Up to "Distant Worlds" of Sweden
Dennis and me has been in Stockholm from 11.06.-14.06.2010….basically we were in Sweden for Nobuo Uematsus “Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds II - more music from final fantasy” - tour, since we heard that the concert in Stockholm is the only event in Europe. Finally something different than just another visual rockband in germany. We were a little surprised that nobody had heard anything about it and we only found out cuz Pauliina (shes from Sweden) knew it and told Dennis about the event.
A long time passed since I has traveled with an airplane so I made some photos on the airport because somehow I like airports…at least when they´re big enough.
At the airport of munich
Bavaria from above
We traveled by “Norwegian”airline and I still remember the flight attendant who had a funny mimic (he always moved his mouth for- and backwards..hard to explain *lol*)…and he reminded me of a skinnier version of Ben Kingsley. I like that etiquette of the flight staff….how they demonstrate the safety instructions and how they bring your drinks and snacks. It has something noble somehow.
It was about 3:30pm at the airport in Sweden and in the hall where we had to wait for our luggage there was a big poster of swedish celebrities like Abba, Europe and also Dolph Lundgren….and somebody who´s a male nurse (that was funny to read).
So we changed money at forex and went to Stockholm city-centre by bus to go to our hotel for check in. On our way to the hotel we already saw the “Konserthuset” at the Hötorget market place and a big banner of Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds in front of it. Yeah, the scene was Yuna while her ceremony at kilika….I love that picture.
Our hotel was at a park called Vanadislunden. The hotel room was really tiny but of course we expected this…..but the bathroom and the shower: “ It was an epic fail of Sanitäranlagen” xD ….like we used to say. Everything looked almost Silent Hill-ish in the showers *lol*.
We droped our bags in the hotel room and went to city center again to meet Pauliina at the Hötorget and to have dinner… .
…I was so damn hungry x_x.
Pauliinas sister Karoliina and their friend Robert were also there. But because Karoliina didn´t feel well and Pauliina had a bad headache we just had a short talk and decided to meet tomorrow to watch the old town and have some coffee.
So Dennis and me went to a restaurant complex called “kungshallen” next to the Hötorget where you could get meals from many different countries. We´ve decided to have some sushi. Both of us had the shogun menu and the miso-soup and everything were so delicious…that was the best miso-soup I ever had. It was so spicy.
Then we had a little walk through the shopping streets and bought some food at 7 Eleven for later in the hotel room. Dennis was a little surprised because he only knows 7 Eleven from Tokyo.
We went to bed early cuz we wanted to be fit tomorrow and had a little jet lag, but we still had a lot of joking about sensless stuff like the girugamesh video from sakura-con and combined the phrases with the….. =!!!Danger! Extreme Insider!!!=….“Säg a Kak” video *g*…and “Pooknuckle and his master leather” a pardoy translation of the name of a german (bavarian) series called “Pumuckel und sein Meister Eder”.
On the next day we went to the old town with the others and there were a lot of street-sellers who were selling KIZZ-Shirts cuz of the KIZZ concert on that day in town. I was thinking about buying one too but I didn´t like the prints on the Shirts….but I like KIZZ. Before we met the others, I bought a shirt at a fashion shop called urban street…its from “Affliction” and I already knew Affliction from Germany but I haven´t seen a stylish print like that one….I love these rivets in the middle. I also bought a ring at a gothic shop…and it was really cheap considering that its sterling silver (..instead of food or cloth in Stockholm).
We´d also seen a really biiiiig zombiewalk while we were shopping. It was about 500-600 people I guess. I already had seen a zombiewalk in kempten (allgau, germany) but it wasn´t that huge.
....someone stole dennis' umbrella during the zombie walk we guess, cuz there was a girl who poked him and afterwards the umbrella was gone. We went to a gameshop ...just named "game" lol and I bought a preowned version of "Afro Samurai" who is indexed in germany....cuz I liked the US demo.
Dennis, Pauliina, Karoliina, & me @ Kulturhuset
I almost forgot.....it was very rainy in Stockholm all the days but it rained always just a little and then stopped all of a sudden. But on sunday it was very sunny (maybe because it was SUNday lol).
There was a lot of people with Sleaze-Rock style in the city…I guess cuz of the concert, but there are a lot of people who are very fashionable in Stockholm too.
Rubber boots seem to be very trendy in Sweden and It looked cool because they know how to do a good combination with their clothes. I also like the fashion shops. Sometimes they´ve looked like night clubs…very fancy decoration inside like these washing machines.
In the old town we were at a antique café inside an old basement which was really beautiful….it was very narrow but also very snugly inside. We took some swedish pancakes and coffee and it was really delicious. The coffee was great…I don’t have really good coffee often, because the coffee at work tastes awfull x_x.
The old town part of the City was really beautiful and I like that antique look a lot.
Hötorget
This bridge was used for the artwork of Studio Ghiblis´ "Kikis Delivery Service"
c´mon and get it....its scheisselitet!!!
Later we went back to the Konserthuset cuz it already became late and the concert was going to start soon. Beforehand we had meet 2 friends of Pauliina but I already forgot their name…but they were funny somehow. A lot of people were inside the hall where you could buy merchandise of Distant Worlds.
The concert started at about 7:30pm…
The performance hall was really big just like in an opera and the musicians were still preparing their instruments. Arnie Roth the director of the orchestra had an opening speech about the tour and about the specials of this event here in Stockholm…because it was the first date of their tour and a lot of exclusive tracks were prepared for today.
The first track was the final fantasy main theme….and it just gave me the goosebumps like almost every other track they played. Followed by “Liberi Fatali” (the favorite track of nubbn ^^).
They also played the 7 seconds long “victory theme” the first time.
I had recorded a few parts of the concert with my videocam cuz I wanted to watch it with my angel franzi ^_^.
It was awesome……the team of Square Enix and Nobou Uematsu were among the guests of course. They have shown a lot of cut scenes of all the final fantasy games attached to the track they just played.
Tracklist:
FINAL FANTASY series: Main Theme, Swing de Chocobo, Prelude, Victory Theme
FINAL FANTASY VI: Dancing Mad, Terra's Theme
FINAL FANTASY VII: One-Winged Angel, Opening - Bombing Mission, Main Theme of Final Fantasy, JENOVA
FINAL FANTASY VIII: Liberi Fatali, Fisherman's Horizon, Don't be Afraid, The Man With The Machine Gun
FINAL FANTASY IX: Vamo' alla Flamenco, Melodies of Life
FINAL FANTASY X: To Zanarkand
FINAL FANTASY XI: Memoro de la Stono - Distant Worlds,
FINAL FANTASY XIII: The Promise,
FINAL FANTASY XIV: Twilight Over Thanalan, Beneath Bloody Borders
Before they played One Winged Angel as their last song, Uematsu entered the stage all of sudden. Arnie Roth presented him a bouquet and afterwards Uematsu was singing with the choir.
That’s what I call an epic ending…
After the concert Pauliina and Karoliina had a “meet and greet” with Uematsu and we gave her our CDs for signing.
Later, Dennis and me went to hard rock cafe to have a beer. It was cool in there...all the people from the KIZZ concert were in there and on every TV inside they played a live DVD of KIZZ which was recorded a few years ago. It was cool to watch and their show was great. As in many hard rock cafes there were a lot of original stuff from bands like this photo of Ozzy Osbourne with Marilyn Manson...and a lot of signed guitars.
The next day we met the others at the "Kulturhuset" to have some lunch. I took a carrot cake who was sooo tasty. I guess its one of my favorite cakes now ^_^. We talked much about swedish phrases and german phrases like "Old Swede! (Alter Schwede!)" and what could meant by that because we didn´t know either *g*.
Even it was sunday some shops had opened until 8pm..which is normal in Stockholm so we went to a shopping centre later and I bought some socks for franzi cuz they looked very sexy to me with that kind of tull at the waistband ; -).
The socks are in the background...but I like those shoes too
Then I found some preowned PS3 Games, "Stranglehold" (which you can get only as cut-edition in germany) and "Resistance 2" at Game Stop ^_^. Games in sweden are cheaper than in germany...but just a little....and Im glad that every game has english dub because in sweden they haven´t any swedish dubbed media anyway....they just have subtitles. Even if the PS3 translates the subs of (almost) every foreign game to the language you adjust your firmware, you can´t be sure it does so afterall (like Dead Space for example).
Then we went to Kungshallen again to have some Yakitori....it was very yummy. Dennis had Yakisoba too.
We had to go to bed very early because we had to get up at 4am next day to get our flight back home.
4am....the buzzer ringed
- got up
- last goodbye to the filthy bathroom
- handed over the key to the receptionist
- from hotel to the metro
- from metro to central station
- from central station to airport by "Arlanda Express"
We were way to early at the airport but never mind. We just wanted to make sure we get our flight and so we had no hurry to check in our luggage.
- exchanged our money back at forex (aside of some coins I wanted to keep)
- then we had some carrot cake again and were waiting for check in
Goodbye Sweden ^__^