Stockholm Syndrome Part 2

Well, I was supposed to get around to finishing this post yesterday, but a strong headache kind of prevented me from doing anything.  But today is a new day.. so here we go! 

So... I think you all got the idea that Nichola and I spent the majority of our time wandering around the city without a real destination on the first day.  We managed to stumble upon the palace and parliament building, but also other awesome places like the National Cathedral and well.. tons of other buildings.  Here are some of those pictures.. The National Cathedral is the huge red chuch you'll see. 

 

 

 

These were all generally taken in the main downtown square of Stockholm.  In the summer there is a beautiful garden covering the main little center square, but clearly, we weren't there in Summer.  Oh well.  As you can see from the one advertisment, Sweden bears no shame or restrictions in advertisement.  Another example of this :

Yep.  Granted, I have no idea what the sign is saying, but I kind of have a general idea?  I find it so strange that they're so open about things like advertisement when there are SO many small children living in the city.  Seriously, they're everywhere.  Then again, I guess it is just part of their culture; I guess it may not always be bad to hide things from your kids? Eh.  Speaking of Children though, Stockholm has an extremely young age base.  There were small children all over!  There were tons of schools, parks, childrens shops and playgrounds.  Nichola and I saw a lot of them out on ice rinks during what appeared to be their recess.  Imagine that.. in Sweden, instead of playing on a playground for recess, you go ice skating.  No wonder they're so good at Ice sports. 

 

Awww.  The two boys actually laid there arguing over what I presumed to be who's fault it was for about 5 minutes.  At least they were wearing helmets? 

While staying with our host, I learned quite a bit from him about the Swedish culture... Here are some bullet points for you..

• Recently, 10 seats in the Swedish Parliament have been awarded to the racist party of Sweden.  They are racist against immigration into their country and to other cultures influencing their traidtional Swedish culture.  This is quite the controversy in the nation at the moment, and is also making other nations in Europe nervous, since it is one of the first European nation's to have a racist party active in government since World War II.  Ahh!
• Swedes love their coffee and cafe's; there are at least 10 per street.  However, there is only one Starbucks in the entire country, and it's located in their Stockholm International Airport. 
• Sweden, in general, is quite lifeless after dark.  Their people tend to just go home from work and hibernate in their apartments; they are not big on a night life. 
• Swedish people, when they see a friend on the street, will generally ignore them or pretend they don't know them.  (This is information from my host, so I can't be 100% positive on that one, but ehmm sure?)  They don't accept friendships easily, they generally just have friendships since they were little and then stick to them.  They make acquaintances, but not deep friendships.  Again, this is just what our host told us. 
• There are not that many homeless/beggars in Sweden.  I'm guessing the artic cold has held an effect on this, but Nichola and I did not see a single one during our entire visit.  It was strange since here in Germany, even in the smallest of cities, you will find them with their cup and tolken dog asking for money.

That's the majority of random Swedish culture facts for you... I must admit, I can't think of any others right now. 

Also while I was in Stockholm, we managed to hit up the original IKEA store.  I am a huge fan of IKEA in general, however, in my home state, we don't even have one since we don't have a city large enough for one.  Our closest IKEA stores are in Chicago and Minneapolis.  Tragic.  But anyways.  Nichola and I went there with the knowledge of cheap Swedish meatballs and the intent to visit the original store.  It was actually a nice little get away from the downtown; IKEA is located just outside of the city, and offers a bus (With FREE wifi!!) to the store every hour.  We caught the bus, got to the store, ate some meatballs (for only $3 .. the cheapest thing in their entire country, I swear..) ran around the store, bought a cinnamon roll, and then headed back to the apartment.  Good times, good times.

 

 

 

 

 

IKEA basically is exactly the same as in the states, though.  So don't get too excited if you someday make it to Stockholm.  But hey, it's worth saying you made it there!

That basically wraps it up for this trip.  Granted, there were other stories and such I've forgotten, but maybe they'll show up randomly in my blog at a different time.  Lisbon, Portugal is next on the destination list; Sunday the 13th, here I come!  I'm pretty excited for that trip- I've never really experienced a Spanish-type culture before (I know Portugal isn't Spanish, but, well, close enough!).

Also, I would just like to note.  My mom is reading this book, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson, and aparently it's pretty hilarious.  She keeps reading me exerpts from the book, and basically it's all about his adventures in Europe.  We laugh our butts of reading it, so I figured I would share it with you guys, since, well, why not?  Especially if you enjoy reading about European cultures and norms.. he has quite the commical way of explaining them.  Although he is kind of harsh on the German culture.  But it was written 20 years ago, so ehm, I guess things have changed a little.  However some is till relevant.  Nevertheless, still recommend it :)


Adios folks!  Oh, and before I completely end with Sweden, side note, don't depend on them for a sense of direction :)