Stockholm Syndrome

I’ve come to the conclusion that Swedish food is salty.  This is a poor speculation based on the two occasions we had to resort to eating fast food during our trip in Sweden.  First time was when we were stranded at a bus terminal in Sweden on the way to Oslo.  Second time was for a train transfer from Oslo on the way to Stockholm.  We ate at a McDonalds on both occasions, and on both occasions the fries were covered in salt.  Covered.  I’m not sure if Swedish food is known for saltiness but I will let you know that their fast food fries are.

I was a bit curious and excited about Stockholm because according to some quiz I took years ago titled “Which city should you live in?” I was told that Stockholm was my best match.  Of course, the quiz was on facebook and one can only question the credibility of these quizzes.  But I was curious. 

Stockholm turned out to be a beautiful city on the water with a more traditional architectural skyline.  The city itself is a cluster of islands, with archipelagos not too far from the city center.  The Gamla Stan, the old city center, is an island where traditional buildings thrive for tourists.  It reminded me of Burge; a pretty place to go shopping.

There are modern buildings in Stockholm.  Just not on the island of Gamla Stan.  There was the Sky Dome, for example, on another island south of our hostel.

And when one speaks of Sweden, the first thing that pops up is the big blue box with the yellow sign; IKEA.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go see the biggest IKEA in the world.  We did make it to the Vasa museum; a museum dedicated to a wooden ship that was at the bottom of the harbor for 300 years.  Pretty impressive, right?  It seems so, until you find out that the ship only made it about 1500 meters before it sank into the harbor.  A huge failure, probably due to all the ornamentation that the king called for (less is more).  After it sank and after many failed attempts to salvage the ship, it was forgotten for 300 years until recently.  I guess the impressive part of the museum is how they salvaged the ship; the pollution in the water and the lack of salinity of the harbor in Stockholm preserved most of the ship in its original condition.

From Stockholm, we had an all day ordeal getting into Berlin.  We had to take the train from Stockholm back to Copenhagen, then from Copenhagen to Hamburg, Germany.  And then from Hamburg to Berlin.  This whole trip took over 12 hours; we caught the train from Stockholm around 8 am, and we arrived at our hostel in Berlin at midnight.  But at least we made it.