What's wrong with Stockholm
Brendan Francis Newnam hosts a national
public radio show called "The Dinner Party Download" produced by
American Public Media. He's the author of the CNN.com travel column "The
State I'm In." Follow him on Twitter @bnewnam.
(CNN) -- A $22 martini. And this wasn't a martini served with gold flakes and
unicorn eyelashes, either. In fact, it was barely a martini.
It was two oily Kalamata olives covered in an ounce of gin and an ounce of something that wasn't vermouth.
It
was the worst thing-called-a-martini I've ever had. And the most
expensive thing-called-a-martini I've ever paid for. And I won't let
myself forget it, because it's the only thing I found wrong with the
entire city of Stockholm.
I know what you're thinking: Surprise! A travel writer likes a place that he visited.
And
it's true, travel stories tend to be as hard-hitting as a Dick Cheney
interview on Fox. But believe me when I tell you that a short visit to
Stockholm in the summer will have you seriously thinking about applying
for a job at IKEA ... in Sweden.
In fact, Stockholm is so
attractive and so user-friendly that your feelings about it will toggle
between admiration and jealousy. It's like the neighbor with the groomed
yard, the successful career and the loving family. Part of you aspires
to be her. Another part wants to start negative rumors about her and
tear up her yard by doing donuts on it in your unwashed Toyota Camry.
"Well, it's really expensive over there," you think. "At least they have that going against them."
And
it's true it ain't cheap (See: aforementioned thing-called-a-martini),
but it's kind of like dining at a baseball stadium: If you avoid boozing
and be smart about where you eat, the prices won't make you cry.
I found a intercontinental flight to Stockholm from Croatia for 60 bucks. And for lodging, I used Air BnB, a newish website where people rent their homes when they are not using them.
My
girlfriend and I found a one-bedroom apartment in central Stockholm for
$650 a week. It included a kitchen where you could save money by
cooking and a comfortable couch where you could save money by watching
Swedish television and pretending you are actually walking around
Sweden.
"Venice of the North"
"You Americans?"
asked the guy sitting next to us. He was a just-this-side-of-handsome
middle-aged man sitting with his long-blond-haired, red-bearded, modern
Viking friend.
"Yes."
"We'd like to buy you a drink."
"Why?"
"Because we feel bad that you lost your 'A.' " Earlier that day, Standard & Poor's had downgraded America's credit.
So much for overcoming my attraction to Stockholm by dismissing the Swedes as cold and humorless.
The
Joker and the Viking were just back from their month and a half summer
vacations out on the islands. And lest you think my girlfriend and I had
fallen in with Sweden's wealthy elite, you should know that almost
everyone on Sweden speaks English, everyone has a minimum of five weeks
vacation, and most people have vacation homes -- with 600,000 summer
cottages, it has the highest number of second homes per capita in the
entire world.
This would be a good place to tell you that
Stockholm is part of a 24,000-island archipelago. Many of the country's
summer cottages are on these islands, and Stockholm itself is spread out
across 14 of them.
The city has been dubbed "Venice of the
North," which (save for the fact that the water is clean and you can
swim in it it and eat fish from it) seems apropos. The whole city is
infused with maritime culture. Viking relics are strewn across the
town's near 100 museums.
A painstakingly restored 64-gun warship from the 17th century is the centerpiece of the beloved Vasa Museum. And mountains of incredible seafood abound, both figuratively at classic Swedish restaurants like Tranan and Pelikan and literally at the city's food markets. The most stunning is Ostermalm Food Hall, where the ice-packed fish counter looks like Atlantis at low tide.
The
Joker and the Viking taught us something else the night we met them:
Sweden is in the middle of the "vodka belt," a ribbon of countries in
Europe whose natives really like vodka a lot.
Perhaps not surprising for the home of Absolut but still an adjustment for visitors from the wine-with-dinner belt.
Living the good life
Sweden's
also awash in beer of varying colors and varying strengths. And that
night, with the help of our new friends, my girlfriend and I consumed
all of the above until the sun came up. Which is less decadent than you
might think, since in Stockholm during July, the sun rises around 3:30
in the morning.
The next day, we skipped breakfast and went
directly to "fika," a noun/verb that means "break," as in coffee break. A
coffee break that is usually accompanied by sweet baked goods. The
cinnamon bun is the local favorite, but I fell hard for cardamom buns,
which have all the same gooey texture as cinnamon buns but with a hot
edge courtesy of the cardamom.
"Fika" is a big part of Swedish
culture. Blending work with coffee breaks with friends and colleagues is
one way to achieve "lagom," another hardly translatable Swedish word
that roughly means "just enough." Not too much. Not too little.
Some
say the word is a contraction of "laget om" ("around the team"), a
phrase used in Viking times to specify how much one should drink from
the horn as it is passed around in order for everyone to receive a fair
share. Everyone receiving their fair share is a philosophy that lies at
the root of Swedish society.
A coffee shop is a good place to
witness the practical affects of "lagom." Amidst the pastries and the
(extremely attractive!) people, one finds lots of men with one hand
cradling a coffee and the other rocking a stroller.
On-duty dads
are everywhere. This is not only because Sweden takes feminism very
seriously ("lagom") but because Sweden has some of the most generous
paternity benefits in the world. Families receive 13 months paid
paternity leave per child, and two of those months are reserved for
fathers so they too can raise their child.
Lagom.
The rest
of our trip was filled with these sort of frustratingly beautiful and
pleasant truths about Sweden: public transportation that was clean and
on time. More vibrant neighborhoods than you are able to explore in a
week, from schmancy Ostermalm to the medieval splendor of Gamla Stan
(Stockholm's old town). Superb design everywhere, from light switches to
community bikes (!).
Our last day there, we ogled people and
boutique shops in trendy Sodermalm and saw a hare the size of a bumper
car while strolling through one of the city's many parks. This all
happened under a sky so electrifying -- a mottle of purple, blue, gray,
white, orange and yellow -- that every hour or so, you found yourself
standing still and staring up.
We ended our trip at a broad terrace bar overlooking the city.
"What's not to like about this place?" we wondered. Then I received my $22 thing-they-called-a-martini.
Comments