Stockholm: The Magic of Friendship

And the last stop on the trip: Stockholm! (I did make a one-night stop in Malmö, which was charming and cute, but due to Travel Fatigue and having a friend hook me up with a proper hotel room, I was mostly asleep and/or watching the Olympics while there. Though, if you're looking for a restaurant recommendation, Bastard was actually pretty stellar.)

Stockholm was an interesting space, almost a transitional one in preparing me for my return to the States. More on all of that - and the requisite video and photos - after the jump!

MORE CITIES FROM BOATS! If there is a sub-theme to this blog, it is "I like going to cities and then looking at them from boats." FELLAS! Who wants to get together and buy a boat?

First things first: my good friend Hilary met me in Stockholm, another Europe-tripping intersection as she made her way from Iceland to meet her (extremely excellent) partner in Berlin. Hilary's been an amazing listener to me for years, and most of what I remember about Stockholm are our conversations. That's why the video for Stockholm is, in its way, a video about paaaaaals as much as the city!

Making the jump to Vimeo since it seems like they're not gonna stick ads on my videos when I use copyrighted tunes. Fingers crossed??

That said, it was a neat place. Oddly, as I said above, a transitional one - much of the city was knocked down mid-twentieth century, with Gamla Stan as the outlier in retaining much of its eighteenth-century architecture, and a lot of the newer construction is unlike Copenhagen in that it's utilitarian more than artful. That doesn't mean it didn't have its high points, though.

Swedish Gothic

We made a visit to Strindberg's final apartment (as I had Ibsen's in Oslo), and I was struck at seeing the nearby subway station plastered with his portrait and paintings of the apartment building - given how grim he is, it's easy to forget that Strindberg is a literary national hero in Sweden. And we enjoyed wandering Gamla Stan, but the highlights were both ferry-rides away: a tour of the city's archipelago, and a day spent in Skansen and its neighboring park/farm on Djurgården.

We couldn't hear what this extremely dapper fella was saying, but I like to imagine he was mostly explaining "Lookit them islands, that's an archipelago. Them islands over there? Same deal. Basically it's all an archipelago, on account of the islands, who wants to get me a drink."

 One big discovery from the summer is how important nature is to me - something that can be easy to forget or lose track of. And while much of Stockholm follows the concrete-and-glass model of American cities, it was nice to so easily get away into the greens and blues that surrounded it. The archipelago - or more precisely, the vacation homes on the shores of its islands - strangely reminded me of Minnesota's lakes and the waterfront culture there. And the attractions of Djurgården felt like a little glimpse at how Swedes, given the sometimes-harsh climate, make the most of their summers when they come.

Hilary in Skansen, just before she RIPPED a pole out of the ground and started hacking at this thicket of trees. Hilary! Trees are nice, don't attack the trees.

(As a side note, I think that's part of why Jamaica Plain is treating me so much better than Allston did - there are trees lining the streets in a way that feels much more designed for enjoyment-of-the-world than did my last neighborhood.)

I would have enjoyed Allston's trash culture a LOT more if it had this groovy little guy helping to contain the garbage-piles that accumulated.

In any case, between some persistent drizzle and the relatively staid nature of a lot of the city (I'd still be interested in going back to see Drottningholm) it oddly prepared me for my return back to the States... about which more in the next couple of posts!