York to Stockholm

After 5 and a half years of living in York it was time to move on. I wasn’t really enjoying my job, and I had to leave my rented accommodation (squirrels in the roof, long story). I’d always loved hearing others talk about their travel experiences, so thought I’d give it a go too.

Leaving was a giant pain all in all. Getting rid of 95% of your things is really difficult and more so when you don’t drive. Fortunately I found a removal company that does most of it but also auctions off the stuff, which seems good. I haven’t had the money yet but whatever I get will help!

Anyway, I finally left (after locking myself out of the flat an hour before I had to go get a train). I flew into Stockholm’s Skavsta airport which is possibly the smallest airport I’ve ever been to. I’d decided to start in Stockholm (I’d planned on going to India but I was a little anxious about being ill on my own).

Because I’m crap with dates I’d had to book 2 different hostels in Stockholm, which actually ended up being good. The first one I had a weird little private room with no windows, but overall it was nice, quite a bohemian feel even though the people staying there weren’t overly friendly. A guy completely ignored my hello, but I reassured myself (somewhat cattily) that if I had to wear a pink, black and white camouflage T-shirt I’d be grumpy too.

I was really nervous about the other hostel, which was a bed in a 6 bed mixed sex room. I’m really particular about my personal space and also not great around people I don’t know, so I was really not looking forward to it but it was cheap.

It was actually alright though, everyone was friendly and I had some good conversations. I hadn’t realised that one of my roommates was a lady so it was a little awkward when I was waiting for the shower in boxers and T-shirt, that’s a lot of ankle on display to a lady I didn’t even know the name of! The top bunk was a little awkward too, with the ladder making it difficult to not step on the guy below. Sorry! My favourite though was the dude who said the UK were going to be leaders because of Brexit and invited us to go smoke weed in a park (at 9:30 in the morning).

Stockholm itself is a really pretty place, with I think 14 islands linked by 57 bridges. There are loads of parks everywhere so it’s a great place to walk around. The old city, Gamla Stan, in particular was beautiful and I could have spent days there.

If you do walk around Stockholm very much you’re quite likely to encounter what I’ve dubbed the “Kitten-Heel Wehrmacht”, which is a patrol of no more than 3 conventionally attractive women walking at a very brisk march in perfect (and I mean perfect — it must be the result of practise) unison. If you see them coming (or worse, hear a “clip clip clip” behind you) IMMEDIATELY leap to one side, for they will trample you and carry on about their day. I have no clue what they do but it must be very important.

Walking through a crowd in Stockholm is fraught with peril at the best of times. I don’t think it’s that the people are rude — they have to accept you exist for that — but they set their walking path many years ago and it’s far too late to change it now. How people don’t routinely bounce off each other is a mystery to me.

I did some of the museums which were pretty good. My favourite was the Armémuseum. I’d wanted to go because the Swedes have been pacifists for 200 years and I was curious to learn why. It turns out they’re just not very good at war, and I found it hard not to chuckle when I learned the reason the Swedish army didn’t launch a crucial attack was because they were making their bread (“Look Bjorn, what’s it going to be, I can prepare the troops OR we can have fresh croissants for tomorrow, I can’t do both!”).

Actually they were wise to make their own food because eating in Sweden goes like this:

1. Fuck it, I’m hungry, I haven’t eaten since breakfast, I’m going to eat out and hang the expense!
2. Wander around for ages looking for somewhere that isn’t empty or too fancy
3. Go in, get a table, gasp inwardly at theprices and order the cheapest thing
4. Reassure yourself as you wait that you’ve done the right thing
5. Barely contain the disappointment when a lot less food is brought out than you’d imagined the price warranted

The food was the most disappointing thing for me, there was never very much of it and what there was was often not great, so much of the time you’re hungry and even when you’ve just eaten you’re not really satisfied. If you want to go on a diet Sweden is the place for you! Even the smallest Toblerone was about £7. It did make me feel better about not tipping though.

I really wanted to like Stockholm, and there is an awful lot to like but I couldn’t live with the high prices. It’s also a bit too quiet, everyone there is very cool but a bit too cool, you couldn’t imagine the people being very passionate about things. In Bill Bryson’s “Neither Here Nor There” he skips out the rest of Europe and goes straight from Stockholm to Rome and I can kind of understand it. There were so many times I’d turn the corner onto a large street and there would literally be no one there, it was quite eerie.

Overall though I’m glad I went and would rate it a 5.5 out of 10. Tune in next time for Stockholm to Oslo, and thanks for reading! Written on November 6th, 2017 by David Seddon