It's blowing like crazy // Session 23

Arriving in Stockholm, I naturally went to a hostel first, once again. On the way, I noticed that it was too cold for shorts. My hostel was a Generator Hostel. That means the rooms with beds and showers are good, but the hostel feels more like a hotel and loses the typical hostel atmosphere.

During my stay, I had a nice German guy sharing the room with me, who is starting his studies in winter and decided to take a trip beforehand.

Stockholm is, of course, a beautiful city. However, there wasn't much to do, surprisingly. But that was probably also because I lost interest in most things. I naturally looked at everything from the outside, but only properly visited 2 things.

On one hand, I went to the Vasa Museum. It's a museum about the Vasa ship, which was built around the time of the Thirty Years' War. This ship sank on its maiden voyage after about 1 km due to being unsuitable for sailing. It was too narrow, too tall, and too heavy. The architect completely failed. The ship was supposed to serve as a propaganda tool and a powerful weapon (it had about 200 cannons), but it ended up being a disgrace.

Then the ship lay in the water for about 300 years and was later salvaged and displayed in the Vasa Museum. It remains about 98% preserved.

The cannons of the ship were salvaged after a few years of sinking with the help of a diving bell. This was an exorbitant task for the time, as these things are incredibly heavy and it was done with a diving bell, as I said.

So I really liked the museum.

The second thing was an open-air museum called Skansen, which I visited with the German colleague. This museum showcases the life of the people in Sweden in the past and also includes a small zoo with animals from the Scandinavian region. This museum was also pretty cool.

The new part of Stockholm seemed very crowded to me and had a really high police presence.

In Stockholm, I tried the traditional Köttbullar once, which were pretty good, and I also tried elk, which was unfortunately a bit disappointing for its price of 30€. But that was most likely due to the preparation and the piece of meat, and not the taste of elk meat in general.

In Stockholm, I also really liked the supermarkets. They are clean, have a wide selection, and are cheaper than in Denmark. Also, the salad bar and the fresh meat, fish, and cheese section looked really good.

What else is there to say...

The Swedish language sounds funny and some words are exactly the same as in German. However, there aren't enough of them to understand anything.

What seems to be really rare in all of Scandinavia is bakeries. I've only noticed one so far...

And I also thought it was cool that you always get tap water for free in restaurants.

And one last point. The wind is crazy strong. Because of that, it was quite chilly and sometimes a bit cold even in a sweater and long pants. But when the wind stops for a moment and the sun shines, it's really warm.

To conclude, I would like to mention that I paid 15€ for three 0.4L beers in the bar. Thanks for that.