WEDNESDAY, JULY 17
INTO THE WOODS
Surrounding our Airbnb were wooded areas, sometimes little patches, sometimes large parks. Birds, deer and other animals move between these forests and the apartment blocks, nature and humans mingling smoothly. We headed into the parklands, paths connecting housing units, long gravel walks through acres of tall trees, wild flowers, and pines, and found ourselves at the top of a hill with a 360 degree view of Stockholm. The swaths of natural green areas, Stockholm’s Old Town, the lines of ocean cutting the land into islands spread out before us.
Walking through nature seemed as authentic an experience of Stockholm as walking the cobbled city streets. Many people were walking, running and biking the paths.
A CHANCE MEETING
Before taking the train downtown, we had lunch at a Japanese restaurant near the metro station, and ended up having a long talk with a woman eating there. She invited us to her table, and was incredibly lively, smart and open, about her life and life in Sweden. Like so many of the people we passed on the streets or sat next to in the metro or restaurants, she was blond, blue-eyed with high cheekbones and an upright posture. There is something almost freakish about the similarity of the fine, fair, features of people here. Their Viking past still apparent, and so different than people further south, even in Germany. Their appearance seems almost a reflection of the country itself, or vise versa. Stockholm feels organized, clean, polite (if you will) and everything about it well designed and pre-meditated.
The woman said her father died recently, and she believes hospital care negligence was the cause. She went on to explain some problems with Sweden’s medical system. Medicine, Like much else in the country, she said, medicine had been privatized. Sweden is no longer what it was in the 70s, she said. Poverty, drugs and inequality between rich and poor have changed the face of the country.
She grew up in the neighborhood where we are staying, and explained that most of it was built as housing for working class families in the 1940s. Her family of seven shared one small apartment. Today, the apartments have to be privately owned and are run like stratas in Vancouver — a group of owners paying for upkeep and amenities. Because the apartments are no longer low-cost rentals overseen by the government, people have had to go into debt in order to buy them. In Swedish people are more in debt than people in most other countries, she said. Housing debt is the biggest threat to the Swedish economy and accounts for 88.6% of the countries GND.
CINNAMON ROLLS AND A WANDER
After lunch, we took the train to Gamal Stan, the old town, and walked the southern part of the island, along the water, stopping to sit in the sun at a picnic table and eat our gooey, sweet, and perfect cinnamon rolls, or kanelsnegl. Rather than going straight to the Nordic Museum, our destination for the day, we wandered the streets, stopping at a memorial to the Jews murdered in the Holocaust, a nearby synagogue, a fountain in the center of the stylish Nybroplan Park sided by the ornate, turn of the century exclusive Berns hotel/club.
Walking further north into another square, we entered the upscale shopping district with expensive, outdoor restaurants. Further along, we came out on the shopping streets of Nybrog and Storgatan. We were curious to see how Swedish stores display fashion and goods. Simple, good taste!
NORDISKA MUSEET
The Nordiska Museet offers audio guides that are designed to help the visitor see the Museum’s highlights. It’s supposed to take about an hour to visit the four floors of this massive, late 1800s building. That wasn’t the case with us. We made it about halfway in an hour and decided to do a “Jenny” which means rushing through the rest of the museum. (Jenny is an artist friend who we saw in London, and told us how she just walks through museums, rarely stopping.)
A full quarter floor is devoted to the story of the Sami, the indigenous people of Sweden, Finland and northern Russia. Traditionally they have been reindeer herders. We lingered there, and also took extra time to take in all the finely crafted, quirky “craft” objects and beautifully streamlined and functional furniture.
Back to the Airbnb, leaving again. Stockholm deserves more time.
