we asked what "a little more" meant, she said that it included "eating pastries and socializing with friends." Chris and I were quite impressed that the Swedes have a four letter word that expresses so much, and thus spent a good portion of our trip honoring this Swedish past time.

We also visited several museums, including the modern art museum and the national gallery, both of which I liked a lot. Another highlight included going to a bar one night and being pleasantly surprised to find a post-party for a Swedish hip-hop festival. (This was strange because apparently the festival had taken place several months ago.) Anyway, some of the rappers were pretty good. (The Swede's speak English so well they can even rap in it.) I wasn't as impressed, however, by the guy who put on a ski-mask and started screaming "Mosh." But to each his own, I suppose.

But perhaps the best part was just listening to people speak Swedish—very entertaining. In conclusion, I was very taken with Stockholm and definitely recommend it to anyone traveling through Europe.

(pictures below)