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My first trip out of Oulu was a week long trip to Sweden, the Scandinavian country that's neighbours with Finland. Some random bit of history: Finland used to be part of Sweden for a long while until some 300 years ago or smth..... Finnish students are therefore required to learn Finnish, Swedish and English.
As a city with a busy port and businesses, Stockholm experiences a huge mix of people from all over the world but I wouldn't say that it's as drastic as big cities like New York and London. Amidst it all, Stockholm still manages to retain its viking roots and culture, as well as keep a running royal family.
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| Stockholm palace - Official royal residence of the Swedish royal family ;) But it isn't their actual residence! It was a pity that during winter, the actual residence (Drottningholm palace) wasn't opened on weekdays :( |
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| The changing of guards! If I didn't remember wrongly, they were the ones without live music hahahahaha |
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| The palace is overlooking the river ;) |
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Sorry, no photos inside :(
but in short, i saw the Royal family's CROWN JEWELS (literately not figuratively) and their residences ;) |
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| "wondering round town with my bike" I actually love this picture..... kinda artsy, don't you think? AHAH BHB I KNOW. |
The very next day, we headed to the UNESCO cemetery, skogskyrgården or woodland cemetery, at the outskirts of stockholm. The beauty lies in its surrealism, peacefulness and simplicity :) I would love to see how it looks like in spring/summer!
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| This is my favourite shot of the place :) |
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| It's rather untouched, judging by the undisturbed formation of snow flakes |
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| Angel of death? |
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| This is the route to the crematorium |
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| The tombstones come in all sorts of shapes and sizes |
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| SNOW ANGEL! |
We went to explore the more modern parts of the city and found ourselves at this skyglobe thingy ;)
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| It's kinda like the singapore flyer but more expensive LOL |
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| boys will be boys |
After which, we took a boat ride to a small island where some of the museums were located!
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| THE BEAR. |
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| Check out how modern their trams are... |
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| Walking on thin ice............. |
The VASA museum was where we headed to next! This ship sank some 300 years ago on its maiden voyage and it didn't even make it past 1km of the dock! It was only 50 years ago or something, did they try to rescue it from the baltic sea! The amazing thing was that none of the wood rotted away because of the fact that the baltic sea did not contain those microorganisms that feed on wood.
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| Like a gigantic puzzle, scientists took 30 years to piece all of it together! Pretty impressive aye? |
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| The different decks were incharged of different things..... but they all lived in really horrible conditions except the captain, that dude had his own room |
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| This is a minature of what the boat should have looked like completed with all that colouring! Yes, sweden was really rich, they wanted to show off their wealth and power by painting the boat a rainbow shade! (it was really expensive to obtain coloured paint during that time) |
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| Simulation |
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| Fancy some sailor fashion? |
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| Yes, these mittens survived the centuries :O |
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| One does not forget to camwhore when one sees a reflective surface |
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| The only piece of gold they found on the ship belonged to the captain |
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| Their favourite pastime was playing backgammon (a game i never really knew how to play) |
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| Oh look, you can join in the fun if you're bored (if you actually find it more fun) |
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| GUESS WHAT'S this for!! It's how people used to dive under water LOL The bell actually traps a pocket of air |
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| King Gustav the third! This narcissistic dude is practically EVERYWHERE, he's the one with plenty of glorious/inglorious history to talk about. I can't remember all but it was something alone the lines of an exhibitionist (he liked to change his clothes in front of the public) and a spendthrift. |
And so.... like i said, there's nothing i did that was related to Ikea and meatballs HAHAHA. OMG I REALISE I DONT HAVE THE PHOTO OF THE AWESOME FISH SOUP I HAD IN STOCKHOLM :(( I think it's only in mobile uploads. Got to check there!
Stockholm was like a refreshing change from the dull coloured buildings in Oulu :) Oh did i mention how pretty swedish girls are?? and how hot swedish men are? HEHEHEH
Labels: Stockholm, Sweden
