Most of you know I went to Sweden a little while ago. What you don’t know is that it was fantastic. I had a wonderful time there. My cousin is living in Stockholm so I had a personal tour guide for the entire trip. We wandered around the city and visited a number of museums. A fair amount of time was also spent commenting on the general good-lookingness of Swedes. I had no idea that everyone in the whole country is beautiful. I was flattered when people actually mistook me for a Swede. I may have to return to Sweden if this England thing doesn’t work out. Anyway, we also ate a fair amount of delicious food. There’s this one thing they have there that is heavenly. It’s a cookie of sorts, but better than any cookie I’ve ever had before. It’s a really soft, chewy cookie with a layer of chocolate butter (I know! Why haven’t we thought of chocolate butter in America? Forget honey butter) that is then covered with a hard chocolate shell. Delicious. We also ate some meatballs that we’re still not sure of the ingredients for. On the English translation of the menu it was called “wildforce” meat. So if anyone has any insight into what a wildforce is, I would love to hear it. My favorite was lunch the last day. We went to what amounts to an indoor market where some of the stalls have a sort of deli counter. There’s a bunch of prepared foods and you just choose what you want and then they warm it up for you and you sit at their counter and eat. I felt very authentic.
Anyway, enough about delicious food and even more delicious people. Now on to the actual trip. The first day we went to the city hall where they hold the Nobel Prize banquet every December. It was pretty cool. I had a definite history-nerd moment there. Unfortunately no one there could answer my question as to why President Obama was given a Nobel Prize this year. Erik said it was because the committee was Finnish this year and they’re all a bit off. Who knows? After the City Hall, we wandered around town for a bit and then went to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is a giant warship that sunk after 25 minutes on its maiden voyage. Funny story. It sat in Stockholm harbor for 300+ years and was finally rescued in the 1960s. They spent 30 years restoring it and now it has a museum built around it. It was pretty cool. Next on the list was the Swedish culture museum. It had an entire floor dedicated to table settings, which I’m told are a big deal in Sweden. It looked a little like an IKEA showroom. When we finished there we went to the old town and wandered around. That’s where we had the meatballs. After dinner, we headed to a YSA dance where people from all over Scandinavia were competing for who could speak English the best. I’m not kidding. I thought some of the people were American. Well, we danced the night away and I met some lovely people, who I’m sure I will never see again. The next day was Sunday and we decided to get some delicious breakfast before Church, which ended up costing us more than dinner the previous night. Oh well, it was tasty. Church was the standard testimony-meeting-with-a-bunch-of-people-who-are trying-to-impress-each-other stuff. The only thing that truly impressed me was the level of English proficiency. Impeccable, once again. Monday morning we went to Skansen, which is an outdoor museum, I guess. There’s a zoo with native animals and some typical houses from different areas and time periods in Sweden. My favorite was the glass-blowing demonstration, mostly because one of the guys kept looking at me. I rewarded him with smiles and the purchase of a vase. After Skansen we had lunch at the market place and then I had to leave for the airport. All in all, not a bad weekend. I think next time, though, I’ll go in the summer and without a guy who I’d like to think deterred the hot Swedish guys from hitting on me.
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