Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
After another great night's sleep (Swedish people really have a real talent for making comfy sofa beds!) I woke up to another grey day in Stockholm on Monday. Jessie has the week off work so I am lucky enough to have to pleasure of her lovely company all week! In the morning we went to the larger grocery store that is a bus ride away to get more food supplies for the week & so that I could stock up on underwear. In Jessie's apartment you have to book in in advance to use the laundry room & it wasn't available until Tuesday so I was desperate for some clean clothes! We stopped in at H&M and I emerged with a little more than the few pairs of knickers I originally planned on buying…damn you H&M! :P I was also completely in awe of the grocery store, where everything was so pretty & well laid out. There seems to be a real emphasis on good presentation in Sweden & it seems that EVERYTHING (even the local grocery store!) is aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I think Jessie thought it was a little strange how much I enjoyed the grocery store haha Strange Australian girl!
Around midday we went into town to meet Jessie's friend Anna (who's place I'd gone to for dinner on Saturday) who had come down to visit for a couple of days. We met her in a coffee shop in town where I had the most amazing (Soy!! They actually have soy milk here!) latte I'd had in months. Unfortunately after all that time without coffee I was jittery by half way through the cup & couldn't finish it (I'm clearly a bit soft, compared to the general Swedish intake of coffee), but oh, it was wonderful to finally have REAL, proper coffee!
We had intentions of going to a photography exhibition, but it actually took us several hours to get there, because I can imagine might so often happen in Sweden, we kind of got distracted by shopping (for the second time that day!). It's kind of strange actually because I'm not really a shopper & generally speaking, when I'm at home in Perth I avoid it at all costs except for once or twice a year…but I'm re-evaluating & thinking now that they may be because of limited shopping options in Perth. So perhaps I'm more of a girly girl shopaholic than I ever realized! :O There's just so much variety here & everything is so decently priced. Maybe that's why all the Swedish people seem to look so trendy…I'm so jealous of the way Anna & Jessie seem to be able to effortlessly put together outfits with combinations of clothes I would never think of & look so fabulous all the time! More Swedish aesthetics ;)
We worked up quite an appetite after all that shopping & found a lovely café (Urban Deli) where you could put together your own salads to take away, so we went & sat in the park. And then I began the typical Swedish clothes dance of cardigan on, cardigan off, jacket on, jacket off, sunglasses on, sunglasses off! If Melbourne is four seasons in a day, Stockholm is like four seasons in half an hour!! When we had almost finished eating it started to rain again (surprise, surprise!), so packed up & made a move for the museum. By the time we got there, I was drenched. Again.
The photography exhibition (at Fotografiska, the Swedish Museum of Photography) was excellent - it featured works by Robert Mapplethorpe along with several other exhibitions as well. It was pretty jam packed with people because I guess everyone else had the same idea to find an activity that would get them inside & out of the rain! Jessie estimates that Stockholm has at least 200 museums! 200!!! She said in some ways there are more things to do in Stockholm when it's raining than when it's sunny, because if it's actually sunny you basically have no choice but to just go outside & sit in the park & soak it up for as long as you possibly can. But the city is built around providing entertainment to people despite the less than ideal weather, hence the huge number of museums!
We made our way home through the rain & Jessie prepared yet another extraordinary meal for dinner (some sort of chicken curry kinda thing with brown rice - delish!), & we sat and had a glass of wine and chatted away for hours. Oh, & we had fresh strawberries & icecream for desert - because the strawberries here are incredible & the girls insisted that I should eat them every single day while I'm in Stockholm…I'm not complaining! :)
- comments