Do they have tortillas in Poland?: Meatballs, fish, pancakes...and other things Swedish

It's a different experience when you go on a vacation and you live like a local rather than following the waves of tourists from place to place. Often, I follow the tourists, but I don't know what I'm looking at or why everyone is "supposed to" see it. I just do it. Thanks to my great guide, Petra, I spent 3 days living like a local in Stockholm, exploring a beautiful city that I'd compare to a mixture of St. Petersburg and Amsterdam (in a good way).

Petra and I became friends in NYC when she and her Swedish friends used to come to our parties and sleep in our living room (they lived outside of the city and it was easier for them to go back in the morning). Every weekend it was a guessing game as to how many Swedes we had housed the night before. I think our record was 4 Swedes at once. They were always so nice and friendly. Petra and I kept in touch after NYC and she visited me in San Jose as well. She moved back to Sweden and when she insisted I visit Stockholm during the Summer, I couldn't say no.

Me and the Swedes

I picked a random weekend when she was free, and since the tickets were cheaper to stay a couple extra days, I just did it. Wizzair is getting a lot of my business this year. It was only about $100 for the RT ticket.

Even with the cheap ticket, I was sure that any cost savings would surely be spent on my first meal there, as I had heard it was expensive in Stockholm. They aren't even on the Euro, and everything is very pricey. I'm still not completely sure about the exchange rate or how much I actually spent, but that's good because I didn't think about it...it couldn't be worse than my recent stock market losses, anyway.

In the end it turned out to be a pretty inexpensive trip. I spent the last day and a half trying to "get rid of" all of my cash because we didn't spend much money at all. We spent a lot of time walking around the various neighborhoods (and there's a lot of beautiful places - the center, the south side, the old town, etc), admiring architecture, views, the green hills, and the water everywhere. Of course there are Swedish names for all the 'hoods, but I can't spell or pronounce any of them!

Their Old Town was large and very nice

Enjoying a view

Another nice view point

Petra lives with her mom in a little suburb (Stocksund) about a 10 minute Metro ride from the Center. We rode bikes to and from the Metro (like locals), ate delicious home cooked meals her mom made (like locals), and went to bed early because we were too tired from walking all day (like old people, not really like locals). We also tried to watch a movie at Petra's but the middle half of the screen was missing. Literally, in the image, the middle half was gone, and the outer quarters met in the middle, like folded pages of a book. It wasn't easy to watch Lord of the Rings like that.

Petra's mom was super nice. She was always laughing, always asking how I was doing, and was a joy to talk to. Plus, she made me Swedish meatballs and bought me Swedish fish.

Swedish meatballs, with a side of Swedish fish

By the way, Petra's legs are so long that I could barely reach the pedals of her bike. It was quite embarassing...I didn't have to ask her to adjust the seat, so at least that saved a little of my pride (sorry, no picture of that, for obvious reasons!)

I didn't realize that Stockholm is surrounded by water everywhere. There are several islands, and you can take a boat ride out to the archipelago (next time I will write about that, since archipelago is such a cool word). The water is "brackish", or a mixture of "salty and sweet" as Petra would say. It's also a great word, and I will try to use it more often to describe people with big mood swings...someone that can be salty and sweet.

One of many scenic water photo opportunities in the city

I love all of the old style sail boats along the coast

After some sightseeing on my first day, we rode bikes down to the water along with Petra's boyfriend, Jens. Jens is a great guy who is in the middle of law school. Petra's mom rides to the water and goes for a swim everyday, so I wanted to try. Again, living like a local! The water is connected to the Baltic Sea, so it's not so warm. After jumping in, and going into minor shock, I jumped out, a full 26 seconds later.

Trying to survive the extremely brackish water

On the last day we visited Petra's dad who lives nearby. He's in a wheelchair, but doesn't let that diminish his passion for music. He has a old, but very nice, sound system in his apartment that he built himself decades ago - the combination of great accoustics and a deaf neighbor means he can crank it up as loud as he wants. We listened to a few songs and it sounded so clear that it felt like we were at a concert - The Police, Santana, and others. He has great memory of concerts he went to 40 years ago...exact years, who was playing what instrument, etc. And his English was great. He even saw Jimi Hendrix just 10 days before Jimi died in 1970.

Of course we did some tourist things, like take a boat ride around the area and visit the Vasa museum. The Vasa might be one of my favorite museums EVER. I really had no idea what to expect, but I am already looking forward to going back. The Vasa is a war ship that was built in the 1600s, but it sank within it's first mile of sailing in 1628 (i.e. it wasn't designed too well). The boat sat at the bottom of the sea for 330 years before being raised. The nature of the brackish water (love the word) helped preserve the wood (if it was too salty, the wood would deteriorate), and now the ship and all of its on-board treasure (including the people) are on display in the museum. The museum also explains the war that was going on (between Sweden and Poland), life on these ships, how it was designed (including statues of kneeling Polish noblemen, to symbolize their intent to defeat them), and how they have gone about preserving everything. It really was fascinating. But it also begs the question...why is everyone always picking on Poland???

The Vasa, nearly 400 years after it sank

The caption literally called this a"humiliated Polish man"

What I learned in Stockholm:

- There's a lot more diversity than I thought...there are definitely super blonde, super blue eyed, and super long legged people (i.e. Petra), but there were many different hair and skin colors and sizes. It was nice to see. But that meant people thought I could speak Swedish. See? I was living like a local.

- Stieg Larsson's first book in the famous series is actually called "Men Who Hate Women" in Swedish, not "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". The funny-translation probably helped sales in the US, because I don't know how many people would be interested in a book with the original title translated to English

- Swedes are good at standing in line...for food, in a convenience store, for everything (we did it a lot). The Polish "mob queues" could learn from this (we don't stand in line in Poland, we mob towards the front).

- You probably shouldn't wear a t-shirt that says "Way Out" during gay pride festivals. You will get unsolicited winks and other unwanted attention.

- Sweden has a king. And he looks like a normal nerdy guy. Like other modern day kings, it is arguable if his role is necessary (since they have a Prime Minister). His daughter, the crown princess, recently married her personal trainer (like a local)

- Things that are Swedish: ABBA, Bjorn Borg, Robyn, Pippi Longstocking, Ikea, Nobel (as in the Nobel prize), Swedish meatballs, Swedish pancakes, Swedish fish, and these traditional Swedish meals.