Sweden for Hipsters

October 29, 2012:

Andreas worked Monday, and Rachel returned to Ireland on Monday, so we were entrusted with the appartment key. We freshened up and then attempted to leave. Those tricky Swedes have to lift the door handle for the door to lock. That only took us 15 minutes and an emergency Facebook message to figure out (ie. we didn't figure it out until Andreas told us what to do).

We had a cinnamon bun for breakfast (kanelbulle) which is a Swedish invention, but their cinnamon buns are badass compared to ours. They put Canadian cinnamon buns to shame:

Before lunch we bought some postcards and found my magnet! I decided it needed to reflect the way the sun hits the water. I lack the vocabulary to describe how beautiful the city of Stockholm is.

In 2009, I participated in the Rotary Youth Leadership Award program and in 2010 the International RYLA convention took place in Montréal, so I had the privilege of attending and meeting over 130 participants from countries all over the world, including Sweden. I had the opportunity to meet up with one of my friends from this conference, Celia, for lunch. She gave us some choices and we left it up to her to decide where we should eat. She decided to show us the "hip" side of Stockholm. We had lunch at a gourmet burger restaurant called Vigårda BBQ which was exceptionally good and reasonably priced (even for Scandinavia!), and had coffee at a shop that looked like a lodge and had faux-fur covered stools.

Celia told us that H&M is a Swedish brand (I love this country more and more) that used to be composed of two brands. H stands for Hennes, meaning hers, and M stands for Mauritz, meaning Mauritz. In the centre of Stockholm they have a four-story H&M with another store across the street for H&M Home. Danielle and I decided not to tempt torture ourselves. She also gave us some excellent advice for the rest of our day. It was such a pleasure to see her again!

We made our way to the area of the city that Celia had recommended, which was, what my Dad would call, the yuppie quarter of Stockholm. We fell in love with everything in sight. We started out by casually window-shopping the second-hand stores and trying not to spend too long in each one.

Then, we couldn't resist any longer. I bought a sweater (which turned out to be really useful because my Canada sweater was starting to smell) and a Swedish children's book (OK, so I also have a weakness for children's literature... I'm going to be a teacher!). It was perfect timing too because Stockholm had had enough of the good weather and it started pouring. We looked in record shops, strange furniture shops, antique shops and more second-hand clothing shops.

In order to avoid the rain, we opted to do a pilgrimmage to Ikea Stockholm. The city offers a free bus from the tourist office every half hour and we were just in time. We were almost in two accidents and our bus driver was insane. Unlike this Danish bus driver:

We thoroughly enjoyed all the kitchens and random things you could buy, like pepparkaka (gingerbread), and "Swedish holiday drinks". We ended up buying ponchos, which was the best decision of the trip, and frozen pizza to eat for lunch the next day. Andreas was perplexed when we told him we were at Ikea, wondering what tourists could possibly find interesting about that.

We met him back at the flat and we decided to make fajitas for dinner. To finish off our stay in Stockholm, we watched the film Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. I have a huge crush on Steve Carell (Dan in Real Life is my favourite movie ever because I am probably a romantic hipster at heart) and I also love Keira Knightley, so as strange as this coupling is, I was thrilled with the movie before I'd even seen in. It is, however, an excellent film despite my bias.

In conclusion, Stockholm is an amazing city and if you have the chance (make a chance for yourself), you should definitely visit. I wish we could have spent more time exploring the Kulturehuset and learning more Swedish. I would have spent a fortune in the hipster district of Stockholm if I'd spent any longer though, so it's probably a good thing we were moving on in the morning to Norway!

 

Photo Credit: Danielle Ambs