Walk, Bus, Boat, Walk

View from the Hill

The trick with food here is going to be to eat as much as you can without getting sick at the breakfast buffet (where food is free), and then to try to rely on cheap food from the grocery stores. I managed to get a box of cereal, five bread rolls, a bag of nine large carrots, and a weird jar of something I'm really hoping is jelly for 45 SEK, which translates to about $8. Pretty good, considering I spent 75 SEK on dinner the night before. I also managed to avoid the strange tubes of meat etc which seem to be very popular in the stores here! Definitely a plus.
Our hike to the grocery store this morning was slightly circuitous because we decided to scale a hill that overlooked the city. The view was amazing- you could see a large portion of Gamla Stan and Kungsholmen from the hill. Stockholm seems to be most beautiful from up high, which is probably which hot air balloon rides are so popular here. (No, I won't go on one… they're too expensive. Sigh)

Going to the Grocery store…. sort of.

Meat tubes etc. um.

A church with The Black Tower

In the afternoon, we got to tour the city a little more by a 3+ trip by bus and boat. The tour was automated; we had headphones that fed us a prerecorded message about the sites we were seeing. Not as good as actual tour guides. It was interesting to hear some of the historical stories, but they didn't have as much detail or context as I would have liked. I'm going to have to look up some more information about Kin Gustav III, the cultural king, who was assassinated at a masked ball at the opera, inspiring the opera "A Masked Ball", about the Stockholm Bloodbath, and about the Vikings (Off to the Nordic Museum with me!). Our tour took us on a loop around some of the major streets and around one of the central islands, giving us a sense of the larger layout of the city.

Parliament (I'm pretty sure)

I'm also noticing that the language barrier is actually having an effect here and is making it more difficult to adjust to Sweden than my experience with England. It's really quite strange to be in a city in which the majority of the language is completely incomprehensible to me. I can make out a few words that are about the same, but am still having trouble reading signs and more complicated things. My strategy is to try to memorize signs that are in two languages. If I can get those basic (and obviously necessary) words, I'll function a little bit better. I've definitely gotten "Hello" however. I hear "Hej" everywhere!

The Nordic Museum

On the boat

Yes, Stockholm is pretty next to the water

The Palace of the current Royal Family of Sweden

This week should be very busy, what with class, three field trips, and another midterm on Friday. The Stockholm Kulturfest is also going on this week, and I hope to make it to some of its events because it is free and it is the perfect time to get to know Stockholm. We'll see what I get to do and what I get to upload. Internet access may be sketchy around here.

A moose. A VERY LARGE moose.