The summer is now certainly over, which means I’ve lived in Stockholm for 10 months. I reckon that’s just about long enough to fall in love with a city. I’ve made a home here and now feel like I have two lives, with my life in Australia feeling more distant than ever.
Stockholm isn’t a huge city. With a population of 2 million, it barely makes the top 200 cities in the world. Still, it’s big enough to have all the advantages of a modern metropolis; a good public transport system, a vibrant nightlife and a restaurants with food from all over the world. But this are not the reason I love Stockholm.
The main reason I love Stockholm is because of Swedish culture.
Sure, Swedes can be quiet and a little distant. But once you break past this barrier or shyness, there is a lot to like. Swedish people share many characteristics of Australians that I like, and not many that I don’t. Swedes are fun, easy-going, heavy-drinking, intelligent, decent, cultured people (in Stockholm anyway).
I love the winter, and I love the (short) summer). I love meeting a friend in the city for a fika, or having some friends over for a förkrök on the weekend. I like catching a movie at a bio, working out at one of the SATS, and watching a La Liga match at an Irish pub in Gamla Stan, drinking cheap stor stark or a pricier Guinness.
Swedish food is fantastic, though the lack of meat pies and sausage rolls is concerning. I love köttbullar, falukorv, pytt i panna, and hamburgare from Max or Rasmus Grill – especially when drunk or hungover. At Christmas, Easter and Midsummer the best food of all comes out: senapsill, lax, prinskorv, räka and oxfile. Then there are crayfish parties, where you eat kräfta, drinks snaps and sing traditional drinking songs.
So it may be expensive, cold, and dark, but this icy wasteland has warmed my heart become my second home. I’m going to be leaving soon, and this makes me sad.
Just have to love that photo! :D