Love Stockholm 🙂 it would be so easy to live here. Put it on your list. Only arrived yesterday but I just love it, it has a great vibe. Today I bought a Stockholm pass which covers hop on hop off buses and boats and entry to most attractions in Stockholm. The city is made up of many archipelago islands and is quite spread out and very cute. It’s also very very cold – my apartment is so warm that I totally misjudged the temperature outside and after 2 mins walking had to turn back and put my long coat on.
Apart from the usual sightseeing oohs and aahs the two unexpected highlights of the day were the Bergrummet Tido collection of toys and comics (a series of underground tunnels filled with 40,000 toys and comic books from old old to new); and a free exhibition of the Haenyo women divers from the island of Jeju in South Korea. A while back I read a book called Island of the Sea Women which is about these amazing women who free dive without oxygen or harpoons, using a breathing technique they’ve learned to cope with being under the surface for long periods of time, using seasonal harvest practice to ensure the sea remains healthy and alive. Haenyo are a thousand year old tradition but perhaps not for long as the average age of the women divers is now 60-80. I just loved seeing the faces of the women who have done this their whole lives, and can only hope to be as cool and spirited when I’m 80 years old 🙂
And on a boat trip this afternoon I learned we have Swedes to thank for flat screen TVs, Skype, Spotify, the shape of the coke bottle, the zipper, propellors, ABBA of course, the Celsius temperature scale, ultrasound, speed cameras, the computer mouse, Pippi Longstocking and GPS. All of which far outweigh their unnatural love of all things fish, especially the pickled variety (gag). And they built a fancy-pants aged care home which looks like a palace – so much so that a visiting US navy crew saw it, thought it was the royal palace, did a 21 gun salute from the water outside it which scared the life out of the residents who thought the country was suddenly at war for the first time in 200 years 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thank you Head Shop for the haircut and colour 🙂 
Peppermint rock ice cream (polka) 
Don’t be deceived by the blue sky it’s freezing 
Raspberries, blueberries and lindon berries 
Mushrooms 
Bergrummet Tido collection of toys and comics is cool 
ABBA barbies 
A wall of Tin Tin collectable figures 
He has a bird on his head and his finger 🙂 
Allotment gardens can be rented 
Traveling through the lock 
The Haenyo women free divers 
