Stockholm, Sweden II

The reason I visited Stockholm (my first time, by the way) was to attend my friend’s wedding. He got married at the church in the picture, the one in the back. It seems Swedish price gets married at this church. Basically, it is “the” church in Sweden. But anyone could get married here without any fee because they pay tax (very high tax, just in case you forgot about it). However, what I’ve also heard was that no one thinks of getting married at this church. Once again, it is the church used by the Royal family. (This church stands right behind the Royal Palace.)

What was interesting was that when we were getting into the church for my friend’s wedding, there were so many tourists looking at us, like “What’s going on here?” “Why is the church closed?”
Coming out of the church was even better after the wedding. Guests were all standing outside waiting for the groom and bride to come out. Tourists were very curious to see who just got married and was coming out. I’m sure they were waiting for someone very famous! They were all holding a camera in hand!!

Lunch time. It seems this is a typical Swedish snack (surprise! I've had this in IKEA.), and everyone likes it.

An area called Old City (It has a Swedish name).

Swedish sweet (like a cinnamon bun) with café latte.

And of course, Swedish candies. This is from Seven Eleven store. It is unbelievable how many kids there are. I think they are all same price, so you can pick any of your favorites mixed in a bag and pay by weight.

Because it was raining the first three days, I was so happy to see the “real” Stockholm the last day. The water was so beautiful everywhere with clear blue sky! Summer in Stockholm is really beautiful!

Stockholm, Sweden

Midsummer in Sweden. I visited Stockholm from the 21st of June through the 24th. The picture is from Midsummer dance after traditional midsummer-lunch party. Neighbors got together by water and did the traditional midsummer dance!

I think this dance is supposed to be for kids, but I could see that adults also enjoy the dance. They looked like they became to be kids again. The typical traditional dance is “duck dance”; dancers imitate ducks, but somehow they were also doing elephant and other animals. Girls were so pretty in white dress and flowers on their head.

	After lunch, neighbors got together on a street and walked all together to the water. A lot of people! I really like the atmosphere that everybody was getting together and looking forward to the traditional dances!
	Only one part of Midsummer dishes. We were more than 20 adults and kids. Everybody was supposed to bring a dish. Of course, the main is herring. Believe or not, what you see in the middle white dish is herring cake! It is not sweet. It is a herring dish shaped like a cake. It is not baked.
	Someone made these strawberry-banana cake. They brought this to eat by the water, and they used a baby carriage for the ride from home! Perfect pick!

My first Midsummer party was fantastic. I really enjoy the company and food. It was amazing to see Swedish people carrying their traditional event as is from hundreds of years ago. I believe it is very important to carry traditions to the next generations. I wish Japan was like Sweden, too. Japanese have been dropping lots of traditions; Japanese New Year is not like how it was when I was a child any more.

Malmo, Sweden

From Oct 9th through the 13th, I went to Lund, Sweden. Usually, I spend all nights in Lund, but this time, I asked my colleague to take me to Malmo for dinner. Malmo is a much bigger city than Lund. It is a beautiful city with beautiful buildings. But, I actually like Lund better. It is a very quiet small city (town?) and there are many of very cute houses and buildings. I really like the unique atmosphere that Lund has.

Lund, Sweden

It took me 4 years to come to Lund, Sweden. This is where our HQ is located, and this is where I've been wanting to visit for a long time!
From Copenhagen, it is about 50min train ride. I am not used to travel to different countries by train because Japan is an island, and even USA, people have to take a plane to go anywhere other than Canada or Mexico. I still cannot get the concept of the fact that European countries are all connected by land.
When I bought the train ticket in Copenhagen to Lund, I was told that I did not need to transfer. When the train arrived in Malmo, I realized that I was the only one in the train. No one had got off the train... I was so panicked, gathered all my lagguages and immediately got out of the train. A conductor told me that I had to move to the rear cars. They disconnect the rear cars and only that part goes to Lund... Someone could have warned me when they were getting off the train!
Anyways, I sat down and was waiting for the train to move. After 5mins, there was an anouncement in Swedish. Thanks, I have no clue! After the announcement, some people started acting a bit strange and I could hear someone's sigh... not a good sign. I could guess what was going on, but still no clue. After 10mins later, there was an announcement again, and everybody started getting off the train...again! Ok. Now I know that I have to get off the train, but where do I take the next train from? According to some stranger, the train broke, so we had to take the next arriving train... great.
20mins after getting on the next train, it finally started moving, and when I arrived in Lund, I was so exhausted. You can imagine. But I really appreciated the fact that Swedish people speak English! I wonder how tourists in Japan get away with those troubles since not many Japanese can speak English!


←I found this in my hotel's neighborhood. It seems Bishops drink beers in Sweden.


...I found Mah Jong in Sweden.↓











I love stone streets. I like the atomosphere around them. It's usually in a very traditional old town. It is not that easy to walk with heals on though. This is a picture of crosswalk. They painted the stones. I remember some stone streets in NY (in SoHo), but there are more histories behind in this town, and I really enjoyed taking a walk in this town.




Once I got into smaller streets, it was very quiet. There are cute houses with bright colors; yellow, orange etc. On this quiet street, I passed by some kids playing hockey! Very Swedish to me!

Right now, I am sitting in a hotel in Copenhagen. I came back here to fly out to the states tomorrow morning. It was a very productive week, but I am very tired. I have never visited three countries in one week. So now, I'm enjoying the complimentary red wine that was sitting in the room. Very relaxing and luxurious! I did nothing to deserve this! I really appreciate the opportunity to take this Europe trip!