Morning. 6am.After a few hours of sleep from Oslo we eventually got to our destination and appeared to be in abslolutely different reality from the one we had expected. Having bought our Acess cards that allowed us to use any kind of transportation, we stuck for another 20 minutes figuring out how to get to our couchsurfer's place. We were twice directed to the same escalator, though only on our third time we eventually saw the right entrance on the central subway station.
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| The exact "postcard view" I was eager to look at. |
The city turned out to be absolutely different from Oslo. The pace of life was much quicker. More foreigners, loads of Russian tourists all over Gangnam Style Gamla Stan - the historic old central island. What amazed me the most was the peculiarity of the city, which was situated on dozens of islands. We couldn't believe we were not crossing just a bridge but going from one island to another. Besides, one of the buses had a route, which had a good view upon the major sights of the city.
The streets on the main island were very narrow, the houses were colourful, and it added its perk and charm even in bad weather . The view upon the roofs was also spectacular, I was expecting to see Karlsson at any moment:) There were even special roof tours, though we didn't have a chance to try them out.
We also visited the narrowest street Mårten Trotzigs Gränd, which is claimed to be 90 cm wide.
All in all, we heard a lot of interesting stories and legends about the dragons and virgins, daughter of the king and blood bath. We also witnessed the guard change. One of the entertainments we actually tried was free bachata class in the social dance club, where we met a variety of people all over the world: Erasmus students, newcomers and latino dance fans. I had pleasure of remembering my good old days when I used to dance ballroom dance myself.
The prices in Stockholm were our big delight after coming from Oslo. The price tags showed lower numbers , taking into account that SEK was less than NOK. It was really funny the way we considered everything to be cheap, though the prices in Sweden were still a few times higher than in Ukraine.
One of the cafes that were a must-visit for us was a "viking place", where our couchsurfer had brought us to get in touch with some authentic atmosphere of national drinks (honey with wine), Scandinavian music and ancient interior. The cafe is located on one of the main streets in Gamla Stan. We even found out how to read some of their runes. Being involved into the history and legends we proceeded our diving into culture by visiting the open air museum of folk architecture "Skansen" that cost us 110 SEK.
It has a vast territory and many houses typical of different locations and different time with tools that could be observed and touched, some old ladies in national clothes that showed us how people of that time were making threads out of wool, and enclosures with domestic and wild animals. We have the same, but tiny Skansen in my hometown and it was amusing to see some absolutely similar things there. Maybe, we are not that much different after all? :)
The 1st of April came. The fools' day. Probably, Stockholm's favourite holiday. Having enjoyed the sun on our previous days, we were completely taken aback by the snow falling everywhere. Our first reaction was : "Stockholm... You. Are. Drunk. Go. Home.", but after overcoming shock we started to sing "Magic moments" and "Let it snow". In order to hide somewhere from the not-the-best-weather-ever we remembered that we read about the beauty of the subway stations in Stockholm, so we couldn't find better solution as to arrange a subway tour for ourselves. Each station was like a piece of art.
Eventually, on our third day of staying in Stockholm we got to the city hall Stadshuset, which, as we were told , was used for eating and marrying.
By eating is meant a banquet that is usually held after Nobel prize is awarded
By eating is meant a banquet that is usually held after Nobel prize is awarded
By marrying - marriage ceremonies that are held there every Saturday.
Not an ordinary city hall, I'd say.
Not an ordinary city hall, I'd say.
The food we tried there was also peculiar.
We cooked a dish that consisted of pig's blood with raizins, fried on the pan and served with sour creme and berries jam. I've never expected that blood can ever be so tasty :)
The other thing we tried was so called Fika. At first I thought it was a special kind of bakery, but it turned out to be the way Swedes call the process of drinking coffee (tea, etc.) with something sweet.
So, our amazing adventure came to an end. It was time to go home and we had our transfer bus to Skavsta at 3.30 am. We happened to arrive to CityTerminalen at 2.45 am and we encountered "a surprise" in the form of the closed entrance till 3.15 am. Everything wouldn't be so "tricky" if we didn't have to prick up our ears because of some very doubtfull young guys, who were idling about and approaching us obviously not in a sober state. Anyway, nothing could spoil our mood.
To sum up, I must say that it was one of the most memorable and exciting trips I've made in my whole life. We flew for the first time, slept at the place of complete strangers that brought only positive emotions and became people we were missing a lot after everything, bumped into random people that made us be pleasantly surprised by the kindness of humans, were randomnly lost and found all the time, talked about imaginary bugs, parallel universe, ate awesome chocolate, read runes and Swedish without having the slightest idea of what we had said, enjoyed sea and felt free. One of our dreams came true and turned out to be one of the cheapest trips! But the main idea that underlined our experience was - impossible is nothing.
As it goes in the song : " One day, baby, we'll be old...so think about the stories that we could have told"
