Solo in Stockholm

I am back from the land of the blonde and beautiful, and I have never felt more brunette in my life.

I left Friday afternoon for Stockholm, just me, myself and I. I've been itching to take advantage of Ryan Air's amazing flight deals since I've been here; I want to see as many faraway places as possible while they're at my doorstep. Sweden didn't hold enough lure for anyone else to join me, but I thought traveling alone for a weekend would be a good test for my travel after my program is done. 

I flew into Sweden's Skavsta Airport, which is about 80 minutes outside of Stockholm. Ryan Air typically travels to smaller, farther out airports, but for the price it's worth the hassle. I just booked a flight to Paris for 1 pence total - unbelievable! They're a no frills airline, but totally legit from my experience, although it is a little startling to hear advertisements blasted over the speaker system in flight.

After arriving I took a bus into the city and then a taxi to my hostel. It wasn't far away and I'm all for public transportation, but I didn't feel safe walking at night in an unknown city. The driver took me here, to my hostel on the sea:

[caption id="attachment_201" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="My boat hostel."][/caption]

What could be more Scandanavian than staying on a boat? It was pretty cool, just saying. When I awoke in the morning, I went up to the top deck and had a great view of Stockholm's old town.

[caption id="attachment_203" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="My view."][/caption]

"Holm" means island in Swedish, and Stockholm is a city composed of many islands connected by bridges.  My hostel was on a small island called Skeppsholmen and was very near to Gamla Stan, the island containing the old town.  I crossed the bridge and walked around Gamla Stan's narrow cobblestone streets, stopping for hot chocolate and apple strudel at a bakery cafe (which my guidebook said was an essential Swedish experience) and visited the palace's very beautiful chapel. 

[caption id="attachment_204" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="I thought the swans seemed very Swedish."][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_205" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Gamla Stan street."][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_207" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="The royal chapel."][/caption]

With some time to kill before the palace opened, I decided it would be fun to take a boat tour of all the waterways to get an idea of the scope of the city. We made our way away from the main islands out to the less populated ones, one of which has a total of four inhabitants. The tour guide gave us some information about Sweden's public services, which as a political junkie I enjoyed. The income tax rate is around 30%, but almost every facet of life is taken care of by the government. One thing I found really interesting: Swedish women and men are both allowed to take up to 480 days off following the birth of a baby, and are required to be paid 80% of their income for the first 300 days. 

The next stop was the palace, which has the most rooms of any royal residence in the world. I toured the opulent state apartments, a hokey museum, and the royal treasury, which holds the crown jewels. They're particularly crazy about King Gustav III - I had never heard of him, shame on me. One thing I really liked was seeing the room where the Nobel Prize winners have a dinner following their receipt of the awards. 

[caption id="attachment_208" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="The palace."][/caption]

I then walked to Sodermalm, the young 'n hip island, and peeked into a bustling food marketplace. While knowing German helped me quite a bit in Sweden, the food words confused me endlessly and I didn't want to be the annoying American who held up everyone to have the entire menu explained to her. So I settled on a place where the pictures spoke for themselves:

[caption id="attachment_210" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Swedish fast food, I likes it."][/caption]

Stockholm is full of these "korv" stands, and as a sausage fan I was in hog heaven. I got a sausage and two lumps of mashed potatos with spices and ate happily while watching people in the square.

[caption id="attachment_214" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Since I couldn't take pictures of myself, I took pictures of my food."][/caption]

I looked around Sodermalm a bit (it's elevated and has very nice views of the city), and then went to the Kungsgarden, a park in central Stockholm. It wasn't that impressive of a park, but one thing I loved seeing was the outdoor ice rink. Free entry and a minimal cost to rent skates (but I'm sure most Swedes have their own).  I love watching ice skating and skating myself, but since I was solo and very, very cold by that point I decided to skip it.

[caption id="attachment_213" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Any culture that likes ice skating is a culture I like."][/caption]

Saturday night was pretty uneventful. I didn't want to go out alone and politely declined an invitation from my male hostel mate to party late into the night with him and two other guys, so I stayed in and made a good dent in Twilight. I was expecting it to be a page turner from all the hype, but I was disappointed: low level writing, a somewhat uneventful plot, bad messages for girls. I am not in love with Edward Cullen!

On Sunday I went to Skansen, a huge open air museum on Djurgarden Island that contains a traditional Swedish village and animals. I enjoyed seeing the Swedish horses and strangely skinny pigs, but I think it's a place one should go with children. The rest of the day included me having two more sausages (one from 7-Eleven which are strangely popular in Stockholm), walking around some more, seeing some nice art at the National Museum, and finishing Twilight at the Kulturhusset, a building that has cafes, a theater, museums, and a reading room. 

[caption id="attachment_216" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Isn't she a pretty one?"][/caption]

I was all pumped that I had managed to travel alone, enjoy myself, and not be in sketchy situations, but the trip was far from over. My flight was delayed at Skavsta due to a "passenger who has a problem which will prevent him from flying with us," and when I got to Glasgow's Prestwick Airport, the train to the Central Station didn't arrive for over an hour. Then, we were told there was work being done on the line, so we took the train only a few stops and had to get on a slow-moving bus to a stop farther down the line, and then had to get back on the train. This mess put me at Central around 1 am, far too late to catch a train back to Edinburgh.

I was the last person in the station (someone actually escorted me out) and I wandered the streets of Glasgow frantic until I found the Euro Hostel, stayed there for a few hours and then caught the 6 am train to Edinburgh, showered, and then went to my first day of work. Whew! A big thanks here to the great guy I called in my panic who helped me figure things out. It wasn't such a fun time to be alone.

Random musings about Sweden, and the experience in general:

- Not everyone was blonde, but I did see alot of very tall, very thin, very pretty blonde women.

- The people weren't unfriendly, but they certainly weren't as friendly as the Scottish or the Taiwanese.

- Apart from the horror of Sunday night, my least favorite part of traveling alone was staying in the hostel by myself, especially because all of my roommates were men. Also, it would have been nice to have someone to share the experience with. 

- I'm always amazed when I travel at the influence American culture has had on the rest of the world. The ice skaters in the park skated to Cold Play, someone's ring tone in the Kulturhusset was the "Bad Boys" song, and as is true everywhere, there were a large number of American fast food establishments.

- No sightings of Swedish fish, but I did have a Swedish gummy candy that I think is the real Swedish equivalent.

Work has been good so far, but after getting berated about it yesterday, most of what I do is off limits for the blogosphere. Generally I've just been doing alot of research, writing briefings, and otherwise helping the reasearch team do what they need to do. It's parliamentary recess this week, so things should really pick up next week when the MSPs are back in the building.

On a closing note, I'm now much more tolerant of the weather in Edinburgh after spending the weekend in a much colder place. The sun was out today, and I hope it comes back soon.