You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Stockholm’ tag.
In discussion with a fellow blogger I realized a bit too late that I might have done better in adding my photos to shutterfly or picassa or one of the other online photo services rather than continuing to struggle with trying to upload a small selection here. Then I realized that using this blog for my photos was a pretty effective way to forestall going back to my “real” blog…a procrastinator in everything I do it seems…
And so it continues, but only momentarily….and only because you haven’t seen Stockholm yet…and you should.
Sodermalm Skyline
Narrow Streets of Gamla Stan - the old town
The Blue Room in City Hall - where the Nobel prizes are awarded each year
Though not quite as extreme as you may find in some cultures, the Swedish have a few delicacies that I am happy to leave in Sweden… and one or two I have every intention of trying to replicate in my own kitchen.
You may surmise from reading Water, Water, Everywhere that fish is a pretty common course on the menu…and you’d be right. So clean is the water surrounding the islands of this gorgeous old city that we watched a gentleman don hip waders on the city dock and wade out into the stream coursing between Gamla Stan and City Center to do a little fishing on his lunch hour.
Fish dishes abound on every menu.
I like fish, so this you wouldn’t think would be a problem. My issue though came with preparation. The prized fish dishes of the country are not cooked. Their traditional preparation for salmon is salt curing it. Their herring is served pickled – in sour cream or not – the choice is yours. Now certainly there are other options on the menu, but I do always like to at least try the specialties of a new place – to get the flavor of the country so to speak. It was sort of a family rule; you have to try whatever is served to you. My mother always referred to these as “no thank-you” helpings.
I did indeed have my no thank-you helpings of both the cured salmon and the herring. I’ve had cured salmon before and have to admit that this was probably the best I had ever tasted, although I found it a little much as the main course. Blessedly it was served with quite possibly the best potatoes I have ever had – admittedly, when you dress boiled baby potatoes in a bath of sour cream, grainy mustard (a specialty from the southern part of Sweden called Skane) and chives there is of course, not much to dislike about that. The pickled herring, however, was seriously not my cup of tea, but swallowed successfully with large gulps of beer.
Like I said, I still think it is important to try the local specialities, but I was pretty darn happy Sunday afternoon to have my sister suggest that we grab a hot dog and sit and read the paper. Ah… heaven…
Stockholm is a city built on 14 islands. These islands comprise different neighborhoods, but are so well woven together one walks between them like one would cross the street. The bridges take you where you would like to go. The subways cross between the islands with ease. It really is quite simple to get around, which is no little accomplishment given all that separates these neighborhoods.
Contrast that with other building efforts. The school where I work has just built a brand new, mixed-use development. It combines dorms, shops and restaurants in one corner of the campus. All of it is centered around a lovely green. Problematically though, the access points from off campus are a little obscure, the access from on campus requires that you drive most of the way off campus again, and once you arrive, the sidewalks go at a near right angle to the direction you wish to travel.
My own college campus put in a new athletic complex a generation ago. The building was complete and put into use in the Fall. The concrete sidewalks that were to provide access to the building were to come later, in the Spring. By that time, well worn paths marked the routes of most frequent travel. Do you think it occurred to the powers that be to just pave those paths?
Of course not. They put in walkways according to the original plan and sod where there were no walkways. And when the sod became trampled, they put in signs warning us to Keep Off the Grass. And re-sodded again. A continual fight against nature.
Yet in Sweden, fighting an even more troublesome obstacle, they have managed to create a system of transport that takes you where you want to go. Logically. Comfortably. Efficiently.
It was really more of a symbolic effort; to ask if the person that I had approached spoke English. I think it is important to at least make the effort. That said, everyone with whom I really needed to have a conversation spoke English. One such couple that my sister approached, as it turned out, happened to have been Americans from our hometown. Small world.
When did the world get so small, though? And how did that happen?
Whenever that was, I am pretty sure it is pretty recent, because in the early years of this world we were all doing our own thing – at least linguistically.
I was struck, as I have been before, at the numbers of languages spoken. My trip to Sweden took me through Charles de Gaulle airport, where you hear a virtual Tower of Babel of announcements. My flight took me through Amsterdam on the way to Stockholm, so flight announcements were made in in French, Dutch and English.
Once again when I think about the many thousands of languages in the world, I am forced to describe the need to communicate as something primal; right up there with air, water and food. This idea of talking to each other was clearly not one of those good ideas that got passed around and shared and became “common”. There appears to be no central point of origin for language as evidenced by the huge disparities between tongues, not only in the words themselves but down to the actual inventory of sounds at the disposal of native speakers of those languages, as these thousands of languages spontaneously erupted.
Yet we manage to communicate. One way or another.
Talar du engelska?
Recent Comments