The Blonde Ambition Tour

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After 3 whistlestop weeks back home it was with a little trepidation that I got on the plane early on Tuesday morning, headed for Stockholm, land of vikings, Abba and Ikea. I was about to start a job with no clear remit, knowing no-one in the city apart from my new colleagues (who I briefly met the previous week and who may not like me for very long) with a 4-night booking in a fairly rubbish hotel and no return ticket. What's to worry about?!

Well, the hotel thing was relatively easy to sort out. I did practically nothing apart from take a tour of 3 very nice hotels one evening and state my preference (sadly the comment about loving the suite wasn’t quite taken seriously). Then some lovely people at the office entered into frantic negotiations and got us a decent deal and a booking until 2nd May. We moved over to the Hotel Clarion Sign yesterday and not a moment too soon - the Swedish RSPCA were probably on their way with blue lights flashing to ensure I wasn’t swinging any cats at the Rica. To be fair it wasn’t a bad hotel, but not one to stay at for more than a couple of days - no storage space, no control over room temperature without horrible noises coming from either the aircon or the open window, no floor space to open my case, no public area in which to sit to escape the cell, no restaurant or bar, mattress was too soft... on the plus side, it was clean, the staff were nice and the breakfast was good! But these are all things adequately covered by the Clarion so I’m a happy bunny once more, albeit probably not for more than a couple of weeks. If nothing else I need to be able to cook my own food otherwise I’m going to come back 3 stone heavier...

To cut a long and boring story short on the work front, the work is pretty full-on but quite interesting and requiring me to use my brain for a change. There'll be a fair few challenges but nothing I can't handle I don’t think. At the very least it’ll be good CV points, and will help re-line the pockets a bit after Whistler, which will then let me skive off for a bit longer. All the news I hear of the UK economy suggests that both the pocket relining and the skiving are good plans!

On the social side, I’ve not had to make a huge effort to meet people at the moment as Greg, the European audit manager is here, so we’ve spent a fair amount of leisure time together. Although to be honest, I’m now craving my own company as he’s pretty hard work! A nice enough chap but I find myself gabbling away as he gives very little back. He also has dual irritating habits of staring at me intently (which I find rather unnerving hence gabbling more) and then smiling in a particularly forced looking way when I catch him doing so. The staring has since been explained somewhat - he thinks I look like his sister, which I’m trying to take as a compliment although I have seen a picture and saw no resemblance whatsoever. And no, before you ask, it’s not because he likes me - I understand he isn’t particularly into girls.

This weekend we’ve done a bit of sightseeing and I’m learning a bit about the history of the city (me, cultured?). Friday evening was beautifully sunny so we had a walk around Gamla Stan (the old town) before dinner. The light was really lovely but I didn’t get many photos - will have to go back another day. After moving hotels at Saturday lunchtime, we walked down through Gamla Stan again and spent the afternoon wandering around Sodermalm, an area that used to house the working classes but is now a rather trendy area to live. Lots of quirky little shops and restaurants and some fabulous views of Gamla Stan from the cliffs on the north shore. Some of the best views are from the walkway to/from the Katarinahissen, a fairly short lift taking the lazy from Slussen up the cliffs (or the uninitiated from the top to the bottom, as we ended up doing!). The original 1883 lift was apparently steam powered but they replaced that with a more modern and ordinary lift in 1936. Having walked a fair way already we opted to try out the T-bana (Stockholm’s largely above ground underground system)... all of 2 stops from Slussen to T-Centralen! Ah well, it’s good practice 😊

Feeling that we hadn’t walked far enough on Saturday, and as it was another beautiful sunny day, we set out on a mammoth expedition on Sunday morning. From our lovely modernist hotel full of Scandinavian furniture design classics (!) we took a long looping ENE-ESE-S route, taking in the Johanneskyrka (normal Sunday service was in progress so we didn’t stay long - a beautiful building to revisit though), the Kungliga Biblioteket (National Library - closed on Sundays), past the Hedvig Eleonorakyrka and Armemuseum (where there appeared to be some kind of military band getting ready to march, all done up in royal blue uniforms and shiny gold pointed helmets) and down onto the Strandvagen next to the water. Then we kept walking along the waterfront and over Djurgardsbron onto the island of Djurgarden. Djurgarden (pronounced your-gore-den) is literally the “animal garden” and used to be the royal hunting grounds. It’s now the world’s first National City Park and is home to quite a few tourist attractions as well as an area that Stockholmers use for recreation when city life gets too crowded.

Whilst on the island we took the opportunity to visit the Vasamuseet. It’s fascinating and well worth a visit, if only for the spectacle of walking into a building and seeing a full-size wooden warship in there! The Vasa was launched in 1628 and sunk only 20 minutes into her maiden voyage due to poor design, fear of King Gustav II Adolf and a stiff breeze. She then lay on the seabed just off the south coast of Djurgarden for 333 years until an enthusiastic amateur found her and got the Navy to rescue her in 1961. Over 95% of the ship (and over 97% of the carvings) is original timber, which I found incredible. Apparently it’s due to the low salinity of the waters around Stockholm (part Lake Malaren, part Baltic Sea) which means that the shipworm can’t survive and so destroy the wood. We must have spent 2 hours or more in the museum and could have seen a lot more than we did. One to go back to another day I think! After the Vasamuseet we planned to have lunch in the cafe of the Aquaria Vattenmuseum (great water views) but apparently you can’t get to the cafe without going into the aquarium! Ah well, never mind. So in we go, rush through on the way in to eat, then a more leisurely stroll back, taking in the tiny butterfly-arium (what are they called?), the sea trout life cycle (they actually return to spawn in the museum!) and sharks and pirhanas on the way.

Walking was getting tiresome by now so we opted to take the short ferry ride back over to Gamla Stan. It was only about 15 minutes long but was actually an unexpected highlight with great views and an up-close-and-personal with one of the enormous Viking Line ships that was coming into dock - I didn’t realise quite how manoeuvrable those things are! Greg left me at that point so I took another rambling stroll through Gamla Stan, getting myself thoroughly lost, and probably walking another 2 miles before I got back to the hotel. Boy, do my feet ache now! But we saw a lot and it’s good research for any visitors I might have 😊

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Photos

My new home... for now
Complete with Corona chair by Poul M Wolther and Erik Jorgensen