Land of ice coolness, ABBA and Sven and Ulrika-ka-ka-ka

For God sake, will you just change those guards
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Day 4 - Friday 21st August 2009

I had a short one hour flight to Stockholm. The inflight magazine (which was mostly in English) had a quiz inside and one of the sport questions inside was "Which year was Everton football club formed?" Now I know my history but I can't believe many of the Danes or Swedes on the plane would have got that one right.

And now on Swedish soil, so much for Sweden being full of blondes, after walking around I noted there was clearly alot more in Copenhagen and Oslo (and of better quality too).

The National Gallery almost had a picture of me - the Andrians
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I found myself a cheap and cheerful pub selling normal and also traditional Swedish grub. I opted for the Swedish meatballs (obviously, meatballs is some sort of national delicacy in Sweden).

On the way back to the hostel, I stopped off in some pub where about 80% of the clientele were black. The highlight of my brief stay in the pub was watching the World Athletics Championship on the pub TV which was showing the high jump. On the TV, some black dude with short dreadlocks failed his jump and a proper Rastafarian guy in the pub shouted at the TV, "What do you think you are doing, Rastaman?"

Sitting on the Dock of the Stockholm bay
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Day 5 - Saturday 22nd August 2009

Woke up to a rainy Stockholm so held off the sightseeing until midday when thankfully the weather started to clear so I headed out on the tourist trail. I went to the Royal Palace and saw the changing of the guards. It lasted about an hour but could have been done in about 15 mins. There was changing of the guards but mainly the show turned into a horseback brass band playing.

At one point, they started playing 'World in Union' - not sure about the Swedish connection on that one (unless they are a unifying kind of nation).

Ice, Ice Baby
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I then had a walk to a few of that different islands that make up Stockholm. Along the way, I passed a wedding where the blokes were dressed up with black bow ties. Nice.... let's go to the wedding ball!

I decided to venture in to some museums - the national museum had a painting of the 'Andrians' (well almost me). I also saw the Nordiska museum which was in some fairy tale type gothic building and had very random things on display from political art movements to English living room furniture to Swedish weddings to different types of glassware. Nordiska must be Swedish for highly random.

I then found another Tivoli fun fayre - these Scandinavians know how to have fun.

After visiting city hall, I headed off to the very touristy Ice Bar. I got dressedup in a fetching blue coat before going in. Yes, it was icy but not as cold as I thought that it would be. After 5 mins, the novelty had worn off and after another 5 mins, I had finished my free (even though I had to pay a 180 Swedish Krona entry fee) drink so I quickly headed off for the warmer climes outside the bar.

Later on, I went out for my tea and found an Irish bar - Galways. Unusually, it wasn't over-priced like most foreign Irish bars. However, as usual, it wasn't Irish as the barman told me that the place was owned by 4 Turks - well, Turk of the morning to you.

I got speaking to two blokes in the pub - Joe (an American who was the first born again Christian that I had ever met) and Edward (a Tanzanian who was looking to qualify as a barrister in England). We headed to a nearby bar/club called East. It was not a good set up. People had to stand around a barrier rope near the entrance and if a bouncer liked the look of you then they would let the barrier down and let you in.`Obviously we were not liked as we had to wait 20 minutes to get in and watched loads of people get in before us. A very belittling experience. The bar was not even that good anyway. The bouncers must have been doing us a favour all along(?!).

Day 6 - Sunday 23rd August 2009

No hectic tourist trails today. I just walked to the Sodermalm and had a pleasant stroll through the cobbled thin streets of the Old Town, Gamla Stan, I then bought a ticket for the Royal Palace and went in to the four parts open to the public. The first was a very dimly lit Tre Knonor Museum which had quite a few models of the palace in. These models did not have a sign saying 'Do not Touch' but they had 'Please - handle the model with care'. I did not test my carefulness. Second was the Treasury which was not very big but had some cool swords and crowns.

Third was the Antikmusuem which was full of sculptors. Last was the Royal Apartments which were obviously very stately looking. The parts for the Swedish Royal Family were all golden with tapestries and frescoes. The rooms reserved for visiting Head of States were much less impressive and rather plain.

I 'treated' myself to a hot dog for lunch. I had to try one as there are loads of these stalls around Stockholm. I rather regretted this choice of lunch as I could taste hot dogs for the rest of the day. Maybe the Swedish ladies will find hot dog breath attractive?

And so to the boat to Helsinki which I had heard more than one person call the party boat. I was sharing with four people. Two of the guys were Finnish and the other guy was half American/Finnish(?). I went to the pub on the boat with one of the Finnish guys, Arrtu. They had entertainters on the stage in the pub and it felt like I was back upstairs in Farnworth Labour Club.