Hej!
Originally published at http://www.notmymother.net . You can comment there or here.
Hej from Sweden! We are in Stockholm and it is beautiful. I am having the time of my life. The day before we came I had this conversation with Bianca:
Bianca: I am sad I won’t be at school next week because I’ll miss science and we’re doing experiments.
Me: But we’ll be in Sweden! We can have Ikea meatballs!
Bianca: Ugh, MUM, they probably don’t even have Ikea there.
Me: Are you kidding me? That’s where Ikea is from? Ikea meatballs are Swedish meatballs! There are meatballs everywhere!
Bianca: Then I want to go right now!
We have been here four days and she has eaten meatballs four times. That’s my girl.
Stockholm is a beautiful city. It’s clean and not too busy and the buildings are old and lovely. As are the people (lovely, not old). The first morning at breakfast I accidentally let out a little sigh of pleasure when the waiter was showing us to our table. I also happened to sit facing him and kept drifting off over my muesli… sorry, where was I? Oh yes. It helps that it is brilliantly sunny and about 24*C every day. Stockholm is built on an archipelago of islands and the sunlight glistens off the water like diamonds.
A few observations:
Now, I know trip report blogs are meant to be full of photos but they’re all on the good camera and let’s be honest, if you have to wait for me to download them and choose them and set them up you will never read anything. So let’s paint pictures with our words and maybe you’ll get something once I’m back home.
the view from our hotel at 9pm
Hej from Sweden! We are in Stockholm and it is beautiful. I am having the time of my life. The day before we came I had this conversation with Bianca:
Bianca: I am sad I won’t be at school next week because I’ll miss science and we’re doing experiments.
Me: But we’ll be in Sweden! We can have Ikea meatballs!
Bianca: Ugh, MUM, they probably don’t even have Ikea there.
Me: Are you kidding me? That’s where Ikea is from? Ikea meatballs are Swedish meatballs! There are meatballs everywhere!
Bianca: Then I want to go right now!
We have been here four days and she has eaten meatballs four times. That’s my girl.
Stockholm is a beautiful city. It’s clean and not too busy and the buildings are old and lovely. As are the people (lovely, not old). The first morning at breakfast I accidentally let out a little sigh of pleasure when the waiter was showing us to our table. I also happened to sit facing him and kept drifting off over my muesli… sorry, where was I? Oh yes. It helps that it is brilliantly sunny and about 24*C every day. Stockholm is built on an archipelago of islands and the sunlight glistens off the water like diamonds.
A few observations:
- Swedish people do not sound like the Swedish chef. They sound lovely and are pretty to look at too.
- It is nice to go outside and not melt. Really, even when you’re hot you’re not sweaty, whereas in Singapore you go slimy from the moment you step outside.
- The basics of Swedish are simple. Hello is hej (hey). Turns out I say hello in Swedish all the time. Goodbye is hej da, which I knew from exiting Ikea. Thank you is tack. For everything else they speak English beautifully. I was nervous beforehand because the alphabet is not quite the same so you can’t fudge your way through on signs as easily as you can in German or French, but they accommodate our language ignorance very graciously.
- Speaking of Ikea, there is a shuttlebus which leaves from around the corner from my hotel. It may be fate.
Now, I know trip report blogs are meant to be full of photos but they’re all on the good camera and let’s be honest, if you have to wait for me to download them and choose them and set them up you will never read anything. So let’s paint pictures with our words and maybe you’ll get something once I’m back home.
the view from our hotel at 9pm