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On my last day in Sweden I had a lovely sleep in while poor Jessie had to head off to work early in the morning, then I spent a few hours catching up on emails, booking trains etc. etc. Super fun organizational stuff! When I was all packed up & ready to leave the next morning I headed into the city where I would be meeting Jessie after work. I revisited the store (Lagerhaus) where we'd bought the biscuit tin for the Bojler's Anzac biscuits the week before & was free to browse to my heart's content in home wares heaven! :D
It is seriously the most amazing store ever…the only problem was the need for serious self control due to limited funds & space for any purchases! So I stuck to small, cheap items like decorative cupcake sticky tape & a strawberry print tea towel :) I seriously considered buying a strawberry print dish scrubbing brush (yes, they do actually have those, amazing!) but managed to reign myself in before things got out of hand. Jessie had also made the mistake of telling me that Zara was having a sale, but fortunately the craziness of the store prevented me from spending too much money there either!
I sat & had a cup of tea in a café right near the centre of town & enjoyed people watching as poor Swedish people walked past outside melting in the hot sunshine. The girl working in the café said they weren't used to the heat :P Which was all of about 25 degrees Celcius mind you! That said, it actually felt pretty hot to me too…I think I may be adapting to this strange climate they call "summer" here in Sweden. Good thing I'm coming back to Perth at the start of spring…
I met Jessie under the "giant mushroom" (as the Swedes colloquially call it), which is a sculpture in the centre of town that does indeed resemble a giant mushroom & is a popular meeting place for many people catching up after work judging by the number of people milling around there waiting for their friends. From there we walked through the city & over to Skansen, the open air museum, to join Jessie's friend Caroline & her two American friends Alex & Alicia for the summer "sing-along".
It's a very traditional concert that happens every Tuesday night for 8 weeks over summer in Stockholm inside Skansen, and is broadcast live on TV as well. Hundreds of Swedish people gather to make the most of the late setting sun & watch a concert that features local Swedish artists performing their own music as well as traditional Swedish songs. The idea is that everyone in the audience joins in & has a sing-along - kinda cool! And it's only about AU$10 to go, which is pretty awesome. This evening's performance would feature a female artist called September, a couple of the guys off Swedish Idol, the Stockholm University Men's Choir (who were incredible), & Benny (from ABBA! How cool!! Hehe) & his orchestra :)
We set ourselves up on a picnic rug off to the side of the stage & I just sorta bobbed & swayed along while everybody else (except for Alex & Alicia :P) joined in with the singing. I was still slapping on the SPF at 8:00PM because the sun was so high in the sky & still so hot! Pretty amazing really…when it wrapped up around 9:30 Jessie & I took the tram (a very, VERY old & rickety tram!) back into town & caught the bus back to her little island for my last night's sleep in Stockholm :( Tomorrow it's off to Norway for me to visit my lovely friend Helle in her hometown of Oslo!
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