Stockholm

At the last minute, I decided to prolong my stopover in Stockholm (coming back from Tampere, Finland) for the weekend. It was a bit of a comedy of errors, as first all hotels were booked, and then when I arrived they lost my luggage (in such a tiny airport like Tampere I am stumped as to how that happened), and once I arrived I was turned down to eat at a restaurant. After the initial rocky start, it turned out to be a relatively nice weekend. I say "relatively", because I have to say that as nice as the city is, in general the people were not. In 2 days, I (and Dave and his mom) were refused at 4 different places (restaurants, bars). We would approach a restaurant that looked nice (or about which we had read in a travel guide), had several empty tables, and ask for a table for 3. As soon as they heard English, their faces changed, we got some not-so-friendly looks, and were told something along the lines of "no tables are available until at least 22h00". This seemed like a load of baloney, given the numerous empty tables we could see inside the restaurants. It was quite astounding and frankly quite unacceptable. Nightclubs were almost the same; luckily we got in early - we still got sideways glances but nevertheless we managed to get into a few places. Anyway, enough with my rant on the Swedes...

Since I had some time on my own, I bought some fresh clothes (which will be partially paid for by SAS!), and found a fantastic indoor food market where I enjoyed a delicious vegetarian pita with hummus/falafel/other mediterranean yummies inside. Here is a photo of one of the corridors of the hall:

Friday night, Dave and I found a very posh outdoor bar. It was filled with what seemed to us like supermodels. Everyone was tall, blond, and very skinny. The drinks were extremely pricey, but they sure make a mean mojito! We left there around 2am (still light outside!) and went to a nearby club, which was not quite as much fun, but still interesting. With all the money we spent on these clubs, we looked upon the night as visiting "museums", where we were observing a foreign people in their own natural habitat.

After a late morning on Saturday, we wandered around Gamle Stan (old city):


We later just lounged at an outdoor cafe, and finally ended up at a snooty place for dinner. Afterward, we asked the hotel for a club recommendation, and ended up at Cafe Opera. This was a great place - it is in the back of the opera house, and at dinner it is a fancy restaurant with huge bar and good crowd. After midnight, the whole place transforms into a thumping night club, with a packed dance floor. Fun night. This is what everything looks like at almost 4am when leaving the clubs...(I will blame the poor quality on my camera-phone)


Sunday (another late morning), we took a guided boat tour. Here was one of the prettier parts of the ride (it was all very beautiful):


Despite the fact that it was not really all that warm, many Swedes were swimming in the cold water!

Afterward we walked through the grounds of city hall, which is where the Nobel Prizes are handed out. Here is a view from the grounds onto the water:


And here is Dave pretending to be Birger Jarl (founder of Stockholm):


Later, we walked around the stores (open on Sunday, unlike in Denmark) and ended up at a music museum. It was a great place to explore various instruments, and even have a short karaoke stint as a lead singer from Abba.

After another cafe, we headed to the airport and came home. I have to say it was a relief to come back to Copenhagen, which is a relatively more laid-back city after all...