New Year in Stockhom

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Yes I know, I shouldn't be travelling any more. It's time to sit tight and look for a job but you see... I had a very important reason to travel this time. O:-)

My cousin Maria has been living in Stockholm for almost two years now and in less than a couple of months she'll be going back to Spain so I found myself pondering about my options.

Option number 1: Miss my last chance to pay Maria a visit in Stockholm and stay put instead.
Option number 2: Do the right thing.

So I did the right thing. I always do the right thing. :-)

This time I was travelling from Spain and I had an excellent pick up service.
My friend's Javi pick up service.

The owner of this excellent pick up service collects you personally at home in his flamboyant car, and drops you at the airport.

I know what you are thinking.

He's missing the driver's cap!

On the other hand if you were to be picked up in style like this:

Would you complain about the driver's attire? Of course not, you would let it slide, just this once. :-)

After flying to Barcelona, waiting there for 3 hours, catching another fly to Stockholm then the bus and finally I made it to my destination almost at midnight where I had another pick up service.

You can appreciate the Swedish uniform on the above photo, head, neck, hands all covered. -10 degrees

Only 25 degrees less than in Spain.

There was no party throwing flowers and singing at my arrival, no sweets nor celebratory drinks either (I daydream sometimes) just María, waiting in the freezing cold for 15 minutes until my bus arrived. No wonder I awarded her with the highly prestigious title of "favourite cousin in the whole world" some time ago.

It was snowing which for me was quite an event but everybody else there went like... "uh?, yeah...not again!
I've been led to believe it had been snowing for months.

I'm not sure whether they use those bicycles in the summer but after a few months under the snow I don't think they'll be of much use.

The following day was New Year's Eve and María had invited a few friends over at her place to celebrate the end of the year and the arrival of the new year, but in the morning we went for a walk. It was sunny and the low temperatures don't seem to bother anyone so we geared up and went downstairs where María wanted to show me an interior courtyard that joins the different buildings, as soon as we went outside into that courtyard I closed the door to prevent the cold from getting into the building.

María stared at me with horror in her eyes and asked: "What have you done?"

"I just closed the door" I replied with surprise at her reaction.

"Now we are locked out" she responded with a defeated gesture. "We can't get out, we'll have to wait until someone opens it up".

Luckily for us a lady from the building opposite to ours decided to take her dog for a walk in the heavily snowed courtyard, the four legged creature looked more like a mole rather than a dog. It was doing more digging  than walking with all the snow. It was a teckel  (see below)

So the poor fella didn't have the legs to walk in the snow but you wouldn't think so should you had the chance to see him running in the snow.

While we were explaining the lady about our predicament, the dog just run off (or should I say dug off?), anyway, I run after him and despite of having no legs (the dog, not me) it took me a couple of minutes to catch up with him.God! Was he fast!

My good deed was rewarded with safe passage through the lady's building for me and my laughing companion María who spent 10 minutes laughing out loud about my running around in pursuit of the legless but quick canine.

Finally we made it outside and our first stop was a river/lake (hard to say with all the snow) that was nearby María's place.

Yes, it was frozen and you could walk over it! which of course we did in order to take these pictures.

After that, we walked in direction to the town centre where we had arranged to meet Ruth, one of María's closest friends in Stockholm.

 We did the last minute shopping for New Year's Eve dinner and did a little bit more walking.

I didn't know ducks could survive these extreme temperatures, but there you have them.

This was the first time I saw this but gutters and water pipes were full of ice.

To the point that in many places there were a lot of stalactites made from ice

This becomes quite dangerous when the ice melts so if you walk around town you would see lots of signs like below:

Not sure about the exact translation but it sounds to me as: Warning! Ice.

It seems that a lot of people get hit by falling ice every year, hence the signs all over the place.

It would be funny that after surviving snakes, spiders, lions, crocodiles, sharks, jelly fish, etc, etc I were going to die from some ice falling from a roof. Just in case I kept my distance with the buildings at all times. :-)

A farmer's market

Below is a place where they sell a spiced warm wine which for some reason María has grown quite fond of.

After all the walking we went home to prepare everything for the night.

Ruth made a total show off of her culinary skills, María had done some previous preparation but in 25 minutes she managed to make the meat, the fish and the potatoes all in one oven and judging by how little was left after dinner I would say that dinner was a complete success.

After dinner we ate the grapes at midnight (Spanish tradition) and went outside to see the fireworks. It was still snowing and we went to the river/lake I had gone with María in the morning.

From left to right: Ruth, Thomas, María and Iftikhar (Ifti)

Then it occurred to me it would be a good idea to throw a few snow balls to see what happened, and this is what happened:

Funny enough, as I was taking pictures I wasn't perceived as a threat so they let me be. For some reason they all forgot who had started it all. O:-)

Then I gave my camera to a couple nearby so they could take a picture of all of us together

When I went to claim my camera back, the ice cracked under my feet and my left boot sank into the freezing water. Got my camera back , then my foot, checked I still had all my toes and someone decided it would be a good idea to get back home should I wish to preserve all of my toes.

Once at home, Ifti was still arguing with María about something (it's a sport and they train every day), Ruth was falling asleep after a long day in her one million dollar dress and Thomas...well, we suspect he was sexting but we have no proof except for the above photo.

The following day after a lazy start we went to have lunch to Ruth's house. Ifti, María and I were there on time, Thomas got there quite late and dodged all our questions regarding his late arrival so it is an exercise for the reader to work out what had been Thomas up to the previous night and in the morning, let's not forget the morning.


Anyway, after lunch Ruth stayed home with a few more guests while Ifti, María and I went for a walk, and it was snowing again. :-)

We tried our luck on some local coffee shops, we were just looking for a warm place to stay for a while

But it became obvious that the Swedish population had the same thought so they were all busy. Eventually we found one that apart from being a coffee shop it was also a bakery so together with our drinks we got a piece of pie. :-)

We spent a good 2 hours in that place. We had a lively conversation, food and drinks. What else could we ask for? Eventually we had to make a move and get back home.

The following morning we met with Ruth, now fully recovered from her hostess duties, and did a little walk around town.

Below you can have a better look at the stalactites I was talking about earlier on.

 Then I went to see a museum that María had recommended to me while Ruth and María went shopping.

I must admit that this museum is a bit different from what one comes to expect from a museum.

On the 17th century the Danes were building a large war ship so the Swedes decided to build a larger one, then when the Swedish learnt how many cannons the Danish ship would carry they decided to double that number on their ship.

The result was quite predictable, almost as soon as the ship left port, it sank.

Why am I telling you about ships on the 17th century? you may wonder.

The reason being is that in the sixties they rescued the ship, brought it to land, restored it and build a museum all around it. Yes, that's right! the museum is a building with a big ship in it! Well, it's quite a bit more than that. It also gives you a glimpse into 17th century life in Sweeden.

They even reconstructed some skeletons they found and re-created their faces (just like in Bones or CSI), you could actually see their faces. It was quite impressive.

Just to give you a scale of the ship, the building where it is hosted is 5 storeys high!

Something that appealed to my geeky nature was the attempt of savaging that took place in mid 17th century.

They already knew about the diving-bell!! although getting into those freezing waters must have been a feat in itself even in the summer.

After the museum I met up with María and Ruth again and went to have lunch. Then a nice and lazy afternoon and finally an early night as I had a taxi waiting for me downstairs at 3:30 in the morning in order to catch my flight back to Spain.

I definitely had a great time in Stockholm and I'm glad I visited it in the Winter breaking my holiday rule of no visiting any place with less than 30C. :-)

The place was nice but María, Ruth, Ifti and Thomas made it even better so from here I would like to thank them for the time we spent together and for not throwing me in the snow when they had the chance.

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