monday.
I know I'm not being very creative with the titles for the posts or sections, but it's probably not that important.
I found that the food at one of the restaurants here on the KTH campus is not bad. It's not cheap, either, but it wasn't disappointing.
I decided to wander around central Stockholm and hit all the tourist shops to compare prices and see what I could find.
Below: A box of stuffed owls at one such shop. Thought the photo was cute.
I walked as far as Gamla Stan before turning back to central Stockholm.
Stopped for food at Espresso House. As expensive as their coffee may be, it's definitely some of the best I've had. On the other hand, the food is also good but at about the same price as the coffee, so I'd consider it relatively cheap.
There was a vinyl record / CD / DVD store next door to Espresso House, where there was a decent sized collection of various media. I managed to find some Kent CDs, among other artists', at an affordable price.
The new additional building(s) will be finished by Spring 2016 for the music school- as I've been told by one of the teachers there, there's a severe shortage of classrooms and space in general, and so I would guess that everyone looks forward to when the construction is finished.
Following the signs to get there wasn't too hard, in fact, and so I arrived at the concert hall even before it started. There weren't many people at the start, on account of the subway lines.
Once my corridormate and the friend she had also invited arrived, they had only missed one song. They sat down to enjoy the concert, as well. The folk music concerts are held here at KMH on the first Monday of each month, and this was the first time that it was a teachers' concert, as opposed to a student concert. It was very enjoyable, and my friends and I were so impressed with the music!
tuesday.
Tuesday marked the start of my classes at KTH, since I had none the day before. I started off the day with a yoghurt parfait and coffee at the library café.
wednesday.
Laundry day, and the fire alarm in my corridor went off, although none of us could figure out why. The food in the kitchen wasn't burning at all, although something smelled slightly of smoke at the far end of the hall. However, we have now determined that for safety reasons, the kitchen door that we always leave open automatically disconnects from the magnet at the top and shuts itself when the alarm is off, in the case that the fire must be isolated.
I would call it a clever system, except for the thought that there could be someone inside the kitchen when that happens (as with this incident, although no fire occurred).
Nothing else interesting happened that day.
thursday.
I decided to start off the day with some exploration, and got off at the Sergels Torg exit of T-Centralen. From there, I browsed the shops and stopped for food at Espresso House, then continued to walk down to Gamla Stan. The weather was sunny and slightly breezy, perfect for photos but perhaps a bit hot for a long walk. It was only 20 degrees Celsius, but in comparison to the past few weeks of weather as low as 7 degrees in the morning and as high as 15 later in the day, it was comparatively warmer.
From Gamla Stan, I continued onward toward Kungsträdgården and ordered a saltlakrits ice cream, since it was hot enough outside. I watched a man scoop water into a paper cup from the fountain there, and splash it back toward the middle of the fountain statues. I couldn't figure out if it was some sort of superstitious ritual or something meant to bring good luck.
Above: Salted liquorice ice cream. It's an acquired taste.
Rounding the coastal edge, I walked around to Östermalmstorg before deciding to head to Djurgården for no particular reason whatsoever. When I arrived on Djurgården, I took some photos of the view and then went into the visitor information centre to see if I could find something interesting.
Lo and behold, the Swedish band Bo Kaspers Orkester were holding a concert at 20.00 (8 pm) in Tivoli Gröna Lund that night! It would be on the big stage (Stora scen), and I was told by the information desk worker that if I made it in before 18.00 (6 pm), I would only have to pay 110 kr for admission (as opposed to 220 kr after 18.00, since it was a concert night).
From Djurgården, I walked back to Karlaplan and took the tunnelbana, intending for a short time to retrieve my camera and recharge my phone. I accidentally took the subway from Karlaplan to Östermalmstorg and jumped on the other line before checking to see which direction it went in, and ended up in Karlaplan again. But eventually, I made it back on the right line. I left again at 17.15, estimating that 45 minutes was more than enough time to reach Djurgården before 18.00. I was sadly mistaken, as I ended up getting off at Stadion Station. From there, I walked toward Karlaplan (I somehow thought it would be faster), and then down to Djurgården again. By the time I reached the front of the admission line at Gröna Lund, it was already 18.03, so I paid full price for the concert. Not that it mattered- it turned out to be well worth it, and it still wasn't expensive for a concert.
For those of you who have never heard of Bo Kaspers Orkester, I'd highly suggest you look up some of their music on Spotify, YouTube, iTunes, Google Play or some other medium and give them a listen! They're one of my favourite bands, and since they only sing in Swedish, it's pretty much impossible to get a hold of their music in the States- not to mention, they don't perform concerts there, either. Going to one of their live concerts while in Sweden has been one of my goals for a while, although I didn't know for a while when I'd ever be in Sweden. BKO are something between jazz and blues, mixed with something else in terms of music genre, in case you're wondering.
I got a plate of nachos for dinner because the restaurant in the upper area of Gröna Lund charged a minimum of 165 kr for a meal. I knew Djurgården was expensive, but I'd forgotten to estimate how much cash I'd need between the higher-priced admission ticket and the food. Luckily, I had brought enough money with me, and even tried some of the games. I only received one prize, and it was because I was so pitiful that the guy at the booth felt sorry for me :P A little plastic squirt gun, about the size of my penguin. Not really sure that airport security will be so thrilled about it.
I've got to hand it to BKO- they're very good with live performance, and the crowd was very energetic about it. I stood to hold my place in the front centre area in front of the stage for at least 40 minutes ahead of time. There was actually not so much of a problem with personal space as I thought there would be- maybe it's just that Swedes like their personal space more than Americans do, but it may have just been due to the fact that it was an outdoor venue. At some point, I got stuck behind three tall high-school guys. Being as short as I am, I couldn't see over most of the Swedes to begin with, and the fact that one of these guys was ridiculously tall was not helpful at all to me! But for a little over half the length of the concert, I could see perfectly fine from where I stood.
All the trams and busses were so filled with people by the time they came around to pick up those of us who had exited from Gröna Lund, that they didn't even stop to pick up more people. Some of us began running between the sides of the tracks to try to catch the transportation before it made its way around to the other side, but each time, we were too late and had to back off so as not to get run over instead. That wouldn't have made for such a pleasant evening.
Above: Photo from BKO's cameraman. Caption: "(Ännu)En underbar dag på jobbet. Tack alla som kom och lyssnade på Gröna Lund. Nästa gång ska jag 1. Våga åka Fritt fall och 2. Vinna på Kexchokladhjulet. / allt gott / Bo"
Instead, a number of us walked back from Djurgården toward central Stockholm. I was surprised by the general crowd there seemed to be in Stockholm on a Thursday night. I don't know if people often go out for drinks, or if they just like to stay out late on Thursdays. I walked as far as Östermalmstorg and took the tunnelbana from there, since it was the first station I came across and I happened to be lucky enough to catch the subway going in the right direction.
friday.
On Friday evening, my school at KTH had what is known as a gasque, that is, a Swedish drinking party and dinner with a lot of songs to be sung.
It was quite a lot of fun. They had us alternate seats between international students and Swedish students, so that we would have the Swedes to guide us, as well as to talk to. It's actually a really great idea for students to gather together in such a way.
I think the English phonetics for "Helan Går" (roughly translated, "the whole glass goes") in our paper songbooks were probably the funniest thing I saw all evening- close, but no cigar :P
saturday.
After a jam-packed tunnelbana ride to Karlaplan (I think there was a half-marathon today in Stockholm, hence all the runners in athletic attire cramming onto the train), I met up with a friend on visit to Sweden, and we went to the Vasa museum (Vasamuseet) together. The Vasa is an old ship that sank during its maiden voyage, off the coast of Stockholm's Södermalm, during the reign of King Gustav II Vasa, under whose orders the ship had been built.
(I won't go into historical details here, but if you're interested, feel free to check out the museum's link: http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/The-Ship/The-sinking/ )
By the time we had walked all the way up and down the floors of the Vasa museum, we were exhausted and took a break near the top, then continued back down and went to get food. We then headed to the Nordic museum (Nordiska museet), but were told by the ticket seller that the museum would already close in five minutes, and so we went back outside and sat and talked for a spell. We saw some interesting passersby, some out for the exercise as they cycled or ski-pole-rollerskated around Djurgården, while others drifted by with enormous candy bars from Gröna Lund.
sunday.
Passed by yet another graffiti attack on a political advertisement in the morning. The people who have the job of switching out the adverts always change them as soon as there's vandalism, I suppose because they think it somehow helps. This time, the graffiti was directed toward SD (Sverigedemokraterna, and I won't go into politics here, but they're notoriously nationalistic and generally viewed as probably the most extremely narrowminded of all Swedish parties). So the advert was changed to one for the Social Democrats instead (Socialdemokraterna), but to anyone who doesn't know the system and its abbreviations (like exchange students, for example), probably the attack seemed to be directed at them instead of the Swedish Democrats, since "SD" as an abbreviation could easily be mistaken by one unfamiliar with politics here.
The library in the town square had a loppis, a rummage sale of books. The Red Cross (Röda Korset) also sold coffee, tea and home-baked goods at a great price (and their baked goods were fantastic). I believe one of the workers said they were planning to open a bakery sometime in the near future, and I hope they do.
I found four crime fiction books (all in Swedish) for only 20:-. One of the library workers came up to me, seeing I was wearing an owl necklace, and handed me a book on a Swede who went around the country cataloguing the types of owls he found and how he interacted with them. It looked like a fun book, but I didn't see how I'd ever manage to bring it home to the US or sell it back to anyone else, so I declined. The man made a few- surprisingly good- owl calls and took the book back, and I thanked him anyway.
Once again, I went to the Hötorget Sunday market, this time meeting up with my visiting friend. We shopped around, mainly for music CDs, and then walked around for a while as I tried to orient myself and find the nearby music store. It had already closed by then, and so we stopped so I could get food, and we discussed a restaurant around Odenplan where we wanted to meet the next day (Lilla Ego).
Went through the Solna Skivs Börs sale of media again. The seller seemed quite pleased with how much I managed to find, and told me to come back again next weekend :P
Even saw a few Tarkan CDs (above) from Turkey, but didn't buy them. I was mainly after the Kent albums, among several other artists. I even got a hold of a Fläskkvartetten CD. The prices are great at Hötorget- CDs range between 5 to 20 SEK, most of them falling around 10:- per album. My friend even managed to get a copy of the Kent single release of Chans (a rare release) for 60:-.
I know I'm not being very creative with the titles for the posts or sections, but it's probably not that important.
I found that the food at one of the restaurants here on the KTH campus is not bad. It's not cheap, either, but it wasn't disappointing.
I decided to wander around central Stockholm and hit all the tourist shops to compare prices and see what I could find.
Below: A box of stuffed owls at one such shop. Thought the photo was cute.
I walked as far as Gamla Stan before turning back to central Stockholm.
Stopped for food at Espresso House. As expensive as their coffee may be, it's definitely some of the best I've had. On the other hand, the food is also good but at about the same price as the coffee, so I'd consider it relatively cheap.
There was a vinyl record / CD / DVD store next door to Espresso House, where there was a decent sized collection of various media. I managed to find some Kent CDs, among other artists', at an affordable price.
From the music store, I decided I would come back to my dorm before heading out again to the folk music concert at KMH (Kungliga Musik Högskolan, the Royal Music Academy). However, there was an accident farther down on the red line in the tunnelbana, and so traffic was quite a mess. I figured I would go straight to the concert hall, instead of coming back to the dorm to meet up with my corridormate who also wanted to come with me, and of course the last train toward Mörby departed just as I ran downstairs. And so, I took the Ropsten track as far as Östermalmstorg and walked from there (it wasn't far at all from the other stop I would have gotten off at).
The new additional building(s) will be finished by Spring 2016 for the music school- as I've been told by one of the teachers there, there's a severe shortage of classrooms and space in general, and so I would guess that everyone looks forward to when the construction is finished.
Following the signs to get there wasn't too hard, in fact, and so I arrived at the concert hall even before it started. There weren't many people at the start, on account of the subway lines.
Once my corridormate and the friend she had also invited arrived, they had only missed one song. They sat down to enjoy the concert, as well. The folk music concerts are held here at KMH on the first Monday of each month, and this was the first time that it was a teachers' concert, as opposed to a student concert. It was very enjoyable, and my friends and I were so impressed with the music!
tuesday.
Tuesday marked the start of my classes at KTH, since I had none the day before. I started off the day with a yoghurt parfait and coffee at the library café.
The Matlab class (sort of programming) that was supposed to be taught in Swedish ended up being taught in English, at the request of two girls who couldn't understand a word of Swedish. To me, it didn't matter if it was in Swedish, and it was a bit disappointing that it was taught in English. However, it was our only lecture (the rest are all lab sessions), so it didn't make much difference.
Swedish class was interesting. Our teacher is very nice, but she mumbles. I can't tell if it's a dialectal thing, or if it's just a habit of hers, but she slurs all of her words together into one, so it's not always clear what she says- even from the front of the class where my friend and I sat. We also had a listening practice on this first day, unlike in our previous class (where there had hardly been any).
wednesday.
Laundry day, and the fire alarm in my corridor went off, although none of us could figure out why. The food in the kitchen wasn't burning at all, although something smelled slightly of smoke at the far end of the hall. However, we have now determined that for safety reasons, the kitchen door that we always leave open automatically disconnects from the magnet at the top and shuts itself when the alarm is off, in the case that the fire must be isolated.
I would call it a clever system, except for the thought that there could be someone inside the kitchen when that happens (as with this incident, although no fire occurred).
Nothing else interesting happened that day.
thursday.
I decided to start off the day with some exploration, and got off at the Sergels Torg exit of T-Centralen. From there, I browsed the shops and stopped for food at Espresso House, then continued to walk down to Gamla Stan. The weather was sunny and slightly breezy, perfect for photos but perhaps a bit hot for a long walk. It was only 20 degrees Celsius, but in comparison to the past few weeks of weather as low as 7 degrees in the morning and as high as 15 later in the day, it was comparatively warmer.
From Gamla Stan, I continued onward toward Kungsträdgården and ordered a saltlakrits ice cream, since it was hot enough outside. I watched a man scoop water into a paper cup from the fountain there, and splash it back toward the middle of the fountain statues. I couldn't figure out if it was some sort of superstitious ritual or something meant to bring good luck.
Rounding the coastal edge, I walked around to Östermalmstorg before deciding to head to Djurgården for no particular reason whatsoever. When I arrived on Djurgården, I took some photos of the view and then went into the visitor information centre to see if I could find something interesting.
Lo and behold, the Swedish band Bo Kaspers Orkester were holding a concert at 20.00 (8 pm) in Tivoli Gröna Lund that night! It would be on the big stage (Stora scen), and I was told by the information desk worker that if I made it in before 18.00 (6 pm), I would only have to pay 110 kr for admission (as opposed to 220 kr after 18.00, since it was a concert night).
From Djurgården, I walked back to Karlaplan and took the tunnelbana, intending for a short time to retrieve my camera and recharge my phone. I accidentally took the subway from Karlaplan to Östermalmstorg and jumped on the other line before checking to see which direction it went in, and ended up in Karlaplan again. But eventually, I made it back on the right line. I left again at 17.15, estimating that 45 minutes was more than enough time to reach Djurgården before 18.00. I was sadly mistaken, as I ended up getting off at Stadion Station. From there, I walked toward Karlaplan (I somehow thought it would be faster), and then down to Djurgården again. By the time I reached the front of the admission line at Gröna Lund, it was already 18.03, so I paid full price for the concert. Not that it mattered- it turned out to be well worth it, and it still wasn't expensive for a concert.
For those of you who have never heard of Bo Kaspers Orkester, I'd highly suggest you look up some of their music on Spotify, YouTube, iTunes, Google Play or some other medium and give them a listen! They're one of my favourite bands, and since they only sing in Swedish, it's pretty much impossible to get a hold of their music in the States- not to mention, they don't perform concerts there, either. Going to one of their live concerts while in Sweden has been one of my goals for a while, although I didn't know for a while when I'd ever be in Sweden. BKO are something between jazz and blues, mixed with something else in terms of music genre, in case you're wondering.
I got a plate of nachos for dinner because the restaurant in the upper area of Gröna Lund charged a minimum of 165 kr for a meal. I knew Djurgården was expensive, but I'd forgotten to estimate how much cash I'd need between the higher-priced admission ticket and the food. Luckily, I had brought enough money with me, and even tried some of the games. I only received one prize, and it was because I was so pitiful that the guy at the booth felt sorry for me :P A little plastic squirt gun, about the size of my penguin. Not really sure that airport security will be so thrilled about it.
I've got to hand it to BKO- they're very good with live performance, and the crowd was very energetic about it. I stood to hold my place in the front centre area in front of the stage for at least 40 minutes ahead of time. There was actually not so much of a problem with personal space as I thought there would be- maybe it's just that Swedes like their personal space more than Americans do, but it may have just been due to the fact that it was an outdoor venue. At some point, I got stuck behind three tall high-school guys. Being as short as I am, I couldn't see over most of the Swedes to begin with, and the fact that one of these guys was ridiculously tall was not helpful at all to me! But for a little over half the length of the concert, I could see perfectly fine from where I stood.
All the trams and busses were so filled with people by the time they came around to pick up those of us who had exited from Gröna Lund, that they didn't even stop to pick up more people. Some of us began running between the sides of the tracks to try to catch the transportation before it made its way around to the other side, but each time, we were too late and had to back off so as not to get run over instead. That wouldn't have made for such a pleasant evening.
Above: Photo from BKO's cameraman. Caption: "(Ännu)En underbar dag på jobbet. Tack alla som kom och lyssnade på Gröna Lund. Nästa gång ska jag 1. Våga åka Fritt fall och 2. Vinna på Kexchokladhjulet. / allt gott / Bo"
Instead, a number of us walked back from Djurgården toward central Stockholm. I was surprised by the general crowd there seemed to be in Stockholm on a Thursday night. I don't know if people often go out for drinks, or if they just like to stay out late on Thursdays. I walked as far as Östermalmstorg and took the tunnelbana from there, since it was the first station I came across and I happened to be lucky enough to catch the subway going in the right direction.
friday.
On Friday evening, my school at KTH had what is known as a gasque, that is, a Swedish drinking party and dinner with a lot of songs to be sung.
It was quite a lot of fun. They had us alternate seats between international students and Swedish students, so that we would have the Swedes to guide us, as well as to talk to. It's actually a really great idea for students to gather together in such a way.
I think the English phonetics for "Helan Går" (roughly translated, "the whole glass goes") in our paper songbooks were probably the funniest thing I saw all evening- close, but no cigar :P
saturday.
After a jam-packed tunnelbana ride to Karlaplan (I think there was a half-marathon today in Stockholm, hence all the runners in athletic attire cramming onto the train), I met up with a friend on visit to Sweden, and we went to the Vasa museum (Vasamuseet) together. The Vasa is an old ship that sank during its maiden voyage, off the coast of Stockholm's Södermalm, during the reign of King Gustav II Vasa, under whose orders the ship had been built.
(I won't go into historical details here, but if you're interested, feel free to check out the museum's link: http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/The-Ship/The-sinking/ )
By the time we had walked all the way up and down the floors of the Vasa museum, we were exhausted and took a break near the top, then continued back down and went to get food. We then headed to the Nordic museum (Nordiska museet), but were told by the ticket seller that the museum would already close in five minutes, and so we went back outside and sat and talked for a spell. We saw some interesting passersby, some out for the exercise as they cycled or ski-pole-rollerskated around Djurgården, while others drifted by with enormous candy bars from Gröna Lund.
sunday.
Passed by yet another graffiti attack on a political advertisement in the morning. The people who have the job of switching out the adverts always change them as soon as there's vandalism, I suppose because they think it somehow helps. This time, the graffiti was directed toward SD (Sverigedemokraterna, and I won't go into politics here, but they're notoriously nationalistic and generally viewed as probably the most extremely narrowminded of all Swedish parties). So the advert was changed to one for the Social Democrats instead (Socialdemokraterna), but to anyone who doesn't know the system and its abbreviations (like exchange students, for example), probably the attack seemed to be directed at them instead of the Swedish Democrats, since "SD" as an abbreviation could easily be mistaken by one unfamiliar with politics here.
The library in the town square had a loppis, a rummage sale of books. The Red Cross (Röda Korset) also sold coffee, tea and home-baked goods at a great price (and their baked goods were fantastic). I believe one of the workers said they were planning to open a bakery sometime in the near future, and I hope they do.
I found four crime fiction books (all in Swedish) for only 20:-. One of the library workers came up to me, seeing I was wearing an owl necklace, and handed me a book on a Swede who went around the country cataloguing the types of owls he found and how he interacted with them. It looked like a fun book, but I didn't see how I'd ever manage to bring it home to the US or sell it back to anyone else, so I declined. The man made a few- surprisingly good- owl calls and took the book back, and I thanked him anyway.
Above: The books I found at the library loppis. You can't be into Scandinavian crime fiction and not read Lackberg and Sjöwall/Wahlöö. It's impossible. Especially in Sweden, of all places.
Låt Den Rätte Komma In has been translated into English and made into a film, for those of you who have heard of it (Let the Right One In).
Went through the Solna Skivs Börs sale of media again. The seller seemed quite pleased with how much I managed to find, and told me to come back again next weekend :P
Even saw a few Tarkan CDs (above) from Turkey, but didn't buy them. I was mainly after the Kent albums, among several other artists. I even got a hold of a Fläskkvartetten CD. The prices are great at Hötorget- CDs range between 5 to 20 SEK, most of them falling around 10:- per album. My friend even managed to get a copy of the Kent single release of Chans (a rare release) for 60:-.
Above: ....Probably the creepiest thing I've seen so far at the market.
On a side note... My penguin was upset that I didn't take him to the concert on Thursday night. So, I set one of the concert photos as a backdrop and took a photo of him in the foreground so he could feel as if he were there :P
Mvh
/The Swedish Fish
On a side note... My penguin was upset that I didn't take him to the concert on Thursday night. So, I set one of the concert photos as a backdrop and took a photo of him in the foreground so he could feel as if he were there :P
Mvh
/The Swedish Fish
Hej, Svensk fisk! Du har en lycklig pingvin! :)
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