Stockholm Syndrome

'Life is like a firework. You gotta ignite the fuse and make it beautiful.' - Unknown

For the rest of my Christmas break I’m splitting my time between Stockholm, Sweden and Helsinki, Finland. Today (Dec. 28^th) I arrived in Stockholm and will here until the 2^nd of January. I’ll be traveling with a coworker from Sugar Creek Bible Camp- Aimee Lenth. I’ve worked with her for the past two summers, but I don’t know her too closely. Still, it is so entirely wonderful to be reunited with someone from camp, because I miss it there so dearly. We arrived in Stockholm at around 6 p.m. and then took a bus into the city, and after finding our hostel, we desperately needed some food. So tonight was pretty simple and we just spent a few hours at a restaurant nearby eating and chatting and getting to know each other a little better.

Day 2- Dec. 29^th: Today unfortunately, it rained for most of the day and was quite gray out. We spent the morning/early afternoon at the National Museum looking at lots of wonderful paintings and collections. One of the collections was on Swedish style from the 20^th until 21^th century and so it was very strange to see some of the things I own (a scissors and table from IKEA) on display. We then walked around parts of the old town and a small market, and did a little bit of souvenir shopping. Afterwards we headed to a grocery store to pick up some supplies for the rest of the week and headed back to the hostel to make dinner. While in the kitchen we met a guy from Maine, Peter, who’s been studying in Spain. He joined us for our supper and then we all headed on an evening tour of Old Town. Afterwards we headed to pub for a drink and then to a small restaurant for some ice cream!

Day 3- Dec. 30^th: We started the morning with a breakfast with Peter and then we headed off to the free new/modern tour of the city. Again, unfortunately today was pretty rainy and cold, so that was not too fun. But the tour took us around all of the newer buildings and I learned that H&M was established in Sweden as well as Skype and Spotify.  But the coolest thing we saw was the building/bank where there was a robbery in 1973 in which the psychological phenomena- Stockholm Syndrome- was coined. A man took several hostages during the robbery and the negotiations with the police lasted over a week and by the end of the week the robber and the hostages were such good friends, that later life, one of the hostages was the best man in the robber’s best man. After the tour we headed over to the train stations just to make sure we could catch a train for our early flight on the 2^nd. We then decided to hit up some more museums to get us out of the rain. We ended up going to both the Dance Museum and Music Museum and, after claiming we were 19, got in free to both of them. The museums were very interested and very interactive which was fun- especially in the music one. We then headed back to our hostel for a quick snack during which we met 3 guys from the UK- James, James and Shawn. We talked with them for a while, but then headed off to see The Hobbit in 3D at a theater right down the road- it was in English with Swedish subtitles. It was so incredible! The scenery is amazing and I thought it fit in very nicely with the first 3. Only problem was, whenever the elves or orcs were talking- it was only translated into Swedish, so we had no idea what they were saying, otherwise there was no problem! We then headed back, by this time it was pretty late, and made a late pasta dinner. Since we had so much extra pasta, we shared some with our new friend Shawn and spent a little time talking again and now it’s off to bed!

Day 4- Dec. 31^st (Happy New Year!): Today we spent the morning at the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a ship build in the late 1600’s during the 30 Years War for the King of Sweden. At its time it was the largest, most expensive and most ornate ship ever build in Sweden. However, before the ship even made it 1 nautical mile, it complete sunk. In the 1960’s the entire ship was brought to the surface and over 95% of it is preserved and on display at this museum. So many things were preserved and it was really quite an amazing thing to see. Afterwards we spent time walking around some of the parks that were over in the museum area and along the harbor, but soon it was cold and rainy, so we headed back to the hostel for a while to relax and warm up. Our main goal for tonight was to find a Mexican restaurant. And after plenty of searching and walking, I can tell you that no Mexican restaurants can be found in Stockholm that are open on New Year’s Eve. Instead we found a nice restaurant in the Old Town area and had a couple of drinks, but soon they too closed. Surprisingly the streets of Old Town were very empty so after some walking we ended up over on the newer end and stopped to get some ice cream J Then it was time to head down by the harbor to see all of the fireworks. It was seriously crazy. They were coming from everywhere- and lasted until 1.30 or so! After seeing our fill of fireworks we then headed back towards Old Town and then off to our hostel for a nice piece of toast and a warm bed! Happy New Years everyone!

Day 5- Jan. 1^st 2013!: Last day in Stockholm- bummer dude! Today we slept in pretty late, and then headed down to the central square to ice skate. On the way we heard some drum beats and saw what looked like a parade. We followed the noise and found out that it was the start of the changing of the guards. We followed them for a while towards the palace, but didn’t stay to watch the whole thing. Instead we headed back to the rink and ice skated for quite a while. A good way to start the new year. We were there for about an hour before two of our new friends- Shawn and James- came and joined us. We skated together for a while and then headed towards Old Town to walk around and see it more in the day time. Unfortunately, it got dark too quickly and began to rain, so we headed back to the hostel. Together we all made a massive dinner and ate. We spent the next few hours talking and soon it was time to pack up and now it’s time for a quick nap, before having to wake up at 3.30 to go and catch our flight to Helsinki! So long Stockholm!

Here's a quick collection of photos from Stockholm-

I hope you all had a wonderful and safe New Year’s celebration. This year for my New Year’s resolution, due to different positive and negative experiences over here, I’ve decided to memorize every country in the world, along with their geographical location and capital. Wish me luck! And good luck to all of you who have taken on a challenge/ resolution for 2013!