This weekend, a friend we had randomly met in Rome, Cort from ISU, came and visited us. He had a bit of a mishap leaving Barcelona seeing as he lost his passport. Surprisingly, he was able to get a temporary passport from the US embassy and made it about a day later with only 24 hours to spend in Stockholm. I had agreed for him to stay at my place, and at first although I was not too thrilled with having to host someone, I was very pleasantly surprised at how nice it was to have someone appreciate Stockholm who had not been living here for the last 2 ½ months.
He arrived yesterday around 1 pm. After walking to meet him, we dropped off everything, and headed to the classic Gamla Stan to show him the old town. Meeting up with Lyle and his visiting friend Colum, we headed to Art Café for a typical fika and to have everyone get to know everyone better. After this we headed to Slussen to walk around and see the lookout point showing Stockholm at a beautiful height and showing Cort Stockholm from a higher point of view. Luckily, Lyle is so knowledgeable about Stockholm since he has been here for almost a full year now and was able to give good explanations and details about Stockholm and it’s different parts. Our next stop was City Hall, which I hadn’t been to yet, where the Noble Peace Prize dinner is held every year. Walking across the courtyard, we made it to the shore at City Hall, and enjoyed a lovely sunset on the clear Baltic Sea with a view that reflected where we just were in Slussen. Cort was very impressed with not only City Hall but another museum building close to City Hall because he had multiple places he wanted to visit, including these. Seeing as Cort is studying to be an architect, he has a book of 1000 buildings to see around the world including these, the Library with a beautiful circle room, and a Subway that was beautifully decorated.
While walking around on this clear beautiful day, I felt so much more love and appreciation on how Stockholm is so open and beautiful. It is a bigger spread out city, but it is unique in the fact that although there are some taller buildings, the open water, multiple islands, and colorful low buildings allows you to feel as if you could never be Closterphobic. The beauty of Stockholm has completely began to shock me with the more time I’ve spent here and truly been able to explore outside of being a tourist.
While walking to find the library, (which was closed), we came across the subway plaza which Cort had wanted to see. When realizing how many Stockholm subway stations there are, it is pretty amazing that we stumbled upon it considering I had never even been at that subway station. After a quick dinner, we headed out to meet some of my other friends for an after –exam party that KTH was throwing. KTH is another university in Stockholm where all students who are studying engineering or any science go. All in all, Cort left earlier today, after having a successful 24 hours in Stockholm.
My Semester in Stockholm 