Stockholm - Days 177-180

Stockholm is super awesome, and I haven't had a chance to tell y'all about it since I haven't had a computer to work on. So now I have to recall what I've done for the past 4 days...

I'll start with my cool host, John, who is coincidentally another American traveling through Stockholm. A tech guy who grew up in California and has been working for Facebook the last couple of years. Much like myself, he quit his job and decided to travel a bit since he never got to do it when he was "young." Unlike myself, he's taking it easy and spending a bit of time in each place, which is how he came to be a host in Stockholm. John is renting a small apartment through airbnb.com and reached out to me after I posted on the Stockholm Emergency Couch Request page. Plus the apartment he's renting is in Stockholm's version of SoHo and is very bohemian.

So the first day we decided to grab lunch at the perpetually packed deli downstairs and the cheapest thing I could find on the menu was a $15 foie gras. Foie gras does not a lunch make but it was really delicious. Stockholm is made up of over a dozen islands so one can almost always see the water and some sort of skyline. John and I walked around the narrow streets of Gamla Stan (Old Town) and also the wider boulevards and shops in the city center around Central Station. Not only is the city itself gorgeous, but its inhabitants as well. People walk around looking like models with their perfectly put together style and coiffed hair. Great place to people watch :)

Day two we took the commuter train out to Sigtuna, about 90 minutes outside of the city. It is the first town in Sweden and the official slogan is: "Sigtuna, where Sweden begins." It didn't take long to see all of where Sweden began. There was one main street and some churches, ruins, and a lakefront. There were scattered rain clouds, and the day was alternating between periods of heavy downpour and brilliant sunshine. That evening I was supposed to meet up with a Chinese girl who had been living in Stockholm for the past eight years. She wasn't able to host but suggested we meet anyway after work. And her name is Ping... So John made a little sign that said "Ping Jing" and I said "you hold it." The downside of surfing with another fellow tourist is that no one has a local phone. 6pm came and went and despite our best efforts with the sign, Ping and Jing were not able to locate each other. By 6:15, I just went up to a stranger and asked to borrow his phone. Turns out Ping was standing about 10 meters from us the whole time, and we didn't recognize each other because we were both too dark. I was looking for a "Chinese" looking girl and she is constantly mistaken for being Thai. On her part, she knew that I was from Dalian and assumed I'd be fair-skinned. But let's be honest, I'm really not and 6 months of traveling hasn't helped. We had a good laugh though :) Had coffee together and then met up with some other CSers for a nightcap.

Then day three John and I borrowed the actual apartment owner's bikes to ride around town. We had originally planned a much longer route but the bike I had was so uncomfortable and difficult to ride that I suggested a revised itinerary. Again, there was scattered rain clouds so we ended up dodging the rain by ducking into various free museums. First was the Dance Museum, then a guided tour of the Swedish Parliament, and finally the Architecture Museum. During the Parliament tour, a lady asked what percentage of the Parliament is female and the guide said 47%, to which her response was "wow good." The guide quipped with a straight face, "Why is that good? That's the minority."

And with that, I'll end my entry on Stockholm and Sweden :) Managed to make it a week in the country without eating one meatball or setting foot inside an IKEA.

Munso - Days 174-176

The ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm turned out to be a mini-cruise of sorts. I was expecting a no frills "transport" experience with bunks but the boat itself was a retired cruise ship and had all of the things that go along with it. There was a promenade deck with restaurants and shops, a buffet (at €37), a sundeck, car decks, a casino, and of course a tax free shop. The tax free normally wouldn't mean much but since alcohol is so heavily taxed in the Scandinavian countries, people were going crazy. The boat departed at 5pm and by 9pm the trash bins were filled with empty bottles and you couldn't throw a casino chip without hitting a drunk person. I later found out that some people just use it as a party boat and take the immediate next return trip and drink themselves silly both ways. It's pretty affordable in that regard. My shared 4 bed female cabin was €44 one way and quite comfortable, but I had a had time finding it at first because it was located on level 2, even below the two car decks. So it was dark, damp, but not dirty.

I arrived in Stockholm at 9:30am and went directly to my host's place in Munso/Ekero, about an hour outside of the city. Everything was super easy but I'm just going to complain once more about the insane costs in Scandinavia. A metro ticket costs 36 Kroner, which is the equivalent of a little over 5 USD - an one way ticket, not a day ticket! Sofia, my host, is an illustrator and graphic designer and is spending the summer in Ekero at her family's summer cottage. It's a quaint, cozy home surrounded by fields, walking trails and a couple of nearby lakes...and it is very primitive.

There is running water inside the home but no bathroom and no hot water. So we have to walk around to the outhouse and use the toilet there. It is basically an octagonal hut with a big wooden platform/storage drunk with two holes carved out and removable lids. Sofia says the waste just decomposes and once in a while they go around the back and pull out the drawers and give the goodies to the farmer next door :) Of course there are no showers, so you can rinse yourself with a hose, bathe in the nearby lake, or boil water if necessary. Not the most convenient place, but I really love it. 

Staying here is really helping me unwind and enjoy tranquility at its best. The first day was a bit rainy so I sat around and read and learned to play her little yellow ukulele. Then yesterday was perfect weather so we put up the hammocks and literally hung out for a couple hours just taking in the sun. Took a bike ride through the countryside to the lake and swam in the freezing water, picked some wild chanterelle mushrooms at viking graves and cooked them for dinner. Helped her make a compost bin, picked wild strawberries, watched a movie.