Yo, guys. You’ll never believe it. I think this might be the last of the Sweden series and then we can move on to a new locale! That being said, I will try to keep this snappy and concise.
As you can see from the photos, we had some more subway funway after lunch. I think Henry was scared that I was going to become obsessed with Stockholm’s subway system and ask him to re-design the Seoul Subway Sign, but Mona, I’m here to tell you that I don’t think anything will ever dethrone ANY part of South Korea from my heart’s top spot. Honestly.
I did enjoy exploring the public transportation in Sweden, though. It was clean and, not that any of this ever falls on me, but it seemed pretty easy to navigate? Henry? Chooch? You wanna weigh in on that*?
*(LOL as if they read this. Trust me, the last thing they want is to relive their life events through my blurry kaleidoscope* eyes.)
*(OK the way that I spelled that correctly on the first try, no hesitation, like it’s my middle name, but then I misspell common, everyday words in every single blog post. Got it.)
I could go for some Swedish chocolate bars right about now.
Subway shot.
We went back to Skeppsbron, where we had caught the ferry earlier, in order to have honest to god fika at Skeppsbron Bageri which evidently has the “city’s best cinnamon rolls.”
They were good! We got the OG cinnamon and also cardamom, which I have to say was my favorite roll variety everywhere we went. I just REALLY enjoy me some cardamom.
In a much better mood for photos after fika, that’s for sure. I have to laugh though because the whole point of fika is to take a break during the day to have coffee and a treat with family and/or friends. You’re supposed to slow it the fuck down, put your phone away (probably, I’m making the rules up as I go), maybe play some old school hangman on the back of a receipt, etc. But that’s supposing that you’re there with someone whose company you enjoy. I’m…not sure you can say that about the three of us, lol. So basically we chilled for about 20 minutes, probably didn’t talk – actually, I have a FAINT memory of verbally eviscerating Henry for preparing my coffee improperly and him saying THEN GET IT YOURSELF NEXT TIME.
Can you even imagine? The audacity. The sheer gall.
Walking around, walking around.
Literally every street is gorgeous in Gamla Stan.
You know what’s crazy and I just realized it while looking at a map? Gamla Stan is right next to an area (neighborhood?) called Norrbro which a Hipstamatic film pack is named after. I’ve also been to a place in South Korea that one of the film packs is named after (Hongdae)!
Also, yes, I still use Hipstamtic almost exclusively to edit my photos, how 2010 of me, I know. I actually created my own “favorite” action and named it Gamla Stan!
We took the subway back to a bigger, more modern area called Norrmalm because I wanted to continue my futile search for Beartown. We must have went to three bookstores and one salesclerk said, “Oh, another store has it – we can have it shipped here for you!” and I sadly said, “We’re leaving today.” :(
This was in one of the malls and I thought it was so smart and a great idea! Also in this mall, we went into a toy store to buy Pippi merch and happened to wander downstairs where I found a rack of name stickers and one of the names was Saga, which is the name of one of my friend’s daughters – I couldn’t believe it! What are the odds that I’d randomly spin a rack of stickers with no agenda, just kind of in passing, and it stops spinning on Saga?? I guess that name must be popular in Sweden?? Anyway, I totally had to buy it even though I have never met Saga! My friend’s other daughter’s name is Ophelia but they sadly didn’t have her name in sticker-form. I got her cute unicorn stickers though because I might be a jerk and lacking in a lot of areas, but I at least know that you can’t buy one little sister a present without getting something for the other too. Come on, now. You’re talking to Erin Kaleidoscope Kelly here.
We had a LITTLE bit of time left before we needed to return to the hotel to grab our luggage and get our asses to the ferry, which was scheduled to depart at 8PM with or without us American schmucks. So we just strolled around and soaked up as much Stockholm vibes and vapers as possible.
I gotta cut that bitch out of the background. She looks so stern! I hate it.
Guys. You know what’s funny? I just realized, looking at this photo on the map on my phone, that this was Norrbro, lol. Nothing like getting your bearings two and a half mths after you left to come back home.
There is so much I wanted to do here, but with less than a full day, it was impossible to even scratch the surface.
Back at the Sheraton to claim our luggage and use the bathroom in the lobby real quick, where Chooch got to report a “poop incident” to the front desk and this time THANKFULLY it wasn’t his own. I didn’t see it because the restrooms weren’t unisex but Henry said it looked like someone opened the stall door and just bent over and sprayed the wall with their ass. So….similar to my story in the last post re: puking in the restroom of the science center after the viking movie gave me motion sickness! FULL CIRCLE.
Kind of.