At home he feels like a tourist

Last weekend I decided to take a break from work -- I'd been working for two days, after all :-) -- and took some time to play tourist. Saturday morning I grabbed my camera, some snacks (I can't afford to buy lunch in this town), and a guide book and headed toward downtown via some scenic side streets. Below is a picture of Johannes Kyrka (Johann's Church) and one of the aforementioned, scenic side streets.



I then passed through the city center, which was relatively quiet because it was a holiday. Saturday was Midsummer's Day, which is one of the biggest holidays on the Swedish calendar, reflecting the fact that Swedes are still in touch with their pagan past. Because of the holiday, a lot of shops were closed. Midsummer is a three-day weekend where Stockholm basically empties out as most people head to their houses in the country. Good luck buying a replacement fuse on the Thursday before Midsummer in Stockholm (long story)!

One of the first stops on any tourist's itinerary in Stockholm is the Gamla Stan, or old town. It's the site of the original village and still has much of its medieval feel (with the possible exception of the ice cream shops). For those of you unfamiliar with Stockholm's geography, the city center and my neighborhood are on the mainland, while most of the rest of Stockholm sprawls across a number of islands in the brackish inlet between the Baltic and a large lake (called Lake Malären). The Gamla Stan sits on one such island, just south of the city center. It's connected to the mainland by a handful of bridges, one of which passes through the center of the Swedish Parliament.



While there are a couple specific destinations on Gamla Stan, like the royal palace (Sweden still has a king and queen -- how quaint!), the main attraction for me was wandering through the narrow, cobblestone streets.



In my perambulations, I also wandered onto a small, adjoining island that once housed a few noble manors, but is now home to a church and some government offices. The centerpiece of this island is the statue of Birger Jarl, the founder of Stockholm. Any city founded by someone named Jarl (pronounced Yarrrl, or at least that's how I think it ought to be pronounced) has my respect.


In spite of my best intentions of getting an early start, my internal clock was still a little wonky from residual jet lag (for fans of William Gibson, my soul still hadn't completely caught up) and the fact that it never gets completely dark at night here in June. While I had hoped to beat the tourists, they quickly caught up to me, and after a couple hours it was clearly time to move on. Fortunately, most of the visitors seem to cram onto one street in Gamla Stan. You know the type of street I'm talking about because every tourist zone has one. It's lined with overpriced restaurants, gift shops (in this case selling trolls and Swedish flags), and ice cream shops. But by noon, the spillover into the adjacent streets was getting to feel a bit crowded, so I headed south to the island of Södermalm (literally "Southern Island").

Södermalm is allegedly the hip and up-and-coming part of Stockholm. You know the story: working class neighborhood gets "discovered" by artists and hipsters. As much as I aspire to be opposed to gentrification, it sounded like just the type of neighborhood I'd want to "discover" as well. Before I explored all of its hip offerings, though, I needed a snack that was more substantial than the cheese and crackers I'd packed. To the rescue came fried herring from a streetside cart. One of my favorite culinary explorations in any new country is street food. In part this is for practical reasons: I'm usually on a budget when I travel and street food is cheaper than restaurant food. Nevertheless, I think you can get a pretty good window into a country's food from what you can buy from a sidewalk kiosk. I walked up to a kiosk in a square on the north end of Södermalm and ordered the fried herring on a cracker. You probably know the type of cracker; they sell them in the US under the Wasa brand and they look almost excessively healthy. Anne and I call them "adult" crackers. Anyway, the herring was lightly breaded, fried, and placed on one of these crackers. It was then topped with marinated cucumbers, parsley, and red onion. It was heavenly, and only cost ~$5 US (a steal in this town where beer costs $10 a pint).

After my fishy snack, I headed to a cliffside walkway along the north of the island that overlooked much of central Stockholm. In the photo below, the black steeple toward the right is of Riddarholmskyrkan on the island where Birger Jarl stands watch. In the background is central Stockholm. As you can see, the city has a relatively low skyline. It reminds me a bit of Paris in terms of its density (lots of 6-8 story buildings), although it has a smaller population; it's about the size of San Francisco. The cranes toward the center of the frame suggest that Stockholm might be prepared to start growing up, but for now most of the high rises are in the suburbs. On the left of the frame, the blocky, brick building is Stockholm's city hall. (If you want to see a more complete panorama, you can check out my Flickr photostream, where I've set up a Stockholm album).


After enjoying the view, I headed to central Söder (as the hip locals call it, at least that's what my guide book says). Alas, almost all of the stores on the central shopping strip were closed for the holiday. There were still quite a few people out on the street (looking hip), even though none of the stores were open. At the southern end of the shopping district, the street opened into a big square adjacent to a bustling intersection. Here more shops were open, and I was able to get an (overpriced) espresso and some delicious (if also overpriced) carrot cake.

After my snack, I hopped on the tunnelbana (metro) and rode back to my place. Riding the metro is right up there with street food on my list of priorities in a new city (I'm a bit of a public transit geek), and this was my first opportunity to do so since I'd arrived -- it's actually faster to walk to the university than to take the metro because of the way the routes are laid out. Anne and I were in New York the weekend before I came to Sweden, and I can only describe that city's subway as dank and decrepit. The Stockholm metro provided a perhaps predictable (given Americans' perceptions of Scandinavian tidiness) contrast.