However, the reason for me taking a trip to Stockholm wasn't my Swedish readers. It was the second-hand record stores, of course. I had to postpone my trip, because I got laid-off. I simply had no extra money to spend. Right after I got an envelope from the Swedish tax company saying that I'll get a few thousand euros back in tax return and when they had materialized in my bank account (thus verifying that I had understood what the Swedish text was all about), I bought tickets for me and my wife. As the schools had started in mid-August, the prices had gone down. With 'red prices' or 'last-moment trips' in mind, I managed to get them at 22 €. Back and forth for the two of us! Huge thanks to dear lady Jane, who tipped me off about the tax reducements! I wish you well!
We had to wake up very early to leave the ship in Stockholm. It was something like 6:30 a.m. local time. There was no hope of any shop being open at that hour. So we took it calm and walked all the way from Vikingterminal to the T-Centralen, via Slussen and Gamla stan. The weather was lovely and we had the time.
I had accidentally found out that there was a tunnel in the center, stan, which was basically a round tube. I read about it. It had cost a little to use the tube in the early days, but people would rather walk the other way than to pay for it, so nowadays it's a free ride. As you can see in the pictures, there's not much to see. Now we know that too. The street leading to the tunnel was according to my source the place where Olof Palme was murdered back in 1986. There were several memorial plaques for some other important persons, probably for those who planned the tunnel, but no sign about Palme. Maybe I didn't look carefully enough. Granted, the street carrying his name is nearby.
In Gamla stan, the old town of Stockholm, there were concrete dickless lions which served as show stoppers for the cars. Some may remember my post in my Swedish blog, Moved to Sweden. I wrote about the Sweden's decision to remove dicks in all military uniforms. Just to increase equality between sexes. It should not take an animal expert to know that the long hair is also a sign of a male lion. Females don't have the hair. Another case of hermaphrodism perhaps? LOL!
One of the targets was also to find a magnet sign for our dish-washing machine. We had seen one in a shop at Sergelstorg area, right next to Kulturhuset. I'm so poor at noticing when the dishes are dirty in the machine. My wife does some pre-cleaning up before putting the plates etc. into the machine. Many times I can't tell whether they should be taken into use already. I didn't like to have that machine in the first place, but I kept my mouth shut. There are occasions when the washing up hasn't removed all dirt in the dishes. Then you have to wash afterwards as well. I'm the person who usually takes care of manual washing up, but my wife controls the automatic cleaning. From now on, when I see the sign "DIRTY" (Swedes pronounce it in a funny way, like 'dirr-thea'), I know to add dishes there. And when the sign is turned around, saying "CLEAN", I know that it's my time to gather the dishes from the machine and put them in their correct places. Simple but efficient!
The mission I was on, the search of old vinyl rarities, was somewhat satisfying. There's not enough time in the world for me to look at each and every LP there is in Stockholm area. I have to skip something, this time I didn't go to Solna at all, although there are four very professional and, if you must, less expensive, record-stores. I concentrated on Södermalm and St. Eriksplan area. Man, I was tired in the end. I spent about 50-60 euros on vinyls. There was a couple of gems I came across. Some of them I bought, some I had to leave there because of the price. Man, I should have got more tax return, LOL!
My wife did some shopping on her own in the meantime. She didn't find much, but was obviously pleased with window-browsing and visiting small antique shops in Vasastan and Kungsholmen. She was looking for small sushi plates for soy, but didn't find any to her liking.
It was a rare experience for me to stand in Slussen in a warm and sunny day. It usually rains, blows or both. Preferably hard even. We bought by now an almost obligatory skåning from a booth at the square. That is basically a fish burger, or a Danish sandwich if you will. There is a fillet of fried herring on a dark toast with sweet mustard, red onion and miscellaneous spices. It's worth every 35 crown it costs. Me and my wife recommend it warmly.
We had a little extra time on our hands, so we decided to have a drink at a terrace in Drottninggatan. There was a plenty of cafés around, but not that many bars. It was surprising to realize that. In the end we sat down in a terrace of a Mongolian restaurant. It was crowded because of the fine weather. The service was poor and when we had told them that we were there only to drink, they totally ignored us. It was almost humiliating, but everything turned out nicely. We left the place to watch the booths around the Sergelstorg square. Maybe it was because Sweden is the chairman in the EU at the moment, but there were booths from separate nationalities, serving food, handicraft and such. So we stopped at the Austrian/German stand and bought a few pretzels. There was no logic behind that decision, but they tasted alright.
There was also a protest going on, which we skipped. They demanded that USA should leave Iraq or Afghanistan or whatever. It's quite easy to demonstrate here in Stockholm. You sing a couple of songs, stand among the crowd and go to your well-equipped home. Pleased with yourself. With a 100-meg broadband. I may sound a bit ironic here, but let's face it, how much good did that demonstration do? Did the US leave any country?
Finally we hopped on a Silja line ship near Gärdet. The subway was working as before. There was not many evident changes in sight. The Kista Galleria was still under construction. The sushi was great there. The old SL magnet tickets were still in use, although the new ones which could be loaded with any tickets I suppose had arrived. Again we were damn too tired to exploit the tax free shopping in the ship. Unlike for so many, our goal wasn't there, it had been in the city.
I bought a can of cola with a new label. Limited edition and all. I had to take pictures of it. Two reasons. The first: It was the first time ever I had had a cabin with a real window! I had already forgotten that they exist. It was a nice view to the harbour, and I wanted to use it in the background of another picture collage of mine. The second: I don't know how readable it is, but the can says '0 calories'. When you take a closer look at the list of contents, you can see that the calory amount is 1. What..? Why do they lie to us? Or rather: why do they let themselves get caught? I both hate and love this kind of so-called informative lapses.
In two-month's time, I will be visiting Stockholm again. And you can read about it in my blog naturally. That piece of information hardly keeps the remaining Swedish readers online for me, but just in case a bit of advertising. One thing that I was expecting was to meet my old (or ever so young, LOL) colleague Jaime in Stockholm. My another friend Amig-J had met him there twice, without setting a date! I failed to meet Jaime by accident, which led me to thinking that maybe he had moved away from the city. Just kidding, I know he lurks there somewhere. With or without an instrument in his hand, LOL!
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