After weeks and weekends of holing up in my apartment, it was time to hop on a plane and cross off the first destination on my
2016 travel list: Stockholm! I spent Thursday night in Madrid with a friend, and on Friday morning I took the 11:35am flight to Stockholm with
Iberia Express. It was my first time to fly with them, and as far as budget airlines go, I don't have any complaints. I landed in the Arlanda airport without any hitches, and took the Airshuttle to the city. (I just tried to go to the website to link it to this post, but the website claims "operations have ceased." I don't know if this is temporary or what, but check them out next time). I had bought my tickets online so I just showed the barcode confirmation I received and I was on my way. Airshuttle advertises 35 minutes to the city center without traffic, but it may have been rush hour as it took me almost an hour to reach the Central Station. But waiting for me when I arrived were my sister Angela and my cousin Maya, and we had a nice reunion. :)
We took the metro to the station near Maya's apartment, and walking to the apartment, I was greeted with blankets of snow everywhere. Since I spent the Christmas holidays in Manila and it doesn't really snow in Valladolid, this was my first time to see snow this winter. I had forgotten just how serene snow can be, and it made for such a pretty sight. Despite the snow, it was actually not as cold as I expected it to be. There was a nice kind of chill in the air, which I quite liked. I found it colder in Valladolid actually, as the cold there is harsh, the kind that bites you.
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| Mariatorget (Maria Square) |
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| Blanket of snow |
When we arrived at the apartment, Maya had to get ready to go to the Opera for the show's premiere (we were still watching the next day), so Angela and I decided to go to the Moderna Museet. We had a lovely evening walking around Stockholm. Angela had been there three times before, but it was my first time there and I couldn't help marvelling at how beautiful the city was. I just wish the buildings had more lights! It would've been so much prettier at night.
Stockholm is actually comprised of 14 islands. But some of them are quite small, and the city is walkable. Maya's apartment is on the
Södermalm island, and above that is
Gamla Stan, which is the Old Town. North of Gamla Stan is the
Normalmm, the main island where the Central Station and the Opera House is, and to the west of Gamla Stan is
Skeppsholmen, which is where the museum was, and where we were headed.
The
Moderna Museet (the Museum of Modern Art), is one of the three museums in the Skeppsholmen, along with a theatre and a grand hall. The museum offers free entrance to the permanent exhibit on Fridays from 6-8pm, so we really planned to visit then. The exhibit was small, but quite enjoyable. I hadn't been to an art museum in a while, so I finally got to have my art fix.
After the museum, we made our way back to Maya's apartment, walking through Gamla Stan. I wanted to try some Swedish food, so we chose a nice looking restaurant called
Tradition. The food ended up being excellent, and the restaurant had a very nice and cozy vibe. I'd definitely recommend it. Ange and I decided to order two different dishes to share. We went with the traditional
Swedish Meatballs served with cream sauce, lingonberries, pickled cucumber and potato puree, and the
Elk Patty with mushroom sauce and rowan berry jelly. Both were delicious, and we each had a glass of red wine recommended by the waiter.
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| Swedish food |
Sweden can be quite expensive, especially alcohol. Our glass of wine at the restaurant cost us about 85 kroner (SEK) or €8,50. It's much much cheaper to buy alcohol at the Systembolaget (which I'll write about later). The food dishes in the restaurant cost about SEK 195 (€19,50), which was a bit more than I usually pay, but it was a nice restaurant and the quality of the food was very good. For comparison, the next day we were rushing and bought food at a street stand and it cost about SEK 65 or (€6,50). So even, street stand food is quite pricey.
After our dinner we headed back to the apartment and waited for Maya to arrive home with her sister Julie who she picked up from the Central Station (she flew in from Paris). We stayed up a bit to talk and catch up, then headed to bed to get some rest for the next day.
We got up relatively early and went to walk around
Södermalm. The snow was still as beautiful, a bit more so during the day. We walked to a lookout point and took some pictures.
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| Snowy square |
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| Ready for the day! |
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| Cold, but loving it |
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| Snow paved walkways |
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| Stockholm with these girls |
After walking around a bit (and doing some shopping), Maya headed to the Opera to get ready for her show, while Angela, Julie and I decided to visit the nearby
Fotografiska museet (Museum of Photography).
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| Fotografiska museet |
We paid the entrance fee (SEK 120 for adults / SEK 90 discounted), and headed in. The museum was huge, much bigger than I expected. I later found out that it has an exhibition space of 2,500 square meters. The current exhibition on the first floor revolved around portraits, and it was really interesting. One of my favorite ones (which I didn't manage to get a picture of) was an exhibit of portraits of protesters from Occupy Wall Street.
Another one which I really liked is this one below. Instead of the ID pictures, you see the portraits devoid of faces.
We stayed in the museum for over an hour, then started to make our way back home. We passed through Gamla Stan once more, this time around taking the time to enjoy the streets and shops. Gamla Stan is full of charming alleys and colorful buildings. It was really lovely to walk around.
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| Gamla Stan |
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| Mårten Trotzigs gränd - the narrowest alley in Stockholm |
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| Stortorget (The Big Square) - colorful buildings on the left and the Nobel Museum on the right |
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| One of the any bridges that connect the Stockholm islands |
We slightly lost track of time and had to rush back to the apartment to get ready for the show. First we stopped by the
Systembolaget since we wanted to surprise Maya with a bottle of champagne. As I mentioned before, alcohol is quite expensive in Sweden. Furthermore, drinks with more than 3.5% alcohol by volume are not sold in supermarkets or stores. The only place to buy alcohol is in the Systembolaget, which is government owned and controlled. It was my first time hearing of this, and I found it quite interesting. You can read more about alochol in Sweden over
here.
So after buying the champagne, we bought some street food to quickly eat in the apartment. We managed to change, get ready, and eat in under 20 minutes, then we were on the bus and off to the Opera. The performance we were watching that afternoon was entitled
Körper, and it is the piece that made
Sasha Waltz famous as a choreographer. The show was in the
Kungliga Operan (The Royal Swedish Opera), a truly beautiful building.
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| The stage |
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| Posing in the staircase |
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| One of the ballrooms |
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| Celebratory champagne while waiting for Maya |
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| With the poster for the show |
The show was very interesting; it was my first time to watch Maya do a contemporary piece. We were so proud of her! After the show we headed to the Opera bar to have some champagne while waiting for Maya. Then as we were headed home, we realized it was snowing outside!
The next day, I heard mass and did some souvenir shopping. After lunch at home, and a quick FaceTime with our grandmother and relatives in the Philippines, I headed to the airport to catch my flight back to Spain. It was a short but very sweet trip to Stockholm. I'd definitely love to go back to see more of Scandinavia soon.
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