Alska ditt Hjarta*

I've always had a fairly neutral feeling towards Swedish things.

But in September, that all changed. Jason had a business trip that took him to Stockholm for 5 nights, so I joined for 4 of them - why not? Unilever has an office in Stockholm, so I flew out Thursday night, spent Friday with some Swedish colleagues, and came back to London on Monday.

My first impression of Stockholm was, perhaps expectedly, fairly neutral. It was impeccably clean, which I expected, but not charming on the surface, which I did not expect. It was full of tall buildings, wide busy streets, and none of the olde-worlde character that graces so many other EU hot-spots.

But, the more time we spent wandering around the city - not necessarily doing anything in particular, since there's nothing in particular touristy to do - the more I liked it. For one, it has everything food-wise that London doesn't - we had (good) sushi, pizza, tapas, BAGELS (!) - and some things London shouldn't - meatballs (Swedish of course) and reindeer (delicious, of course). It's also got loads of people just going about their daily business, but they're all very tall and rather pretty-looking. It's chill, but it's got personality. Everyone speaks English. It's the sort of place we could move to. (Don't worry Mom, we won't... probably.)

So of course you need to check out our pictures and those from Jason's quick jaunt to Copenhagen, but here's our fave from our visit to the Sturbridge Village of Sweden, Skansen (the one real touristy thing to do). This guy Artur Hazelius basically collected houses and various structures from around the Nordics at the end of the 19th century, and made a mini-Nordic museum plus 'zoo/reserve' in Stockholm. Cute. Thankfully I had the reindeer the previous evening.

From Stockholm - Sept '09

In other Swedish news, we saw a band Fanfarlo (for the second time) in October - the lead is Swedish but that's not why you can't understand him. We've been going to a lot of shows lately, including The Airborne Toxic Event, Passion Pit, and Wilco - and we've got 2 Decemberists shows and a Snow Patrol show coming up before the month is over. Rock on.

And, my last bit of my love affair with Sweden (and in typical affair style it has been short & passionate but is quickly dwindling), we read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson for Book Club, which I hosted last month. It was partially set in Stockholm, which was kinda neat since I knew of some of the neighborhoods. However, I hear the second & third books are even better than the first, so my new-found love for Swedish things may just continue.

*This is the only Swedish I know - it means 'Love Your Heart'. And 'extra smak', which means 'extra tasty'.