Stockholm: Capital Of The North

We took the train from Copenhagen to Stockholm and arrived at the station at about 6pm. Luckily for us, the hostel was not very far from the station so we decided to check in, dump our bags and wonder around the city a bit. I must take this time to first comment on the hostel itself. It is by far the best hostel we have stayed in. The location is pretty much smack bang in the middle of the city center, near most sights. The staff are friendly, the price isn't too bad and the people there are cool. As I was saying, we dumped our bags and ventured out to get a feel for the city. The city itself is very unique. Was very interesting to see how the Swedes go about their everyday business. We were hungry so we decided to grab some pizza before heading back to the hostel. Another great thing about the hostel was that it had free internet and a lot of computers. So we decided to take this opportunity to book our trip up north. Unfortunately, we hit a massive brick in the wall and our trip "into the wild" was looking like it was not going to happen at all. If you recall, our initial plan was to head up to northern Norway, to a city called Trommso. Well, bad news. Apparently, the entire city shuts down for the winter and finding accomodation is pretty much impossible. So our next step was to find some form of accomodation in Kiruna, which is a town in northern Sweden. Unfortunutely, everything was fully booked. Literally everything. Things were not looking too good for us, but there was one last resort. Abisko National Park. All we knew was that it was about 1 hour north of Kiruna. It was a national park in Sweden, and apparently one of the best places in the World to see the Northern Lights. So, with a last ditch effort, we managed to find some accomodation there, right in the middle of the national park. Satisfied that our trip up north to see the aurora was still a go, we decided to hit the sack for a well deserved sleep.

We woke up the next morning and decided to do some of the sights. Museums are closed on Mondays so we planned to do all the other things. The first stop was Stadshuset (City Hall). It has been the seat of local government since the early 20th century and it is also where the winners of the Nobel Prizes hold a banquet dinner. There were two amazing rooms inside this hall. The Blue Room (where the Nobel Prize winners would dance) and the Gold Room, which had 18 million shimmering gold tiles. This was a sight worth seeing. After finishing off the City Hall, we decided to wonder through Gamla Stan, which is also known as 'Old Town'. Stockholm was once confined into this one area, Gamla Stan, but now it is the center of the city. We ventured through the main pedestrian street and marvelled at the maze of small side streets and the area's historic feel. In Gamla Stan was the Slottskyrkan (The Royal Chapel). This was the last sight for today and we decided to head back to the hostel. On the way, we did some grocery shopping as the hostel provided free pasta. We went into the supermarket to get some pasta sauce, and decided to cook a nice meal once we were back at the hostel. Not knowing exactly how much pasta we needed to cook, we put some pasta in the pot and at the time, I must say it looked a bit too little. So we added more pasta. It still looked like there was not enough pasta in the pot to feed both of us. So we kept adding more, and more... then we took some out, but then it looked too little, so we added more. All in all, neither of us knew how much pasta to put in the pot. In the end, we just decided that whatever was in there would be sufficient. So we turned the stove on and decided to play some cards whilst the pasta cooked. So we waited, checking if the pasta was cooking. There was no heat on the stove. Thinking it might take some time for the stove to heat up, we decided to continue playing cards. So we waited, and waited, and waited some more. Still, the water was not heating up. After about 45 minutes of waiting for water to boil, often looking cluelessly at the stove, we decided to ask someone why our water won't boil! Low and behold, apparently there is a button you have press to turn on the electricity for the stove. There we were, two idiots attempting to cook pasta, without any heat. After finally turning the stove on, the water began to boil. So we went back to our cards. About 5 minutes in, I tried to recall how my sister cooked pasta. Then it hit me. Why didn't we just use a kettle to boil the water! Ofcourse, by that time it was already too late and our water that was in the pot had already boiled. So we put the pasta in and couldn't wait until it was cooked. Once it was cooked, let's just say we had cooked enough pasta to feed about 10 people. Our measurements were way off. Ah well, atleast we knew how much pasta to cook the following day!

We had breakfast in the hostel the following morning. We wanted to take things a bit slower and since museums would be open today, we decided to do them. The first museum was The National Museum. Unfortunately, it opened at 11am, so decided to wait around a bit. As soon as it opened, we walked in and decided that it was too expensive. It was almost 9 euros to enter the museum and considering the Louvre itself was 13 euros, we felt that there was no real point paying so much and decided to skip it. We made our way down to the Moderna Museet (Modern Museum) instead. Was cheaper entry and had better exhibits including Dali, Edvard Munch, Jackson Pollock and my personal favourite, Warhol. After spending around 3-4 hours in the Mordern Museum, we made our way to Skansen, an area within Stockholm which apparently provides the best views of the city. On the way we found the Vasa Museet (Vasa Museum). This museum is home to a massive warship that sank in Stockholm's harbour in it's maiden voyage (20 minutes in) in the 17th century. It was salvaged and is surprisingly well preserved considering it was made of wood. Apparently, the less salty waters surrounding Scandinavia is what preserves such things better than the xmore salty waters that ships generally sink in. I must say, this museum was well worth the visit. The ship itself looked like something out of the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movies. Was fantastic indeed. By the time we were finished with the museum, it was already getting dark, so we decided to head back to the hostel and get some groceries from the supermarket on the way. Yes, pasta again. But this time, we decided to add something to our recipe. Thinking that we were eating too much "unhealthy" food, we decided to add some vegetables to the pasta. We have this plan, that each time we make pasta, we're going to add something else to the recipe so that by the end of the trip, our recipe will indeed be perfected and even make the likes of Gordon Ramsey proud. After dinner, we did some laundry and I took some time to check my results for the university semester. If you recall, I had to endure the pain of taking 4 exams within the space of 4 days. Well, it was a relief to see that my results for the semester went very well indeed! Not sure how I pulled that one off...

The next morning, we decided to change our hostel for New Years. We were originally going to stay in another hostel in Stockholm, but we were so pleased with the current one we were staying at, that we decided to change it. We had a lot to get through today. Our train to Abisko was at 6pm and our primary aim for the day was to do the Swedish Royal Apartments. However, when we got there, we were told that the apartments were not open since the Nobel Prize Winners were residing there at the time. Instead, we decided to go check out the Royal Treasury and the Armory which provided an extensive insight into Swedish history. We have seen a few treasuries already but I must say, the . It was starting to approach evening and as the train to Abisko was a 14 hour trip, we decided to go to the supermarket and grab some snacks for the train. For dinner, we found a Subway and decided to get some foot-longs to eat in the train. We said good bye to the hostel and the friendly people we met and were on the road again.

Until next time...

Rishi