Dear Old Stockholm

Words cannot express Stockholm's beauty. If we had one of the buildings that they had here, we'd feel a sense of pride, but the fact is that almost every building is steeped in beauty and history is intense.

My hostel was quite a ways from the Central Station and in retrospect I could have taken the subway, but I decided to walk and it ended up being a good thing. Armed with my Lonely Planet - Scandinavia book, I exited the station and guessed at which way I should go. It turned out to be right. I was immediately struck by how the Swede's have catered to the pedestrian. You know how on the seawall, there's like the pathway for rollerbladers, bicyclists, and pedestrians? Well, that's the way it is here, everywhere! Just simply replace the rollerbladers with car lanes.

Stockholm is essentially a series of islands. My hostel is in the sort of Commercial Drive district of town called Soldermalm. It's full of students and artists. Pretty cool and laid back in other words. I spent much of Sunday night exploring Soldermalm and the next day woke up and went for a run through a great deal of Stockholm to plan my day of adventuring. I started in Soldermalm then to Gamla Stan (the old town of Stockholm), then around the Royal Palace and National Museum, then to Djurgardan (Stockholm's Stanley Park), then Ostermalm (the upscale part), and then downtown Stockholm (the Addidas store was very tempting, but I have not the budget or space in my pack for the 14 pairs I wanted).

It's dawned on me (and in my last travels through Europe as well), that Europeans generally eat horribly. Everything is greasy, with fries, and they seem to live for fast food the likes of McDonald's and Burger King and totally unabashfully as well! Everyone smokes like chimneys and they are constantly drinking. The weird thing is that no one seems outwardly obese. My theory is that they just simply walk or bike everywhere. I think that alone allows them a freedom with their diet. Back home, I've never seen a man in a three piece suit or a woman in high heels on a bike , but here they're everywhere. In Denmark especially. You actually have to be careful that you aren't hit by a bike, there are so many.

Alright, a few observations on the Swedes and I guess Scandinavia in general. I've become pretty capable with translation. Similar to my other short cuts from previous travels (instant Italian is to simply add an "o" to all french words ie vin - vino, bonjour - bonjourno....etc), Swedish is a snap. All you have to do is phonetically sound things out and it's simply English. Valkommen - welcome, alkohol - alcohol, kaffe - coffee, koncerthal - concert hall, museet - museum, choklad - chocolate.....see? easy. The thing that confuses me is why they have to have such long names for the streets? Like, I'm talking 15 - 20 letter words. Can we get it across in 5 - 6 letters? OK now I'm starting to sound American.

EVERYWHERE serves espresso coffees, which is great! Like everywhere! I can get an americano literally anywhere I go.....that's maybe a bit dangerous.

I was at an outdoor patio bar last night and the bartender put on some music.....he chose NWA. I don't think that would ever happen back home.

Swedish cuisine is sort of based on how many regular everyday foods can you bizarrely make into a kind of hot dog (korv or kork - depending on whether it's grilled or boiled). For instance, hot dog (with bun) with mashed potatoes and relish with pickled beets.....rolled into a wrap. Don't be mistaken, the hot dog, not the meatball, is really the basis for all meals here.

Went to a Swedish music store today. Lot's of Hagstroms and Hofners, but the guy at the store just basically handed me over this Gibson L-5 when I asked him about it. For those of you not in the know, this is the $10 000 guitar that they have in the glass case at Long and McQuade and this guy's response to me was, "take it, it wants to be played." Not asking me to remove my belt or watch it, just basically here..... play it!

Alright, I'm now on the train back to Copenhagen and you know what really grinds my gears? This Scanrail pass. No....the pass is great, but no has told me jack about how it works. So, today I totally went by the book. I went to the SJ (Swedish train company....like Via Rail) reservation/ticketing place at the station, made a reservation, paid the 60 SEK because it's a special X2000 train (which apparently is built by Jesus himself and should be respected), and thought I'd done everything right as opposed to when I came to Stockholm, I just jumped on one of these bad boys with no seat assignment as is what every other train is like. So, the ticket is in Swedish and unfortunately my Swedish-by-phonetics method of translation isn't really working. I saw that it said "vagn 6" and "plats 6" amoung other numbers and words. I got a little worried that I didn't know what the seating assignment was, but I figued there would be a friendly train attendant that could help me similar to my last x2000 experience. I got on Vagn 6 (train car 6...this became obvious when the train rolled up) and so I naturally figured that plats meant seat. It turned out I was right but in my nervousness to do things correctly, I sat in seat 9. A nice woman pointed out the difference and as I got up to change, I was mowed down by a woman who was obviously pissed with my incompetence and shouted, "get out of the way!!!" I did and things got even more frustrating when I sat down in 6 and when the train attendant approached, I showed her my ticket (me proud I was doing things right) and she proceeded to chastise me for what I think was not having the right ticket and when I showed her my scanrail pass, further chastised me for not filling in the day I was travelling on (not that that is even my responsibilty!!!!). I'm sure I've confused most of you with this story and it will probably only make sense when you travel in Sweden by train on the holy x2000, but I needed to vent.

So now back to Copenhagen. I've been trying to live on a budget because things are pretty expensive in Scandinavia and I'm told Norway's worse. I might head back to the jazz house tonight, but again I might save some cash.