Our first day in Stockholm

An inside look

This week we’re taking you behind the scenes at The Cook and The Writer Headquarters to show you how our blog posts get created.  (It’s not quite as messy as making sausage, but readers with sensitive stomachs may need to look away at times.)  

We begin by pulling up chairs at the mile-long conference table in the board room.

Now the real work begins.

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Mary:  Hey, Mike.  Sit down.  We need to put together a new blog post.  

Mike:  OK.  I’ve got pen and paper so I can take notes.  Should I open a bottle of wine?

Mary:  Good grief, no!  It’s only 10:30 in the morning!  And besides, we’re doing “dry January”, don’t you remember?

MIke:  Oh, yeah.  That.  OK.  Let’s go.  What’s our topic for this week?

Mary:  We’re going to write about our trip to Stockholm.

What’s in a word?

Mike:  That’s a great topic.  You know, whenever I think about Stockholm, one word comes to mind.

Mary:  What’s that?

Mike:  “Stately”.  I think about the tall, narrow buildings we saw in Gamla Stan, the old quarter.  

And the very formal looking buildings along the waterfront.  

I thought it had an air of refinement.   There was a “don’t worry, we have this figured out” kind of vibe. And yet, the city seemed to have a sense of humor, if that’s possible.  

How about you?  What word captures the essence of Stockholm for you?

Mary:  MEATBALLS!

Mike:  What?

Mary:  Meatballs!  I ate meatballs every day we were there.  Breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  Didn’t matter.  If there were meatballs available, I wanted them.  And they came in such variety.  

Mike:  Yeah.  I remember.  You were a fiend for the meatballs.  But where should we start?  How do we introduce this post?

A friend to guide us

Mary: We have to start by talking about our friend Rosa, who we’ve known for over 30 years.  Rosa’s parents, Gunnar and Ann, were Swedish.  They moved to Colombia, South America when Rosa was a baby,  but they took her back often. 

Rosa was coming to Europe to visit her brothers in England and the Netherlands and offered to meet us in Stockholm to show us around the city she remembered from her childhood.  So we went to Stockholm to meet her. 

MIke:  Great point.  We had just been in Lucca, Italy, trying out our approach of “slow travel”.  Then we flew to Stockholm to meet Rosa.  Our agenda was very simple – we were going to go wherever Rosa took us.

Mary:  It was like having our own private tour guide. She showed us places we might never have found on our own.

Sneak in late at night

Mike:  So do you remember arriving in Stockholm?

Mary:  I do.  It was after midnight.  We had booked a room at the Comfort Hotel on the airport grounds.  We had to walk forever – one end of the terminal to the other – but finally found it.  

Mike:  It was one of the nicest hotels we’ve stayed in lately.  And even though it was nearly 01:00, there was a line of people waiting to check in.  

Mary:  The room was lovely.  Clean lines.  Muted colors.  Very simple design.  We knew we were in Scandinavia the moment we stepped into that room.

Mike:  Breakfast the next morning was quite a production.  I remember the notice in the hotel lobby – they started serving cold takeaway breakfasts around 03:00 for people who had to catch early flights.  By the time we got down to the restaurant a few hours later, the hot breakfast service was in full swing.  

Mary:  There were so many choices.  One long table had eggs and different kinds of meats.  There was a long table with a variety of breads and pastries.  Another with cheeses and cold cuts.  

Mike:  A whole bar of yogurts and juices.  

Mary:  And meatballs!

Mike:  Yes.  And meatballs.  Didn’t you elbow some old lady out of the way when you were making a dive for the meatballs?

Mary:  No!  Absolutely not!  I never touched her!  I just stepped right in front of her, leaving all of 2 or 3 centimeters of space between us.  Just like the Portuguese do on the sidewalks of Lisbon.  

Take the fast train

Mike:  Right.  Then there was the train ride into Stockholm proper.  The airport was about 40 km (25 miles) outside the city.  We could have taken an hour-long bus ride, but you booked tickets for us on the fast train. 

Mary:  The Arlanda Express. It was great.  Very modern.  Clean.  Quiet.  Comfortable.  And it only took about 18 minutes to make the trip from the airport terminal to the main train station in the city.  

Mike:  And from there it was just a few blocks to our second hotel, where we met up with Rosa.  It was too early for us to check in, so we dropped our bags in Rosa’s room and headed out for our first adventure in the city on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning.

Then take a ferry

Mary:  We walked several blocks to a ticket booth on the canal, where we bought tickets on the ferry to Vaxholm, one of the 14 islands that make up metropolitan Stockholm.  Before we arrived, did you know Stockholm was built on a group of islands?

Mike:  I had read about it, but the reality was something very different.  Most big cities have maps of their metro systems.  Stockholm has an entire map dedicated to the ferry routes.

Mary:  It was chilly on the open deck of the ferry that morning, but it was a great way to see some of the city.  We moved from the city center with all the museums and government buildings along the waterfront out to more rural areas.  There were some beautiful homes overlooking the water.  

Mike:  It took about an hour to get to Vaxholm.  It was a small town on a small island.  We wandered around the waterfront and down the main street, where we found a grocery store.  As we do everywhere we travel, we had to go in and check out the prices.

Mary:  And we had to do some difficult math to make comparisons.  Even though Sweden is part of the European Union, they don’t use the Euro.  Their currency is the krona, abbreviated SEK.  When we were there, the exchange rate was about 11 ½ krona to 1 Euro.  So those chips that cost SEK 34.95 actually cost….<mumbles>… Oh, forget it.  Just give them the credit card!

Mike: Rosa wanted to have lunch at one of the nice restaurants on the island, but every place we stopped was fully booked.  We hadn’t anticipated that Sunday lunch would be such a popular thing.

Mary:  Lots of people had the same idea – get out of the city on a pretty weekend day.  But it turned out alright.  We found the little snack shack on the waterfront and got some great fish and chips.  

Let’s fika!

Mike:  After lunch, we caught the last ferry back to the city and got checked in at the hotel.  Then Rosa introduced us to an important Swedish tradition – fika.

Mary:  It’s my favorite kind of tradition.  Fika is a Swedish coffee break.  But it’s more than just coffee.  It’s taking time to socialize with family and friends, usually over a cup of coffee and with something sweet on the side.

Mike:  We thought it was similar to what they call lanche in Portugal – a light meal in late afternoon. But the Swedes do fika at any time of day.  There was a konditori (pastry shop) just down the block from our hotel where we got honest-to-god big cups of coffee and cardamom buns.  

Mary:  It was about 4 in the afternoon and the place was full of people. What a great tradition.  Since we’ve been back, I’ve found a recipe for cardamom buns that I’ll try sometime soon.  

MIke:  How about today?

Visiting the old quarter

Mary:  After our fika and a bit of down time, we wanted to see the old quarter of the city – Gamla Stan.  This was the original medieval town center.  It was about 2 km from our hotel, on the next island over, so we took the opportunity to try out the metro system.  Easy enough.  

Mike:  The stations were clean and well lit.  The train cars were modern, clean, and graffiti-free.  It took about 15 minutes to get there.

Mary:  I remember it was dusk when we arrived.  We couldn’t see the sunset, but the clouds were pink against the blue sky.  There was one building – a big pink church – that just seemed to glow in the evening light.

Mike:  That was the Storkyrkan , the oldest church in Stockholm.  It dates back to the 13th century, though the facade is much newer.  I read that one of its notable features is a statue of St. George fighting the dragon.  That would have been a sight to see, but it was closed when we were there.  Maybe next time.

Mary:  We did have a good time wandering through the old streets and looking in the shop windows.  Some streets were clearly aimed at tourists, with souvenir shops and cafés.     

Mike:  And I recall you were making friends there, too.

Mary:  Yep.  I always want to rub elbows with the locals.

More meatballs!

Mike:  We caught the metro back to the center city in time for dinner at a restaurant near the hotel.  And guess what was on the menu?

Mary:  MEATBALLS!  And they were the best ones I’d had all day.

 Mike:  OK.  I think we’ve about covered our first day in Stockholm.  How about the next two days?  Shall we dive in?

Mary:  No.  I think those stories will have to wait.  Besides, I’m getting hungry.  Let’s go out to lunch.

Mike:  Sure.  Where do you want to go?

Mary:  To the only place I know in Lisbon where I can get meatballs.  The IKEA cafeteria!  But look, don’t write about that part.  We’re still trying to pass ourselves off as knowing something about food.

Mike:  Right.  Your secret is safe with me.  Shall I call down for the limo?

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