How much can you learn about a country from three days in its capital city? Not a whole lot, I believe, though I hear that cruise ship passengers who spend three hours on shore are able to deduce timeless truths about all manner of cultures. That didn't stop me, of course, from issuing a running stream of "in Denmark they _____, do they do _____ in Sweden?" questions to my patient American and British hosts. In that sense, I suppose, I did learn something, but mostly that for expats from any other part of the world, working and living in Scandinavia is basically heaven on earth, even if we might sometimes secretely wonder whether the parties are better in hell.
My friend Michel is the director of a museum on the tiny island of Skeppsholmen in Stockholm. If you take the pedestrian ferry from the mainland on a foggy February day you'll come close to the amusement park Tivoli Gardens, a place that looks straight out of Pinocchio's nightmares.
Docked along the shore are great big sailboats with mighty wooden masts stained golden orange. You can still fish in this water, Michel tells me. When the weather starts to warm he'll pass recreational fisherman hanging their rods off the pedestrian bridge he takes into work every morning.
We spent most of the first day at the enormous, open-air, 'living-history' museum Skansen. Covering 75 acres of yet another island, Djurgården, Skansen offers the experience of living in 'pre-industrial' Sweden, with a hodgepodge of homes, shops, churches, farmhouses, and a full-replica of a 19th century town. George Saunders would be in heaven. Although it was clearly off-season most of the shops were still open and staffed. The baker was doing a brisk business in cinnamon rolls, making this whole street smell delicious (and I don't even like cinnamon rolls).
The cobbler and blacksmith were closed, but the glassblower across the way was up and running.
Nearby we found a potter, a pharmacy and a general mercantile lit only by candlelight. As our eyes adjusted to take in the barrels of bulk foods, ribbon, snowshoes, tools, and copies of Aftonbladet newspapers from the 1870s, the nice man behind the counter with the period clothes and matching mustache told us about the kind of life his character would have had. As he showed us how the scale worked and what kind of spices he carried I took in all the details of the shop. There was something strange about it I couldn't quite put my finger on. Then I took out my phone to check something and the contrast of the digital with the textural made it suddenly clear.
From teepees to tenements, all of the 150 or so buildings at Skansen are originals, many transported great distances and reassembled on site. In China the ideal is to knock down crumbling old historic buildings and replace them with shiny new replicas. To Americans this looks like a grotesque Disneyfication, to Chinese it seems like a vast improvement. This version was practically authenticity obsession -- concern not merely with getting the look exactly right, but with using materials with legitimate historical resonance.
Most of Skansen's mock residences were closed for the season, but I was thrilled to get a tour of this 1930s era upper middle class home. The wife of the family informed us they were preparing for a ski trip, hence the picnic makings and the suitcase full of woolens, and regretted that we had come too late to share the pot of hot chocolate she had just cooked up on the stove.
We also missed out on sampling cheese made in the mossy yurts of the Sami herders. Sadly no one was home.
I was desperate to figure out what this marvelous structure (also visible behind the yurt) was. Shelter for biblical-level flash floods? A really awesome fort where the Sami kids could avoid being trampled by the reindeer? I was disappointed when I found a sign explaining that such structures are used to store firewood. If I were an Ent I would totally hit on this thing.
The reindeer looked bored, but their antlers were gorgeous.
An onion-domed belltower behind a fence made solely of artfully intertwined branches.
Hobbit hole, northern-hemisphere style.
Michel and Damon explore an early settlement.
I don't know how long we spent wondering around, but we were famished when we came across a handful of open grills presided over by a portly pink-cheeked gentleman I can only assume was supposed to be the affable drunken mayor. Whoever he was he was DEEP in character.
I don't need to make any authoritative statements about Swedish life and culture to make observations about how Skansen sought to portray Swedish life and culture. While it's often strange to see history flattened and synchronic, it's even more so when that history is inhabited. But if I was expecting to feel hit over the head with Swedishness I was disappointed. I thought it was refreshing how free of national sentiment the place was. In the area devoted to the Sami herders, for instance, there was no attempt to link them to the national narrative, just an effort to represent their particular way of life. This wasn't China representing its 56 ethnic minorities as having "always been part of the middle kingdom." Instead the message of the place was a rather neutral and straightforward
"here are some of the dwellings and places of commerce and recreation
you might find in parts of the territory that is now known as Sweden."
I think the most interesting part of the place was not how Swedish history was portrayed, but how it was consumed, and yes, I know you knew I'd say that.
The next day we took a day trip to Sigtuna, the oldest town in Sweden, its thousand years of history flattened out and filled in with specialty kitchen stores, boutiques and handicraft
emporiums, and at least one shop specializing in tanned fish skins
(salmon wallets, perch cuffs, trout hats, etc.).
That's not to say the place wasn't charming. Best of all, on the main drag, just to the right of the fisherman-chic gentleman below, I finally found what I had been looking for since the moment I arrived.
A CARDAMOM BUN!!!!! (thanks for the tip Carrie)
It was worth the wait. Screw cinnamon rolls, this baby had lovely big chunks of fragrant cardamom in all its braided crevices. I found another the next day, and ate it on the way to the airport while enjoying my last views of evergreens for a good long while.
Speaking of which, I now understand Poulsbo. If I was a Swedish emigrant arriving in the Pacific Northwest I would have taken one look at the Puget Sound and started unpacking. Just look at this:
Ditto on this scene: this is basically the park in Kirkland where I used to take my brother to feed stale bread to the mallards.
After some fairly unambitious hiking in and around the woods outside town the boys and I sought out a cosy place and a warm beverage. This tearoom was packed with families, couples, and a table of briefly-shirtless bicyclists chowing down on baked goods.
The tea was perfect. Well done Sweden.
On the way home I demanded we stop in a supermarket so I could evaluate the national diet, marvel at exotic snack foods and see if it was true that efficiency-oriented Swedes put every food they could in a tube. I didn't find any more tube-food than I'm used to in Denmark and was especially disappointed not to see the reindeer-meat-in-a-tube Michel promised me. I still believe it's out there.
I passed on the supermarket cheeseburger but did pick up a poppy & marzipan yogurt for breakfast (it was eh). But I did eat well during my stay. Damon made a British-food-best-of one night, featuring cottage pie and raspberry crumble, and homemade bi bim bap on the other.
Thoughtful hosts that they were, Michel and Damon also made sure to have a cat, Mogwai, that closely resembles Zelda. Take note aspiring hosts-of-me!
On my last day we headed into the center of the city for some classic tourist views. I liked this lion.
And these art nouveau style doors
And lo, a flea market!
I spent a very happy hour there, but left with only a 1950s glass measuring cup that reminded me of my great-grandmother's house.
Stockholm had various degrees of fogginess and cloud cover the whole time I was there, but only occasional rain.
It was still a very elegant city, though I'm sure spring is spectacular.
We crossed a bridge here to Slotsholmen, the center of Swedish government and single destination of most cruise ship passengers. You can see Christiansborg palace on the right here, where the Swedish royal family resides, under the watch of the Swedish Guard. I was delighted by their tall hats with what looked like white horse tails issuing from the top and squealed with post-feminist (jk!) delight when I saw a lady Guard.
It really was so pretty.
Cafe and adjacent chocolateria. Yes please.
Bakery featuring awesome pretzels.
More cobblestone streets to get lost in. There are only a dozen or so 'approved' paint colors in Sweden, all warm shades of yellow, orange, and green. I imagine it helps in getting through the long winter.
At a church on Slotsholmen we admired this very well-preserved 1489 statue of St. George and the Dragon, carved entirely from wood. You can't see it clearly here but the dragon also sports impressive elk antlers (not sure why -- maybe the artist just had some elk antlers he'd been meaning to use?).
According to the accompanying placard, the statue was commissioned by
Sten Sture the Elder, a powerful figure who had helped defend Stockholm from Danish invaders. Also according to the placard:
In St. George it may be that Sten Sture saw himself as the knight who conquered the Danish "dragon", thereby saving the princess (Stockholm) from ruin.
Princess my ass! Stockholm is a lovely place, but given the choice I'll take the dragon any day. And so, dreaming of my next Scandinavian excursion, I went home.
(Sky above clouds -- you know I can never resist)
