Stockholm

Day 396 (July 29, 2019) – Stockholm, Sweden

I’ve come to greatly enjoy meeting up with friends on this trip. It’s always nice to meet new people, but there’s nothing quite like reconnecting to the people who you’ve shared a history with. The purpose for our visit to Stockholm was pretty simple. We were there to hang out with our friend Ewellyn for the weekend, one of Travis’ past coworkers who now works in Stockholm.

We were flying in on the low-cost Wizz Air, so we landed at the Stockholm Skavsta Airport, which is basically nowhere near downtown Stockholm. There was an airport bus that was comfortable and had wifi, but it took over an hour. That’s the real price for the cheaper airfare. Once we got off the bus, we walked the rest of the way to Ewellyn’s apartment. We were shocked at how hot it was! We apparently just missed a big heat wave that took over most of Europe, but even the remnants of it seemed to be making Stockholm a hot house.

Over the weekend we walked all over the city. It felt like we covered a hundred miles of ground, but we saw everything from Ewellyn’s neighborhood, to the old town, to trendy little neighborhoods. Everywhere we walked there was water. All of Stockholm seemed to be a string of islands connected by bridges. It made for very pretty scenery and it was always fun to see the boats go by. Electric scooters were also everywhere. They were more popular than bikes for getting around the city. We never tried them, but they could be unlocked and paid for with an app. Incidentally, Sweden turned out to be the only country we've been to where we never had to get cash out. I kept thinking that at some point this weekend we’re going to need some Swedish krona, but it never happened. Everyone took credit cards and mobile payments, with many places advertising that they didn't accept cash at all, only card. That worked for us.

We were walking home from dinner when this picture was taken. It was 9:45 PM and it was still light out.

We learned that one of the favorite summer activities of the Swedes is sunbathing. It seemed like every plot of grassy land or water-front property was packed with people just hanging out, reading a book, or sharing some food and drink. It was almost strange to have so many people out everywhere. All of Stockholm was outside enjoying the summer. I suppose that’s to be expected when the winter only allows for single digit hours of sunlight each day, but over the summer it wasn’t getting dark until ten o'clock at night. We decided to partake in the outdoor activities on Sunday afternoon. We packed a picnic lunch of some sandwiches, snacks, and a couple bottles of wine and relaxed in a park by the waterfront. It was wonderfully enjoyable, but unlike the sunbathers, we stuck to the shade and kept moving to keep under it.

Thanks for having us, Ewellyn! Incidentally, it was pride month in Stockholm and there were rainbow pride flags everywhere. We'd never seen so many. They were even being flown from all the public buses.

The streets of the Old Town.

The heat was also a good excuse to find refuge in some museums. We visited the Nobel Museum in the center of Gamla Stan, the Old Town. The museum wasn’t exactly what we expected. It was much more about the Nobel Prize itself and the life of Alfred Nobel rather than the people it was awarded to, but we still learned a lot. We managed to find a picture of Travis’ adviser for graduate school, who received the award in chemistry a few years ago. We also made a visit to the Vasa Museum. It’s a museum dedicated to an ornate Swedish warship that set sail in 1628 and immediately sunk before it even left the harbor. It may not sound like much to dedicate an entire museum to, but the whole ship was pulled from the water in the early 1960s and put back together to be displayed. In addition to the ship itself, it was interesting to see all the contents that were rescued with it, preserved under the water, and providing historians with all sorts of information about the time period. It was fascinating to see and well worth our visit.

The Vasa is too big to fit in a single photo.

In a most fortuitous coincidence of events, we happened to be in Stockholm at the same time as another friend of ours, Noreen. She was one of the very first people we met on our world trip. She was studying at the same Spanish language school as us in Antigua, Guatemala and we were both staying with the same host family for the week. We even went on a tour of a coffee plantation together. She happened to be on vacation in Stockholm with her niece and we met up over coffee and a walk around town. It was amazing to think that we had met her a year ago at the start of this whole adventure and here we all were a year later. In Sweden nonetheless! Who would have thought it possible?

Meeting up with Noreen in Stockholm, a year after we first met half-way across the world.

It was only the 15th day of our trip on July 13, 2018 when we went with Noreen to a coffee plantation in Antigua, Guatemala. 

We had a great weekend in Stockholm. It was so nice to catch up with Ewellyn and learn what it has been like for her to live and work and Sweden. We cooked a couple dinners for each other, shared some wine, enjoyed the summer weather, and even went out for Swedish meatballs one night. We couldn’t have asked for a better time. Thank you, Ewellyn!