Advertisement
I now feel a bit less of a
hobo, having settled into my lovely new flat. I've been here a week now and have finally found time to stock up the cupboards with spoils from the local supermarket after another hectic week. You can be nosy and see a few photos of the place
here although I'm not sure how much longer the listing will be there... Depends how efficient our friend Björn is! To give you a brief description, I have 2 bedrooms, a large kitchen/diner with all the necessary equipment, a large lounge overlooking the water and a small but perfectly adequately formed wetroom. All very white with lots of wood - typical modern Scandinavian (although owned by a Brit!). SO much better than the hotel 😊 Particularly as I can now cook for myself and can revert to beans on toast if I want to rather than having to go roam the streets in search of an open restaurant.
The area seems nice although I've not had much of a chance to explore yet - I did have a bit of a wander round the "coast" to the west and south at the weekend, as well as
taking a look at Långholmen (the small island I can see from my window). Långholmen was home to a prison for 250 years until 1975 so is largely undeveloped and green. Part of the prison itself is now apparently a budget hotel! There's also a museum there which houses a replica of Sweden's only guillotuine, imported from France and used just once... The Swedes were obviously a law-abiding bunch after that!
Now that I'm practically a local, I should share with you some things that I find strange about my new country of residence:* you need to plan your laundry - in each "house" of apartments there are communal laundry facilities which need to be booked in advance by each resident (ours uses a pegboard arrangement with each flat having a key-operated peg). As a latecomer to proceedings I've managed to get the graveyard Monday 7am slot as everything else was booked! Apparently I must stick to this timetable for fear of upsetting my neighbours. And if I oversleep by half an hour or more, the likelihood is that my slot will be taken by an earlier bird
* the entire Stockholm underground network is in Zone 1. And
tickets last for an hour, no matter how many times you exit or enter the system
* certain Stockholmers have a "unique" sense of fashion... I saw one guy yesterday wearing baby pink skin tight drainpipe jeans, through which you could see his black pants. He complemented this with emerald green socks, brown shoes and a checked shirt. Then you have the young lady pictured. Does she not have a mirror?
* I'm still freaked out by the number of daylight hours here. The sun doesn't set properly until around 10pm then rises again around 4.30am. I don't have blackout curtains 😞
* it's still surprisingly cold here, despite being mid-May and mostly beautifully sunny. I always seem to forget that we're on the shores of the Baltic at a latitude similar to the Shetland Islands. Very glad I couldn't find a new summer jacket and so had to bring my winter one!
* smoking is banned in public places and has been for some time, however Stockholmers seem to have substituted this with "sucking" tobacco. They all have little round tins with what seems to be paper covered wads of tobacco which they just tuck into their cheek for an unspecified amount of time. I'm not tempted - it still smells horrible
* alcohol stronger than 3.5%!h(MISSING)as to be bought from the state-run Systembolaget (liquor store). Apparently the bottles used to be stored behind grilles but stores now look more like supermarkets so customers can fondle the goods before purchasing. Good luck if you forget to take your own plastic bags - they sell bright purple ones that are recognisable to every tramp in the city at a hundred paces!
I shall keep you posted as I infiltrate Swedish society further... Until then, hej då!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.097s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 5; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0545s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb