Our Scandinavia Adventure: Day Five (4 August)

Our 7.5-hour overnight train trip from Copenhagen to Stockholm was, well, not full of much sleep. Every time I just about fell asleep, the train sped up, slowed down, or went around a particularly sharp bend, and I was jostled awake. After probably only two or three hours of sleep, I woke up around 5:00 A.M., absolutely boiling in our tiny room with the body heat of six people and very little ventilation, and spent the last few hours of the trip wandering through other carriages, even standing at the very back of the train for a bit as we raced through fog

and scenery that looked exactly like the landscapes of Newfoundland's national parks. Bob slept even less than I did, and so we found ourselves in Stockholm, a bit disoriented and kind of stunned to be in our third capital city in five days. We walked to our hotel, but our room wasn't ready yet (no surprise, since we got there around 7:30 A.M.), so we just left our bag, got some of our new currency from a "Bankomat" (I love the 50 kronor note),
and set off for an early-morning wander, heading toward the 13th-century old town of Gamla Stan. Our first impression of Stockholm was slightly skewed since the streets were completely deserted so early on a Saturday, and during the rest of our visit, we returned to many of these same streets and they were always completely packed with people, with an altogether different atmosphere. I have to say though--I quite enjoyed the quiet face of Stockholm during the early morning hours!
We walked down a narrow alleyway to find ourselves at this courtyard that belonged to the apartments circling it
and we soon realised why Gamla Stan is so touristed--its quaint, cobbled, narrow streets and passages in all their hues of orange and yellow are lovely, especially when you have them all to yourself!

This particular intersection has some unusual features, including a cannon and an ancient rune stone at one corner,
and some metal grates on another corner.
The cannon is thought to have been placed here some centuries ago in order to protect the rune stone from damage by passing wagons and the metal grills do the same for the opposing buildings' walls. Remember how I said that we had the streets all to ourselves? Well, that was almost true:
A group of dedicated Korean tourists were also up and wandering early this morning, and just as we left the intersection, the tour guide led her group to the same intersection and began telling them the same story about the cannon and rune stone that we had just read in our guidebook. Stortorget, Gamla Stan's main square, was especially nice,

and we never saw it as quiet ever again.


Even the vegetation in Gamla Stan is at its picture-perfect best:

This is the narrowest alleyway in Gamla Stan, usually crammed full of tourists.
In the middle of the passage, someone's put up this sign:
Here's the view from the other end of the passage:
We passed by the birthplace of artist Carl Larsson,

and wandered some more

before realising that we needed some breakfast if we were going to stay awake much longer! We ended up at this lovely bakery on Stortorget,
where we had just-made pastries and strong coffees to attempt a proper start to the day. We later found out that the bakery donates its profits to a charity that benefits the homeless, and I think that's what the bag (or in this case, my cappuccino) is saying:

Soon after we finished breakfast, the birds appeared in search of crumbs and all the lazy tourists who had been asleep in their comfy beds (okay, I was just a little bit envious) arrived to take over Gamla Stan.
A very different array of birds congregated in this apartment's courtyard,
and I'm still not sure about the significance of this plaque, but I liked the collage of tools in its centre:
This tree also struck me as lovely, but why is it here?
This pump appeared to work, although after a few loud squeaks, I stopped trying to get any water.

We left Gamla Stan and wandered for a little bit through Södermalm, which would end up being our favourite Stockholm neighbourhood, joining the ranks of Oslo's Grünerløkka and Copenhagen's Nørrebro. We sat for a while in a wonderfully serene park cemetery (notice the double bike rails)


before wandering through a few of Södermalm's many clothing, homewares, and design shops (even gazing down at the sidewalk once in a while).
This beautiful park beckoned us for a picnic, but we decided to have lunch at this homey Italian place instead.
Perfect sandwiches, my favourite drink, and a pile of help-yourself salad definitely hit the spot.
The coffee shop across the street looked busy and tempting, but we decided not to overload on coffee just yet, thinking we'd return to have coffee here later during our visit (but somehow never did).
Fika is our new favourite word, featured in this sign, which I think lets passers-by know that they can fika at this shop (a fair-trade Salvation Army shop whose coffee shop looked like a new addition).
Pronounced something like "ffilka," with the L-sound as rolled as you can make it, fika basically means sitting around, taking a break, enjoying coffee, pastries, and conversation with your friends--all in one tidy little word! Apparently originating from 19th-century slang, which often reversed the syllables of words (coffee in Swedish is kaffe, and used to be kaffi, so ka-ffi reversed became fi-ka!), fika can be a verb ("Let's fika!") or a noun (when talking about the delicious consumables that make up fika). Just think about what that means about the mindset of a culture that there is one word in the language to connote all that, and that fika is considered to be an important societal component . . . it seems so elegant, so cosy, so relaxing. "Fika?" Bob and I would ask each other at various times of the day, and the reply was always, "Okay!" Another interesting cultural phenomenon we witnessed in all three cities was that children were often left alone in their strollers, with adults nowhere to be seen:

The funniest instance of this was at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek yesterday in Copenhagen, when we took the elevator to the roof deck. When the doors opened, a toddler was asleep in her stroller by the elevator and there was no one else in the silent foyer--the mum was out on roof deck, with her child out of sight. It's sad how we've been conditioned by terrible events, but my first thought upon seeing the child was that it would be so easy to wheel the stroller into the elevator and disappear. Perhaps the Scandinavian attitude is just an indication of a different societal mentality toward how much protection children need? In any case, it was kind of nice, even though it took a bit of getting used to. After a bit more walking, we were both craving hot showers (no such luxury for us "just nu badd-ers") and a bit of a comfy sit, so we started heading back toward the hotel in anticipation of being able to check in by the time we arrived. The sights of Södermalm
and from Södermalm
made us eager to return, and we walked through Gamla Stan again
which was slowly filling up with people,
but was still relatively quiet.

Stockholm's shop windows were always attractively arranged, no matter what the shop was selling,
and I especially liked the prominent placement of this shop's puppy amongst the array of secondhand goods for sale. (Does the stuffed puppy at the right count?)

Another nice part of the urban landscape in Stockholm is the decoration of utility boxes--sometimes as mini-houses,

and also with more fanciful designs.


Running out of energy at this point, Bob figured we were about fifteen minutes away from the hotel
when we noticed a huge crowd gathering along our route.

"Oh, oh, is there going to be some kind of parade?" we wondered, and sure enough, there was: it was an enormous gay-pride parade!
Since we lived in Vancouver's West End, where the pride parade route went practically right past our house, we didn't really feel the need to linger in our sleep-deprived state, and only stuck around for as long as it took us to cross the parade route (which we had to do in order to get to our hotel). Finally, around 3:00 P.M. (which felt more like bedtime to us than the middle of the afternoon) we checked in and were pleased to find a room that perfectly suited our needs, with nice colours, a super-comfy bed,
ample space (for a European hotel room),
and two bottles of complimentary sparkling water. (In fact, Loka ended up becoming a favourite of ours, and if you like lemon at all, I highly recommend their citron water, which has the nicest lemon flavour I've ever had in bottled water. Even Bob, who can generally take or leave lemon flavours, agreed it was something special.)
We were especially pleased with our room since I had negotiated a deal on our stay, with the hotel putting us into what would normally be a single room at a greatly reduced price. With breakfast included, and the hotel known for its sense of design and comfort, we went for it with the price in mind, although we both worried that a European single room would be very very very tiny. It turned out that we worried for nothing, since our so-called single room was in fact much bigger and more comfortable than "double" rooms we've stayed in elsewhere in Europe! Anyway, as you might be able to predict,

Bob had a shower and then fell asleep while I had my shower, and then I thought, "Oh, oh, I wonder how long he's going to sleep," about a minute before I fell asleep too. After our nap, we decided to head back onto the Stockholm streets, just getting a feel for various neighbourhoods and ending up having a delicious picnic in a park filled with picnickers (if there's one thing we learned on this trip, it's that Scandinavians really know how to picnic!) and, in an almost over-the-top, isn't-this-just-too-perfect-and-quaint touch, quite a few bunnies hopping around the blankets.
With our tummies full, we slowly headed back to the hotel to fully shake off our previous night's just nu badd in the comfort of our heavenly bed, impressed with what we'd seen of Stockholm so far and looking forward to spending more time in this fascinating city.