photos from winter break.
I'm back! This time, I'll be uploading photos I've taken over the past few weeks during the winter holiday :)
All photos ©2014 and ©2015 by me; either my signature or this blog URL appears as a watermark in the lower left corner.
For Christmas Eve, some friends and I planned to cook dinner for an international student group up in Kista. We bought all the ingredients to make carbonnade flamande (a Belgian dish) and cooked for nearly six hours, if we don't count soaking the meat in ale overnight in the refrigerator! We cooked the dinner in Farsta all afternoon and headed up to Kista once we had finished.
Above: The finished product! Carbonnade flamande. More photos of Christmas dinner can be found below, in the uploads from my camera.
On Christmas Day, a friend and I prepared some salad and appetizers for a second Christmas dinner with international students, this time at Lappkärsberget (there's a reason it's shortened to "Lappis").
My dad arrived in Stockholm on the 26th, and before I reunited with him, I happened to be out in the central city when the colours of the sky arrested my attention. I hurried down to the waterside to take some photos. (My phone didn't want to show the colours, so all the photos with actual colour are down below in the camera section. I added the effect to this one just to get the colours to show.)
There was a beautiful sunset outside one day (in fact, most days between Christmas and New Year's had beautiful sunsets), so I went down to the nearby lake and took some shots. The lake was already frozen over, and the fallen snow lay on top of it like a white blanket.
I booked for my dad and me to have dinner at Aifur Krog & Bar, the "Viking bar" as everyone knows it. It was definitely a cool experience! The food was great, and the atmosphere was unlike anything else we'd ever seen. It's a fairly new restaurant, and apparently its business took off when the current chef replaced the former one. Aifur is located in Gamla Stan, where all the tourists visit, and so it's in the prime location for those who are seeking an "authentic" cultural experience!
My dad and I went with one of my friends to the ABBA museum, and I actually enjoyed it more than I expected to. It's a fairly new museum, as I recall. There are a lot of interactive sort of displays and exhibits, with activities such as mixing tracks, recording videos or songs, and trivia quizzes (which I did not do so well on)!
We went to Vapiano for lunch afterward. Their selection of pasta never fails to impress me.
A decent amount of snow fell recently, and so my penguins decided they wanted to taste some snowflakes. Owl thought he would try, too, but quickly determined he didn't have the penguin genes once a clump of snow landed on his head.
Below are some pictures from the Christmas dinner on the 24th in Kista :) Everything was delicious, and so by the time dessert came around, we were all full.
Christmas Day was unusually sunny and gorgeous, so I went for a walk down to the lake in the hopes of getting some nice photos.
Below are the photos of the sunset on the 26th. The horizon looked as if it were painted!
By this point, the lake had frozen over, but the ice was perfectly clear. As a result, I have photos of ducks that look like they're walking on water. (Reminded me of an internet meme of a dog captured in the photo just as his paws hit the surface of the water, captioned: "Look at me, I'm Jesusing!")
I love those days when it's just cold enough that frost forms over everything, and all the ice glitters when caught in the sunlight.
Herman's definitely met the expectations I'd built of it, considering how many people had recommended it to me. It's a vegetarian buffet-style restaurant in Södermalm with a great view of the water in the back seating area. My dad and I went with my friend who suggested it, and it did not disappoint!
Deciding that it was a lovely (but freezing) day for a walk, we took the tram (spårvagnen) from Sergels Torg down to Djurgården to walk around Waldemarsudde and the surrounding area for as long as we could withstand the temperatures.
From there, my dad headed back to his hotel and my friend and I decided to go up to Kaknästornet, the radio tower that broadcast over Stockholm county. It has a restaurant on the 28th floor, a café and scenic view from the 29th, and then you can walk up the stairs to the balcony on the 30th floor. It was, of course, even colder at such a high altitude, and so the winds drove us back inside after a couple of minutes.
Luckily, the large fire kept us warm, as well as electric heaters they'd set up around the now-covered bar area in front of Solliden restaurant.
We were there early enough to hear the entire concert rehearsal during dinner, before they actually performed it live for the broadcast. The opening performance was by the riksspelman of the year (if I understood correctly), a folk fiddler who played an upbeat song to get the crowd going. There were, of course, an orchestra and singer who performed a number of different holiday songs (including ABBA's "Happy New Year", of course). One of the acts involved juggling fire and small flamethrowing tricks.
By around 23.45, the air had become so thick with fog that it was impossible to see Gamla Stan's fireworks, and in fact it was even difficult to see Skansen's own show. Instead, we enjoyed the scattered bursts of fireworks throughout the evening before the fog rolled in, and then the coloured fog of Skansen's display :P
We walked around Central Stockholm in the evening the next day or so. I wanted to take closer pictures of the big tree, as I'd only gotten photos of it from a distance before due to the rainy weather.
We walked down to Nordiska Museet (the Nordic museum) sometime after lunch at Vapiano and the ABBA museum earlier in the day.
Sometime during the "adventure" on Friday night/Saturday morning (going back to the photo of people locked out of Central Station), I lost my hat, and so I went to the SL lost-and-found centre in the hopes it had been found on the subway or in the station, but no such luck. (I saw a man walking around with the exact same hat a few days later, and had to wonder a bit if he'd found it, since it's an outdated hat model that's no longer sold.) The SL lost-and-found is near S:ta Klara Kyrka, the church in the centre.
The Kp was high enough to have a chance of seeing northern lights again over Stockholm one night, but the sky was completely overcast with snow clouds. However, I got some nice photos anyway.
And here, you see KTH in the furiouss now. It's not a blurry photo- that's all snow falling down! People around me were slipping and sliding on the ice.
I'll conclude the post here :) I'll upload more photos later, preferably after I finish studying for my last exam.
Hörs då!
/The Swedish Fish
I'm back! This time, I'll be uploading photos I've taken over the past few weeks during the winter holiday :)
All photos ©2014 and ©2015 by me; either my signature or this blog URL appears as a watermark in the lower left corner.
+++ Mobile Uploads +++
Unfortunately, I have no way of organising these by date taken when I upload them, unless I want to manually rearrange them, and so the photos taken from my phone always end up first!
Bergshamra church, open for Christmas Eve Day service
Taken from the tunnelbana; somewhere along the way toward Farsta
For Christmas Eve, some friends and I planned to cook dinner for an international student group up in Kista. We bought all the ingredients to make carbonnade flamande (a Belgian dish) and cooked for nearly six hours, if we don't count soaking the meat in ale overnight in the refrigerator! We cooked the dinner in Farsta all afternoon and headed up to Kista once we had finished.
"Violation will be fined"... Slightly awkward English.
Above: The wall above my bed :) My dad sent me twenty postcards over a long period of time to spell out a secret phrase.
On Christmas Day, a friend and I prepared some salad and appetizers for a second Christmas dinner with international students, this time at Lappkärsberget (there's a reason it's shortened to "Lappis").
Mandatory random bird picture to interrupt the stream of photos.
At Taco Bar: "VRONG WAY!"
My dad arrived in Stockholm on the 26th, and before I reunited with him, I happened to be out in the central city when the colours of the sky arrested my attention. I hurried down to the waterside to take some photos. (My phone didn't want to show the colours, so all the photos with actual colour are down below in the camera section. I added the effect to this one just to get the colours to show.)
A decent panoramic shot from my phone.
Miscellaneous photos:
The lakes had mostly or completely frozen over, so there were plenty of places for people to ice-skate.
Food recommendation: There is a really great Japanese place near Fridhemsplan tunnelbana with sushi and gyoza.
S:t Eriksplan tunnelbana station. I thought the Comviq advert was funny. :P
(These woods are perfectly safe! They're right behind my building, and I missed my bus stop by accident, so I got off at the next stop and walked five minutes back.)
More bird photos!
And bird footprints in the snow.
I booked for my dad and me to have dinner at Aifur Krog & Bar, the "Viking bar" as everyone knows it. It was definitely a cool experience! The food was great, and the atmosphere was unlike anything else we'd ever seen. It's a fairly new restaurant, and apparently its business took off when the current chef replaced the former one. Aifur is located in Gamla Stan, where all the tourists visit, and so it's in the prime location for those who are seeking an "authentic" cultural experience!
Above: The starter I ordered at Aifur, a plate of elk, reindeer, pork and other meats (I forgot exactly which) with crackers, cheese, mustard and what seemed to be sauerkraut.
New Year's on the subway gets a bit strange, or else this guy was just bored.
My dad and I went with one of my friends to the ABBA museum, and I actually enjoyed it more than I expected to. It's a fairly new museum, as I recall. There are a lot of interactive sort of displays and exhibits, with activities such as mixing tracks, recording videos or songs, and trivia quizzes (which I did not do so well on)!
Above: Evert Taube
Above: The sky had an interesting cloud pattern.
Above: Dinner at my dad's hotel.
Apparently at the time I was at the hotel with him, the Kp level was up to 5, and the northern lights actually spanned the Stockholm sky for a while. I had no idea that there was a geomagnetic storm, and so I unfortunately did not look outside. By the time I got outside, there definitely weren't any lights, because I didn't see anything in the sky.
Above: The furious crowd of people who were locked out of T-Centralen/Central Station before 5 am. Long story.
Above: A user manual that was written in Google Translate quality Finnish but mysteriously switched to Spanish on the second page.
^This has been my entire Week 2 and Week 3.
Penguins like nothing better than a sushi break in the middle of studying! I think the owl agrees, too.
If you haven't seen my album of owl modelling photos yet, then you should know that my owl thinks he's a model. More photos coming soon.
A decent amount of snow fell recently, and so my penguins decided they wanted to taste some snowflakes. Owl thought he would try, too, but quickly determined he didn't have the penguin genes once a clump of snow landed on his head.
Above: Some odd show about aliens on YLE (the Finnish broadcast). All I know is that it involved a guy dressed in a snazzy silver alien suit who led some Finns into his UFO to have breakfast. And then, this guy popped up outside and blew smoke rings with his pipe.
"Row row row your boat..."
It is possible for small birds to make a nest out of virtually anything.
Above: The laziest (and best) dinner I've made so far without leaving my room. That is indeed an automatic water boiler.
More owl photos:
+++ Camera Uploads +++
Here are the better quality pictures I have!
Above: Kista Galleria
Above: Several pictures of Farsta Centrum.
Below are some pictures from the Christmas dinner on the 24th in Kista :) Everything was delicious, and so by the time dessert came around, we were all full.
Christmas Day was unusually sunny and gorgeous, so I went for a walk down to the lake in the hopes of getting some nice photos.
From various strolls around Central Stockholm:
Below are the photos of the sunset on the 26th. The horizon looked as if it were painted!
By this point, the lake had frozen over, but the ice was perfectly clear. As a result, I have photos of ducks that look like they're walking on water. (Reminded me of an internet meme of a dog captured in the photo just as his paws hit the surface of the water, captioned: "Look at me, I'm Jesusing!")
I decided to explore the area more and ended up walking around Ulriksdal.
Solna Centrum:
S:t Eriksgatan:
I love those days when it's just cold enough that frost forms over everything, and all the ice glitters when caught in the sunlight.
Above: En route to Slussen.
Above: View of Södermalm
We walked back to Slussen afterward.
Deciding that it was a lovely (but freezing) day for a walk, we took the tram (spårvagnen) from Sergels Torg down to Djurgården to walk around Waldemarsudde and the surrounding area for as long as we could withstand the temperatures.
(I thought monochrome added a certain solemnity to the photo.)
From there, my dad headed back to his hotel and my friend and I decided to go up to Kaknästornet, the radio tower that broadcast over Stockholm county. It has a restaurant on the 28th floor, a café and scenic view from the 29th, and then you can walk up the stairs to the balcony on the 30th floor. It was, of course, even colder at such a high altitude, and so the winds drove us back inside after a couple of minutes.
Above: Berwaldhallen, a centre for some cultural events if I recall correctly. It lies not too far from Kaknästornet.
Below: Christmas displays from the Åhléns vitrines
Seen enough sunset photos yet? ;)
Aifur Restaurant
A daredevil gnome
Below: The view from Skansen when we arrived. My dad and I decided we'd go for New Year's Eve to Skansen, where the concert and fireworks are broadcast on national television (it's as close as Sweden gets to the NYC ball drop). The tram was delayed due to a broken-down one somewhere down the line, and so we took a taxi.
Luckily, the large fire kept us warm, as well as electric heaters they'd set up around the now-covered bar area in front of Solliden restaurant.
We were there early enough to hear the entire concert rehearsal during dinner, before they actually performed it live for the broadcast. The opening performance was by the riksspelman of the year (if I understood correctly), a folk fiddler who played an upbeat song to get the crowd going. There were, of course, an orchestra and singer who performed a number of different holiday songs (including ABBA's "Happy New Year", of course). One of the acts involved juggling fire and small flamethrowing tricks.
By around 23.45, the air had become so thick with fog that it was impossible to see Gamla Stan's fireworks, and in fact it was even difficult to see Skansen's own show. Instead, we enjoyed the scattered bursts of fireworks throughout the evening before the fog rolled in, and then the coloured fog of Skansen's display :P
We walked around Central Stockholm in the evening the next day or so. I wanted to take closer pictures of the big tree, as I'd only gotten photos of it from a distance before due to the rainy weather.
Central Stockholm, edited the colour.
Following are photos from a walk along the southern waterline of central Stockholm.
Above: The oxygen and water levels, as well as pollution levels in Stockholm. These pillars are pretty cool, and show different statistics on each side. I don't remember which one is which in these photos.
We walked down to Nordiska Museet (the Nordic museum) sometime after lunch at Vapiano and the ABBA museum earlier in the day.
Above: Traditional Swedish costume. I believe these are from Dalarna.
Above: "Cybergoth" attire. That empty stare he has is beyond creepy.
Sometime during the "adventure" on Friday night/Saturday morning (going back to the photo of people locked out of Central Station), I lost my hat, and so I went to the SL lost-and-found centre in the hopes it had been found on the subway or in the station, but no such luck. (I saw a man walking around with the exact same hat a few days later, and had to wonder a bit if he'd found it, since it's an outdated hat model that's no longer sold.) The SL lost-and-found is near S:ta Klara Kyrka, the church in the centre.
The Kp was high enough to have a chance of seeing northern lights again over Stockholm one night, but the sky was completely overcast with snow clouds. However, I got some nice photos anyway.
And here, you see KTH in the furiouss now. It's not a blurry photo- that's all snow falling down! People around me were slipping and sliding on the ice.
I'll conclude the post here :) I'll upload more photos later, preferably after I finish studying for my last exam.
Hörs då!
/The Swedish Fish
