Stockholm

The bus ride didn't really go as planned. i still had half a book to read but before i knew it i had finished it and was no way near half way on the bus. I'm still in two minds about whether or not i liked the ending of it. some days i do some days i don't. on the bus just sitting across from me was some really old guy that i thought might keel over at any moment. he was coughing and spluttering the whole way, at one point i did think he was going to make it to Stockholm, actually, he didn't... he got off a couple of stops before.

a bit of a positive is a got into a really good hostel. Eleni (the Australian girl i met in Gothenburg) told me about the place. its quite central and you get free pasta there (so guess what I've been eating for lunch and dinner all this week?), a sauna (which is a must do when your in Sweden, however your meant to go naked i didn't fancy getting kicked out of the hostel so i kept my boardies on.), free internet and free ice skate hire! naturally i had to go for a skate, i hadn't been in years, i was a little shaky at first but after a while i got into the swing of it, it was like riding a bike. it was really nice to go skating outside too. I've never experienced that before. oh, and i didn't fall over once! while i was here they showed a swedish film called 'Evil' it was about a boy who used to get beaten by his step father and got sent to a boarding school where he got bullied, it was quite a good film actually, i won't tell you the end, but i'm sure you can guess it.

while i was there i met 3 English blokes. one of them was moving over here to be with his girlfriend and the other 2, as they put it, were here to make sure he stays here. they were really funny guys and we went out one night to checkout the nightlife in the Stureplan. because they were clubs, i didn't really enjoy them much, not really my scene, but the company was good. i have to say the next day i struggled a fair bit. i think the best part of town for going out at night and also for checking out during the day was the Sodermalm area. with some really cool little bars with great vibes as well as great clothing stores, new and old.

something that doesn't really have to do with Stockholm, but just up the road from when I'm staying is a really good record shop, i found an original Rolling Stones 'Sticky fingers' record that had the fly stuck on the front, just as Andy Warhol had intended when he designed the record. they stopped reproducing them with the fly because the records would get damaged from the fly sticking in them. i guess something that doesn't really have anything to do with Stockholm but i was excited by it.
something interesting I've found here is when you go to the supermarket, you don't hand your money to the check out chick, you put it in a money counting machine and it spits out the correct change for you.

i was actually really shocked at the size of Stockholm, its really quite big, compared to many of the other places I've been before. but its really nice to just walk around and take it all in there are some really cute little streets. i took a walk around the old town which is quite pretty with little streets (some of them are REALLY small) and tall buildings leaning in on each other. it kind of reminded me of parts of Prague actually. very nice. also its where the Royal Palace of Sweden is so that was kinda cool to see i guess, but i believe its not really where the Royals live. i got a kick out of the kids that were mucking around taking the piss out of the statues. some of the statues are quite camp to say the least, and one little boy did a great impression.
on my way to ice skating i saw this place called the Kulturhuset which, when i looked in the window, looked like there was interpretive dancing classes, which was hilarious! i know that the swedes are really big on the arts, for instance they really encourage music in schools from an early age. which, kinda explains ABBA!
it seems everyone here wears either Nudie jeans or Cheap Monday jeans. and rightly so, there both really good Swedish brands. I've had a couple of pairs of Nudies, there brilliant. but i have to say, i like the Cheap Monday story. 3 guys opened a shop in outer Stockholm called 'Weekend' (because it was only open Saturday and Sunday) considering it was a little out of the CBD, the shop took off. one of the guys saw that a lot of what they were selling was so expensive and felt they could make a cheaper alternative that was the same quality. so they created Cheap Monday. within a couple of weeks they sold out of there jeans. i went to a store that sold Cheap Monday and i couldn't get over how many types of jeans they had, it was mental. they have grown so much since 2004. and i never knew they made shoes either, they might be something new.

it was raining one of the days i was here so it was good museum weather so i checked out the Vasa Museum which holds this big old ship that sank 350 years ago then in the 1960's they pulled it out of the ocean, restored it, and built a museum around it. when the Vasa set sail it was one of the mightiest warships in the world with something like 60 odd guns and 300 soldiers. but i didn't get far, the ship sank within a few minutes of it sailing. in the 17th century there were no scientific methods of calculating a ships stability, it turns out it was quite common for warships to sink back in those days. it was pretty amazing to see, it looked like Captain Hook's ships from Peter Pan, i couldn't get over the detail in the carvings. Brilliant!

one night i check out the Absolut Ice bar, there are a few around the world now, but i believe, from what I've been told, this was the first one. it was a bit pricey but i justified it because you got a free drink. i have to say its not normally something i would do, but i did think it was pretty good advertising. creating a ice bar and incorporating your brand by having complementary drinks of Absolut cocktails served in an ice glass. though the way they create the bar and carve the ice is pretty clever.

i think i would've liked to have stayed a little longer in Stockholm but i'm flying to Edinburgh, i got some really cheap flights at Ryan Air a couple of weeks back so i had to go. but, i'm looking forward to seeing a bit of the UK. more when i get there.