Stockholm in a Nutshell ~ Zahra's Eyes

Halo! or should I say, "gurdy gurdy gurdy!" ;)

Filling some spare time I have now, I'm writing a few things I experienced when I was in Stockholm, Sweden last week. We flew with Ryanair, and it was definitely better than the last time I flew to Edinburgh, which was shaky! Anyway, we arrived in Skavsta Airport, which is a small airport and all I could see there was only Ryanair, no other airlines.

City Hall

To reach center Stockholm, you can take shuttle buses (Flygbussarna) which will cost you around 25-30 Euro, return (valid for 3 months). Oh, if you're 25 years old or younger, you can get youth tickets, which are slightly cheaper. The buses stop at Central Station, which is next to the Stockholm City Hall. It's the venue where the Nobel prize ceremony takes place. Around the building we saw crescent, cross, and a statue of sleeping Budha. There might be some history behind those three religious symbols in the building, but we didn't get a chance to ask the tour guide.

One of Irish pubs in Stockholm

Regarding dinner time, apparently it's earlier than normal. Not sure around what time, but definitely before 9 pm as it was difficult to find restaurants that are still open above 9 pm. However, you can still have something to eat at pubs as they open until late at night. Oh, we found many Irish pubs in Stockholm (I think they love Irish). Oh, not only that, several things here are very similar to Dublin. Blue bus seats, yellow hand holds in the bus, the small equipment for pedestrians to cross the road (hope you know what I mean), and public bicycles, to name a few. However, it's less crowded than Dublin.

Classic Swedish Meatball

Now about the food. Swedish cuisine is so creamy. One popular delicacy from Sweden is their meatball, Classic Swedish Meatball to be precise. I didn't try it, but only the sauce (sweet). So, what did I have? I had salmon, which was delicious. As far as I remember, I had salmons quite often in Stockholm, probably 3-4 times, which I didn't mind so much. :)

The architecture seemed very artistic. I'm talking about statues decorating the buildings. They were everywhere, even above regular doors or windows of offices/apartments. Some statues made me think what they actually are because I couldn't picture it, for example a statue of half woman, half airplane. :D

What about the people? We found that Swedish people are nice and friendly. Never had a problem dealing with them, they were helpful. And oh, most of them are tall! Even the Swedish teenagers are taller than me (well, that's not surprising). Talking about teenagers, Swedish teenagers have their own celebration when they finish school (high school, we assumed). They got into a truck, turned on musics out loud and went around city. Some of them wore a white sailor hat, which is common for students who have finished school, apparently.

Seeing a movie at cinema was quite an experience. As usual, a few trailers were shown prior to the screening of the movie. After the trailers were shown, there was a lady coming into the theater and saying something in Swedish. We had no idea what she was talking about. We thought the movie had been canceled. After asking a local guy sitting next to us, apparently the lady was welcoming us! Never saw that before anywhere else. It felt like we're going to see a live theatrical act or something. Nice! :)

Closing my post, here are a few pictures of Stockholm. ;)