Day 12: Stockholm

Sunday, August 25

It was another hard start today. I was up and moving earlier than yesterday, got downstairs and had breakfast in a timely manner (ie, while the dining room was still crowded), but then i ended up going back to the room and sitting around for a while again, spiraling.
    I finally decided to just get up and go, like yesterday, and surely i'd feel better once i was moving. I packed all my things into the safe, got dressed and got my cameras ready for the day, and was just about to leave...when suddenly it downpoured. I watched the rain through my tiny submarine hatch window and despaired. Flopped back down on the bed again.
    After a few minutes, i said, no, i'm not gonna let it get to me again. I searched for "things to do in Stockholm in the rain," and the first thing that came up was boat tours. The boats all have enclosed areas you can sit so you can stay dry, you don't have to go out on the deck. So i thought maybe i'd try that.
    Museums were also a suggestion. I thought maybe the Nobel Prize museum might be interesting.
    Also, seeing a movie was suggested. At first i was like, that's dumb, i'm not gonna go see a regular movie while i'm on my overseas trip. But then, like. What are you gonna do? Sulk in your bunk all day? Is that more productive? There are at least two movie theaters in Stockholm that have been operating continuously for over 100 years, and i'm starting to see spoilers for Alien: Romulus hitting my corner of the web. It would be nice to see Romulus in the theater, and it will probably be gone by the time i get back to America...
    Soon after, it stopped raining, but the cloud cover remained. I stuffed the sleeves of my jacket into an inner pocket, just in case i need them, and got outside.
    It was really nice out, actually! Once again, the breeze rolling off the water felt like it should be cold, but it wasn't, it was pleasant.
    Several boat tours launch from right by my hostel, so i walked by them first. I stood near the ticketing booth for a while, contemplating, and eventually decided it wasn't really what i was in the mood for. I kept walking.
    I needed a break to think already. So i found a bench just outside the Stockholm Opera House that wasn't too wet, and pulled my phone out again. I had the vague notion that i was going to head to the Nobel Prize museum, it seemed the most interesting of all the museums. No, i was not going to go to the ABBA museum, despite that intrusive thought coming around over and over, just because Dancing Queen has been stuck in my head since i got here.
    It turned out there were several Atlas Obscura destinations that were pretty close by. I was taking a little more interest in those today, even though i was not so sure that my mental state had improved much. Maybe this is proof enough that it has.
    I started with the historic site of the Battle of the Elms. I'd actually already walked past it going in the other direction; after looping around the opera house, i recognized it from mere moments ago. There are 13 elm trees forming a ring around a tea house in Kungsträdgården (The King's Garden). In 1971, the city needed to relocate the Kungsträdgården subway station, and this was the site they chose. The locals were very upset that these elm trees were to be destroyed, so they showed up en masse to protest, coming into conflict with construction workers and police officers. It culminated in violence on May 12, and one of the workers began to chainsaw one of the trees, but had to stop because "the safety of the workers could not be guaranteed." The protestors eventually won. This is considered a turning point in Swedish politics; after the incident, Swedish politicians were forced to give more consideration to the will of the people.
    Can you imagine?
    Another suggestion on one of the lists of things to do in Stockholm in the rain was to observe the Swedish tradition of "fika," or "coffee pause." It's a daily ritual for many Swedes. According to travel blogger Solo Sophie (dot com), to observe the practice, "You simply need to head to a quaint coffee shop (Stockholm boasts many!), and purchase a piping hot cup of coffee together with a melt in your mouth pastry. And there is perhaps no better moment to enjoy this activity than when it's a dark and stormy day."
    I know i had just gotten started with the day, but i was already at a tea house, sooooooo.....
    I don't drink coffee, but i got a pretty great chai latte and a lovely Swedish danish, and enjoyed my fika among this monument to proletariat solidarity in the face of government oppression.
    Most of the rest of the things i saw today were just quick flybys, if you want the history, you can look them up on Atlas Obscura or perhaps more reputable web sites. I'll put them in chronological order this time: the former bank-turned-hotel where the concept of "Stockholm Syndrome" comes from, the heated statue of actress Margareta Krook, Berzelius Park, Svampen (giant concrete mushroom and another example of angry citizens getting what they want), Kungliga Biblioteket (the National Library, where i intended to see The Devil's Bible, but they were closed).
    I headed into the subway system, not going anywhere in particular, but just to see some unique subway stations. There were three on the Atlas that i thought might be interesting. Near the National Library, i entered at the Östermalmstorg station, home of the Östermalm Echo Dome, which is a fun name to say. It's a weird junction between escalators where there's a concrete dome overhead, and all sounds in the room echo around you. So you can hear someone whispering from across the chamber clear as day. It wasn't super busy, so there weren't a lot of voices or sounds to hear echoing, and most of the people that passed through while i stood there stayed quiet. I did eventually hear a few voices bouncing around, and once the room was empty i said a bunch of dumb stuff by myself, but overall, kind of a letdown.
    I took the metro over to the Kungsträdgården station, which is the deepest metro station in Stockholm, 112 feet below ground. This one is fascinating, and not only because this the station that was built after the whole Battle of the Elms controversy. The station has developed its own self-sufficient ecosystem. Many organisms that are commonly found in caves or grottoes have found a home there, including several species of moss, tiny insects, and worms. What's stranger is that the rare dwarf cave spider Lessertia dentichelis is thriving in the station; these are otherwise not known to exist in northern Europe. Scientists have also recently discovered a previously unknown fungus on the station's walls. This ecosystem is thriving off of the artificial lighting, chalk that is dripping down from the manmade ceiling, and the various bits of biological detritus that humans cast off of their bodies on the regular. While i was down there, i saw a man become very interested in something he saw on one of the walls and stand in the corner, staring, with his phone flashlight on for at least five minutes before i walked away. He might still be there, he was transfixed.

    I caught a train heading back the other way to hit up one more Atlas Obscura-listed station, although when i read the article en route, i was starting to get kind of annoyed about these. This station features a large installation of an apple, to represent the one that hit Isaac Newton and the whole theory of gravity thing. The whole station is decorated with art about various breakthroughs in science, which is cool, but like, why did this get its own Atlas Obscura entry? There's a fourth Atlas entry that is just "Stockholm Metro Art Gallery" and says there's art in all of the stations! Which is pretty normal for a subway system in a big city, honestly. There's another entry for the seats in the train cars on the Red Line, which sometimes feature a character or two in their geometric patterns, as an easter egg. That's...not really anything special, either. I did see them, though. Then there's an entry for art that's specifically on the air vents in various stations. There's another station that has an entry because "only ghosts get off there," ie, no one uses this station. It was far away so i didn't bother. And another one that has the tallest escalator in Sweden, the eighth tallest in the world. I didn't bother with that one either. No wonder Stockholm has 127 entries on the Atlas Obscura; some dork went through and just wrote down every weird little thing they could think of. I promise, a lot of this is not noteworthy. The ecosystem is fuckin cool! That belongs in here. The Echo Dome i can kind of see, but it's tenuous. Newton's apple? Fuck off. It's a fine piece of art, but there's no reason to call special attention to it.
    I figured it was about time to go to the Nobel Prize museum, so i took the subway over that way.
    The museum itself was confusing at first. From the entry, there's no obvious direction to go to get to exhibits. There's an exhibit of dresses right there when you get through the gate. It took me a bit to understand what they were even there for. I thought maybe they were dresses that laureates had worn to the ceremony, but no; it turns out that every year, the local fashion college designs an outfit for each category of Nobel Prize, and they are all on display right here, when you first walk into the Nobel Prize Museum.
    There's a café off to the left, and going forward there's an open space which seems like it should lead to a logical starting point for the museum. I went there first, because i was trying to find a bathroom. Once that was taken care of, i returned to the front, because i couldn't really see where any of this was going, and the constant flow of people were all going chaotically in different directions, so there wasn't an obvious path to take. So i thought i'd just start making my way around the perimeter of the building, counterclockwise, and see where i ended up.
    Following the front wall past the dresses led me to a packed theater. I passed by, thinking maybe i'd check on this later and see if it was a little emptier. Never got there. Next to that was room about Alfred Nobel himself. It had several of his personal effects, including maps and books, a stone bust, and some reading material detailing his life. This led to another room, which...seemed to have activities for kids, based on Alfred Nobel? There were some tweens going through the stations while i was there. This passed into another room, which seemed to be geared toward much younger kids. Once i realized this didn't go anywhere else, i headed back the way i came.
    The opening that had gotten me to the bathrooms led further to a flight of stairs with signs saying they lead to "The Lab." I didn't know what that was, so i followed them down two flights of stairs, only to realize i was in another child-focused area for kids to get their hands on some science. Disappointed, i headed back up the stairs.
    Still following the wall, suddenly, exhibits. Just out in this wide-open area with chaotically pathing humans everywhere. I soon realized the whole museum was like this. There was only one more room, just beyond this, which was about twice the size and also open-air with no clear direction to follow.
    I'm very confused by the contents of the exhibits, too. A lot of things just seem to be random stuff that was once owned by a Nobel Prize laureate. Like. "This person won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1991. Here's his accordion." Literally.
    Or like. "There is a Nobel Prize for literature. Here is a book by Isaac Asimov." And there's just a beat-up old copy of Foundation sitting there on a pedestal. No further information. I don't know if it's a rare copy, or if it's signed by Asimov, or if it belonged to Alfred Nobel, or what. It's just a copy of the first Foundation novel with the cover kind of mangled and the pages worn and yellow, sitting on a pedestal, behind glass, with a card that simply reads, "A book by Isaac Asimov."
    I think maybe the most egregious one, though, was a work bench from a shop that one of the previous laureates used to work at. The plaque doesn't even say that it was their bench, just that it came from their former place of employment. They don't even display the whole bench, they have cut a hole in the wall and who knows what percentage of the item is hidden back there.
    There's some cool stuff in the museum; i was quite taken by a representation of an android character from another novel that won the prize for literature. Well done, thought provoking stuff. But that model was literally sitting across from the accordion i mentioned. I don't know what the actual relevance of most of this stuff is, and the way it's all presented is so haphazard and unguided that it's practically useless.
    I did see Mikhail Gorbachev's walking cane. It was in a case with two ears of corn and a plaque that said something about a previous laureate who had won for research on maize, like this corn. So like. That's not even her maize? You just grabbed some random corn, and said, "these can represent maize research, and sit next to Gorbachev's cane."
    Today i also learned that Henry Kissinger has a Nobel Peace Prize, which. Sigh.
    I don't think it was worth the price of admission. I walked out of the museum just in time for the sky to open up and the rain to hit the cobblestones once again. It got stronger with every footfall as i made my way down the street. It was about 4:30, might as well call that lunch time, and i decided to duck into the first restaurant i saw.
    The first thing that struck me about Coffee Stop when i entered, aside from that it only had like eight tables and most of them were open, was that the front half of the restaurant, up by the counter, has hundreds of cards suspended from the ceiling by string. Getting up close, they seem to be praise for the establishment, written in many languages, some with flags drawn on them, many with hearts. Very nice.
    I ordered a salmon pie and another chai latte. The latte was wonderful, i think it's the first time i've been served a chai latte with the tea infuser still in the cup (i haven't been drinking chai lattes for very long). The salmon pie was delectable. Obviously, it's a savory pie, and aside from the crust, the texture and consistency felt a bit like a quiche to me. I don't actually know what it was made of. It was lovely, would definitely have again.
    This proved to be exactly enough time for the rain to stop. I wasn't really sure what to do from here. Kind of thought about heading back to the hostel and just chilling for a bit, but the weather was instantly perfect again and i still felt like i had a lot of energy. Plus chilling at the hostel might just mean letting the dark thoughts in again, and i'm not so sure about that.
    There was a bunch of Atlas Obscura stuff up around the Nobel museum, so i walked back that way. I'd gone all of maybe fifty meters from the big public square in front of the museum.
    Here i saw the Stortorget Cannonballs (three cannonballs lodged in the walls of two nearby buildings), Ribbinska Huset (a red building with white stones inset that are said to represent murdered nobles), walked past the Wooden Horse Museum but didn't go in because there was a big line, used the oldest public urinal in Sweden (installed in 1890), and visited Järnpojke (Sweden's tiniest public monument at 15 centimeters tall, also known as "The Boy Who Looks at the Moon" or just "The Iron Boy"). It's said that if you rub Järnpojke's head and leave him a small offering, he will bring you good luck. There's a pile of coins all around him, but evidently in the wintertime some locals knit him little sweaters. I had a €0.10 coin floating around in my pocket that i picked up outside of Rosenborg Slot in Denmark, and now i knew why: because i am playing a point-and-click RPG. Side quest complete.
    At this point, i noticed on Maps that i was standing right behind the Royal Palace of Sweden. I must've walked past this building a dozen times and not realized it was the Royal Palace. I walked around the front, both to see it now that i knew, and because i was going that way anyway. I climbed up the front steps to the locked gate, where two guards stood, unmoving, like statues in their own right. Took some pics. Then continued on.
    I don't think i'm gonna do any more palace tours on this trip. Yeah, it might be nice to see the Crown Jewels of Sweden while i'm at it, for the clout, but like i said when i wrote about Rosenborg. I'm a little burnt out by the opulence of royalty at this point.
    Standing on the front steps of the Swedish Royal Palace, i can see my hostel across the water. That feels prestigious.
    I was making my way back to the hostel, out of ideas for what to do next. As i crossed the first bridge, i thought, nah. The sun's still shining, the breeze still feels good, i've still got energy. What else can i do before i'm in for the night?
    There were a few more Atlas items nearby that i could try.
    My first attempt proved unreachable, as it was inside of a building which was closed.
    But by walking past the hostel, crossing the entire island that i'm staying on, and taking a bridge to the next island over (this is not as far as it might sound like, they are tiny islands), i was able to visit the Shipwreck of Kastellholmen. The tide was in, so i wasn't able to see the full skeleton on the ship that's shown in the pictures on Atlas Obscura, but the remains of some moorings and other wreckage are still above the water. A plaque erected near the site gives a map of where several ships from the 1600s-1800s are wrecked below the water's surface. This island used to be a naval base.
    Continuing around this tiny naval base island, i came to Kastellet Stockholm, or Kastellholmens Utsiktsplats. This is an old bit of naval fort that's still standing, though unused, and as long as the Swedish flag flies above it, then the nation is at peace. This is a tradition that dates back to 1667, when the citadel was built. To this day, a naval officer must come out to the fort twice per day, to raise the flag, then to lower it. They tried to end the tradition in 1990, but if we've learned anything from the Battle of the Elms and Svampen, Swedes don't take kindly to that sort of thing.
    The flag is flying today.
    Can you imagine?

That's probably the poetic moment to end this entry on, but i do want to mention real quick that as i was walking the rest of the way back to the hostel, i stumbled upon an enormous artillery gun from 1898, three torpedoes from WWII, and an inexplicable life-size wooden carving of an angel with huge boobs.
    Okay, the end.