Silver Map: Places, People, Impressions

6 things to do between trips

22:36

Stockholm's Pranks, vikings and virgin blood .

22:16

Welcome-to-Stockholm , Sweden. Välkommen

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.

The-postcard-view-of-Gamla-Stan-in-Stockholm

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.

Legend-of-the-king's-daughter-and-a-dragon-in-Gamla-Stan, Stockholm

We also visited the narrowest street Mårten Trotzigs Gränd, which is claimed to be 90 cm wide.

The-narrowest-street-of-Stockholm. Marten-Trotzigs-Gränd, Stockholm

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 marrying - marriage ceremonies that are held there every Saturday.
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"

Oslo - place of contrasts, surprises and nice people - our previous stop

Christiania

Oslo... the place of contrasts, nice people and surprises...or Welcome to Schengen!

20:45

To start with, Scandinavia also seemed to be one of the places that you visit once you are "old and rich" and it seemed impossible for ordinary students to afford it. It was pure coincidence when in the late January I bumped into the site "generator of adventures" and out of curiousity checked the flights from the nearest to me Poland. How stunned I was when I saw the tickets for 6-20 Euros to major cities across Europe! On that time there were special offers for Warsaw- Oslo and Warsaw-Stockholm just for 6 Euros!

I couldn't keep from seducing my friend with this opportunity, so in 2 days we decided to make a Scandinavian tour, visiting three capitals - Oslo, Stockholm and Warsaw, of course.

However after our decision to stay there for a week we encountered first challenges: where were we going to live? The "cheap" hostels were still too much for us. We didn't want to give up so easely, especially when we were already too excited to step back. That was the moment when we remembered about couchsurfing thing. We made a 2weeks condition of finding a host and, luckily, we made it!

The time X came and on the 25th of March we departed for our adventure. Since we live in Uzhgorod our route was quite complicated. We got from our Uzhgorod to Lviv, then we went to Lublin in Poland, a lovely city where I did my internship 9 months ago, in the morning we got to Warsaw and hung out with some old friends there and finally, in the evening we got to the Modlin airport, where without any problems we passed the check-in boards. That was one of the most looking-forward moment for us, cause it was our first flight ever. The flight itself lasted for an hour and 20 minutes, there wasn't a lot to make out from the window in the evening (our flight was at 7.10pm), but the lights from big cities and airports were a fantastic thing to see.

After landing at Oslo Rygge, we were "caught" by 3 bus drivers who happened to be Polish and offered us a ride to the city centre for some 15 Euros. So, here we were, in the fjordland, the motherland of angelic Susanne Sundfør and Röyksopp and one of the most expensive countries in the world. First thing that caught our attention was the politeness and helpfullness of people there. Norwegians are considered to be quite "cold". However, I liked the thing that everytime my eyes met someone else's on the streets, that person smiled (irrespectively to gender or age). That brought some positive atmosphere to the city. We always met those nice people when we were inquiring about the road or asking for some tipps about the sights. Norwegians were ready to help, explain and show. And yeah, boys and girls are extremely beautiful there.

The-greatest-of-all-is-love , Oslo-heart

We planned our itinerary in advance, but since neither I, nor my friend were good at directions and following maps, we decided to start our Randomn Walking Tour and never regretted about it. Wherever we were going we ALWAYS bumped into some sights that we would have never found on purpose. And the best thing was that we could easily reach everything on foot. We used public transport only twice per 3 days of our staying, though they have interesting discount policy, because only a person under 20 can pay a -50% price and no ISIC cards will help you once you are 20.

So, on the first day Norway greeted us with a bit of rain, but it didn't spoil the impression we got while walking on the roof of opera, watching amazing views of the nearest mini-fjord, beautiful sea, ships passing by and getting acquainted with a curious seagull that graciously followed us.

Art ship

Our seagull Naomi

The architecture was stunning, indeed. It differed from all the other capitals we've visited. Each building had its own unique style, and while we were walking through the streets we experienced just amazing combination of enjoying the architecture and rhythm of a capital with marine smell in the air and seagulls flying over our heads and retelling us their news:)

We visited all the major sights such as:

The hand fountain in Kvadraturen, Christiania square. The story says that the Norwegian-Danish king Christian IV decided to rebuild the city after a big fire in 1624 and pointed at that exact place with the words "The new town will lie here"

The building of Parliament with posh lions surrounding it

The most weird Cathedral I've ever visited was the one in Oslo. Being used to complete silence in different churches, feeling and hearing that special calmness that fills you with deep thoughts and evokes special emotions I was very much amused and confused when I heard someone playing a kind of Dart Weider's theme on the organ. I don't know what that was supposed to mean, but we had fun.

Walking on the streets of Oslo we felt complete calmness. This is the city with its own tempo but never in rush. We haven't seen heavy traffic or jams at any time of the day. It has strange but original sculptures.

Something that was also very much worth visiting was Vigeland park with hundreds of statues depicting humans that bear some message for everyone and induce to think.

Akershus festing

One of the central streets

Aaaaaand here comes the perk of the city - the Radhus square and the harbour. This place became our favourite one. The sun was patting us with its rays and we approached the harbour at the sea to sit, look at the Oslo fjord, inhale the fresh marine air and feel happiness. We could sit on the wooden platform that was shaking from waves coming from the ships passing by. If I lived in Oslo that would sertainly be the place for me to get relaxed after a hard day.

Oslo-harbour-near-Akershus-festing-and-city-hall

On the way to the wooden platforms at the harbour

harbour-near-the-city-hall-and-Oslo-fjord

How can one not fall in love with this little paradise?

And yeah, walking through this marvelous place we bumped into so many kind and interesting people, attended a dadaist party full of awesome guys around the world and planned our next visit to Norway to see the fjords. Everything here is super duper :)