Where’s the Easy Button? : Stockholm

Everything seems to be too easy and efficient in Stockholm, I don’t think I can handle it. Especially after living in France, where to me personally, it seems as though they find the hardest and oddest way to do things which takes an 5 extra steps, or just make no sense at all. As a friend mentioned Europe developed their highway system after the US, yet they still changed many things to make it so f’in difficult.  Anyway, I am greeted by tall, beautiful women with a smile everywhere in the airport. And they speak English with no hesitation. I guess this will ease me into the shock of going back to the service focused US.

I walk around the first day and head to Gamla Stan, the old part of town. Home to Alfred Nobel the founder of dynamite and the source of the Nobel Prizes, Stockholm is a set of isles with gorgeous waters and canals that flow in between. I took a bus tour around the various parts of the city, but was in and out of sleep during most of it, so unfortunately I won’t have much to add here on the history. All I remember is something about a blood bath in the 1500’s, witch hunts, the plague, and the 3 crowns being the symbol of the country. However, I got the chance to visit the Vasa Museum the next day, it has the sunken Vasa ship excavated after being under water for 333 years. It set sail in 1628 for all but 20 minutes until it sank since it was too top heavy and narrow. It was pretty cool to see the remnants from the ship and imagine daily life in those times. The Nordic Museum also had interesting tidbits on Swedish history, and striking exposition on fashion through three centuries explaining fashion as a way for people to fulfill the need to feel together and the desire to be different at the same time. One thing to mention, in Swedish,  hej(pronounced hey) is the word for hello. And typically in the US, hey is more of an informal greeting used between friends, thus I find it very strange when everyone says hej! to you here. I have been forewarned, the all the women in Sweden look like models, I guess I should look at the men as my friend didn’t have time to look at them as he was busy admiring the beautiful women. Based on my amateur research methods, I can confidently say that the women are much hotter than men here (statistically speaking, with 95% confidence).  Looking forward to going to Vienna tomorrow, especially for the warmer weather.