Day 2 15/3/08 - Sweden

Stockholm

Highlight

• The weather was quite bad, being very cold and overcast and it even snowed!
• The hotel breakfast was very boring, but they had some very nice bread.
• Caught the train to wonder around as things don’t open that early.
• Skogokyrkogargen Cemetery, the most picturesque cemetery I’ve been to, with tall pine trees and fresh flower beds. It’s famous for its architecture and Greta Garbo’s grave, which was really unexciting.
• Continued on the Garbo trail, to the place where she spent her childhood at Blekingegatan 32. There was a bust there to commemorate her, but otherwise, there was nothing there. At least you could observe suburban life though.
• Back on the tourist, past the seaside, to Katarina Kyrka, where you can observe some of the “old style” houses before they were knocked off.
• The church itself was yellow and beautiful, but it was burnt and rebuilt.
• Another church, Maria Magdalena Kyrka, was just about the same as the other one, so that was boring.
• Stockholm’s Stadmuseum is one of the only free museums left in the city, but the displays were modern and interesting. We learned about Stockholm’s history.
• Up Katarina Hissen for a view of the city. Had to walk though as we didn’t want to pay money for the lift.
• Wanted to go to Ostemalms Saluhall, the famous foodmarket for lunch, but a misprint on Lonely Planet meant we went on a wild goose chase instead, waited for ages for the bus, only to find that the stop we were supposed to go to turned out to be a museum!
• Bumped into Linus, who was here for the weekend, and he invited us to drinks.
• By the time we got back, it was 1:30, and sat down to an extremely good meal. We didn’t want to eat too much as we had booked dinner, but we did get a coffee at a recommended place (which turned out to be not that great).
• The 40 minutes we wasted on the wild goose chase meant that we had less time to shop as most close around 4-5pm and don’t open on Sundays.
• We managed to hit:
  • Judits Secondhand - v cool and hip, with the whole SoFo area vibe.
  • 10 Swedish Designers – funky fabrics
  • Designtorget – closest to Ikea we found
  • Nitty Gritty – very expensive and out there, combining clothes, music, books, a hairdresser and a cafe
• Byt this time a lto of stores were closing, so we wondered around a few clothing stores (btw, H&M are everywhere, but it’s quite popular and stock different stuff to what you get in the UK).
• Made it to Chokladfabriken just before they closed, got a very good hot chocolate and some truffles. The place was very full and very happening.
• Back to more wondering the streets…Ahlens (the Myer equivalent) and tried to get a hair cut, but we were too late and they were closed.
• We finally got kicked out, so headed early to F12 via yet another church.
• As usual ,we were the most underdressed of the lot. The wait staff were excellent, with very good English as can be expected. The place was very stylish, green being the dominant colour. They explained everything. We had the “innovative” tasting menu. While creative, some of the flavours were too strong and didn’t work well together, but it was very fun and different nevertheless, plus the waiters were very cute.
• Went back to change for the bar, but we were still the most underdressed, not to mention the ugliest. Everyone was blond, tall and skinny, and all seemed to be having a good time.
• We got to O’Baren just before midnight and had to line up. The place was packed and the drinks very expensive (well, the whole of Sweden is expensive, but their alcohol is outrageously so)
• We met quite a few of Linus’ friends and had a pretty good time.
• We left after 1am and got back after 2am, and was dead tired.

Food

• Connect Hotel breakfast:
  • bread
  • cucmber
  • tomato
  • pate
  • ham
  • cheese
  • hot chocolate
  • cappuccino
  • pineapple and papaya yoghurt
• tasta mari lunch:
  • herring plate with potatoes (80)
  • saffron seafood soup(110)
• Roberts coffee latte (29)
• Chokladfabriken passionfruit truffle
• Chokladfabriken cardamom truffle
• F12 dinner:
  • bread and bread sticks
  • sour - onion pickle, salt – clavier, sweet – oyster crème brulee
  • celery and apple drink
  • .....