Walking Old Town

On our last afternoon in Stockholm, Vicky and I walked Old Town Stockholm as well as several other areas.  This post will be us out walking the town.  We had fun and enjoyed just looking to see what was around the next corner.  Some of the areas we had already been but wanted to spend more time there.  Other places were just because we saw something interesting and followed our noses.  Stockholm is a nice walking town with interesting things to see wherever we walked.

Many old European towns have areas with narrow streets.  We didn’t see any streets that were narrower or steeper than the one in the first photo.  It also had the most graffiti.  It was a squeeze to pass people on this street.

The Pedestrian Mall is in the second photo.  Our local Stockholm guide (a woman) said that, “it takes a man 20 minutes to walk the pedestrian mall, but a woman takes 2.5 hours”.  She went on to say that’s just the way it is.  It was a very fun street and for the record, I think we walked it somewhere between 20 minutes and 2.5 hours.

The third photo is just in case you were wondering why it took us longer than 20 minutes to walk the pedestrian mall….

We had several bouts of rain in Stockholm but it only drizzled for a few minutes each time.  The rest of the time, the weather was beautiful and the people were out enjoying it like in the fourth photo.

Okay, so maybe I was partly responsible for us taking more than 20 minutes to walk the pedestrian mall as you can see in the last photo.  On a side note, Jonas Jerebko is a Swede who played on the Golden State Warriors this past season.  I wore one of my Warriors shirts every day in Stockholm.  Jerebko is supposed to be the LeBron James of Sweden, yet not one person ever asked me about Jonas when I was in Sweden wearing the Warriors shirt.  Oh well, the ice cream was good.

Scandinavian Values

This post is all in Stockholm but I think that the values you will see expressed here are the same in all the Scandinavian countries and the Nordic countries as well.  People in Scandinavia seemed to really enjoy nature and to take a big interest in nature and being outdoors and all things that go into that.  As I was getting ready to end this trip, I happen to think about some of these photos for something like a “miscellaneous” post.  I decided this seemed more like a Scandinavian values post, so here goes.

I thought the obelisks in the first photo were some type of art works, perhaps giving some nod to the ancient Egyptians, along with some modern lights to highlight something.  These were near a harbor area in a lively part of Stockholm.  As we approached and I started to read them, I realized that Stockholm is not content to have bad air, bad water, sewage, or health be covered over as issues that politicians ignore while they spend all their time on the more sexy issues.  The lights on the sides of the obelisks represent some quality measures of air and water and such things.  The sign in the second photo was on one side of the water obelisk.  We don’t have monuments like this to wastewater where I live…and I’m on the Sewer Board.  I think this highlights the fact that the Scandinavians are up front about the need for people to be involved in the basic issues of air, water, sewage, and health.   

The luggage carrier in the third photo was being used at the Stockholm airport.  I was impressed that it used neither electricity or any other kind of motorized power; it used human power.  The Stockholm airport was extremely busy but some people needed help sometimes with luggage and in this case, it was done by human pushing power to move around the terminal.

We were in our hotel at the bar one afternoon having a beer with Pete and Nora when I saw this guy drive right through the front door on a scooter.  He scooted himself right past us and up to the bar.  You can see the guy in the fourth photo.  He scooted up on his electric scooter and ordered himself a drink.  Yes, these Scandinavians take alternative power seriously and extensively.

The last photo was in a mall or plaza somewhere in Stockholm.  It’s a Knotted Gun or a non-violence statue.  The Scandinavians seemed to me to be extremely peaceful people….unless there was a soccer game between them, then all bets were OFF!

Well, that’s it from Scandinavia and Finland.  I hope you enjoyed the trip.