Oops! Forgot I had a blog. Heh.
We had a really nice trip to Stockholm, though we missed Martin. Karin, unfortunately, was sick with a really bad cold the entire time: fever on the way up, coughing, sore throat, stuffed head, the works. We drugged her up and made her go with us everywhere though 😀 The weather couldn’t have been better. Friday was bright and glorious sunshine with blue skies and chill temperatures. Saturday it was cloudier and felt colder though it actually wasn’t. It only drizzled on us once, but we didn’t care because we were having fun.
It was a very museumy weekend. We stayed at the LÃ¥ngholmen prison hostel that we stayed at once before, only in one of the “nice” rooms (bunkbed and a trundle). Found a nice breakfast place (Cafe Vurma) a few blocks away and right over from the subway station. We went to the ABBA museum on Friday, which was way too expensive but a fun museum with a bonus Eurovision exhibition. It was fun, especially since ABBA was a huge part of my early musical life, living in Europe in the 70s. The wax figures of them were pretty creepy, though…they were SO realistic, I kept expecting them to move.
Then we took the ferry over to old town and walked around for awhile. I went to the scifi bookstore and then we drove to the HUGE Mall of Scandinavia (biggest damn mall I have ever seen) where Karin bought shoes (SURPRISE!) at the Nike store and a nice blouse, and Anders found a jacket at Naturcompaniet and then we ate sushi at one of the many nice restaurants there.
On Saturday we went to Fotografiska which is a fantastic photography gallery. They had a huge exhibition by Paul Hansen, the photojournalist who has been in pretty much every conflict zone around the world, ever. They also had extended the “Last Night in Sweden” exhibition, which we really wanted to see. It was a Kickstarter project started in response to Trump’s comments during the campaign about Sweden, when nothing had actually happened, and comprises photos from around the country of what was REALLY happening: real life, no drama 🙂 They also had a huge exhibition called the Autumn Salon which was a curated selection of photos from 31 different Nordic photographers. It was GREAT.
After that, we walked back to Old Town, had lunch in a fantastic little cafe (Cronan: excellent Caesar salad and to-die-for mushroom soup) and then went to Hallwylska House, which is a museum in an 19th century mansion whose owners were basically hoarders collectors of every thing you can possibly imagine. Most of it stuff we didn’t really care about: tons of ceramics, swords, early guns, sculpture, porcelain, figurines, etc. All of it rather ugly. I mostly felt sympathy for the maids who had to dust all that shit before the invention of glass display cases & cabinets. The only thing we appreciated about it was that it was free (if you didn’t take a guided tour).
After that we found our way out to the edge of the industrial ports, where Karin had found out about an exhibit of Street Art called Magic City. It was literally out in the middle of NOWHERE, at the end of the area where the cargo ferries come in, in a huge warehouse, and it turned out to be absolutely super. We got there an hour before closing time, after walking for a long way from the bus stop (30 minutes) and we had just exactly enough time to see the whole thing. It was everything about the growing trend of street art around the world, from graffiti to public sculptures to murals to yarnbombing to trash art installations. It was EXCELLENT.
Trash art installation by Bordalo II, my favorite!
We couldn’t get into Stampen which was our original plan as it was packed with people enjoying the blues jam. Anders and I went there on our first trip to Stockholm over 20 years ago, but no go on the nostalgia trip, sadly. We were pretty hungry by then and didn’t have any other ideas so we ended up in the first place we found that had an okay-sounding menu and prices that weren’t sky-high. My pasta dish was really good but Anders was disappointed with his meal. Karin got ryggbiff (steak) so she was happy. We then went back to the hotel so Karin could go to bed early, nursing her cold.
We left Sunday morning after breakfast and a stop at a used-clothing store, where Karin picked up an Armani jacket for $80 and drove the 6.5 hours home. But I was really bummed because we made it to the Moose Store on the highway 15 minutes AFTER it closed. Figures! She got an Armani and I got nothing! haha!
Work has been nuts. I’ve been doing really well dieting, lost nearly 4 more kilos (Stockholm was not so helpful) so far, and still plugging along. Got my hair done tonight and tomorrow is choir, and Friday Anders’ mom has invited us all over for MÃ¥rtens Goose dinner. But no other plans this weekend, except that it’s Father’s Day on Sunday so I’d better get to the store soon and figure out something!