The blog and I are back from wonderful Stockholm! Bloggen och jag är tillbaka från underbara Stockholm!I will have lots of interesting stories, anecdotes, observations, photos, videos -and some valuable lessons learned- to share with you all over the next two weeks about my trip to Stockholm, "The Capital of Scandinavia," which, while it was cold and snowy while I was there, never getting above 27° F, got noticeably colder just as I was leaving for Arlanda Airport Friday night to return, with me crashing at the airport so I wouldn't miss my SAS flight in the morning.
While it's now about 65° F here in Hallandale Beach in the middle of the night, in Stockholm right now, at 10:30 a.m., it's now just under 7° F.
Below, the weather forecast from Channel 4 today, Tuesday morning, around 6 a.m. Stockholm time.
You'll recall me writing here before my trip about how early sundown is, on those days when there seems like there really is some sun, which was between 3:15 and 3:30 p.m.
But what I may've neglected to mention was how late sunrise comes, too.
That's equally brutal this time of the year, and really, really makes you want to stay in bed.
This is what it looked like outside my hotel room window last Thursday morning around 7:30 am., looking down on Torsgatan in the Norrmalm neighborhood of Stockholm. Really.Now that I'm back and my jet lag and the six-hour time difference in my head has finally (mostly) disappeared since landing in Ft. Lauderdale Saturday night, I'm busy organizing and cataloging everything from my trip, from my random or considered thoughts to my photos to my copious notes about consumer prices, so that everything will be in sync and I don't forget to mention anything I was planning on sharing here, especially those valuable facts and lessons that might prove instructive to some of you in the future who don't presently know much about Sweden or Stockholm at all.
There's a lot you don't know -and a lot you think you know that isn't actually true.
From this perch of mine over the next two weeks or so, I'll try to re-calibrate the scales a bit, and lean them more to the side of fact-based knowledge over tired, old cliches and gross generalizations from 30-40 years ago, so that those of you who are interested and want to be well-informed, can have the benefit of what I know and have learned the past two weeks from first-hand knowledge and observation while seeing as much as I could in one of the world's greatest and most dynamic cities.
While not perfect, it's a place that honestly does have a visceral positive "buzz" about it, and trust me when I tell you, the area's residents there really DO love living there, esp. the folks fortunate enough to live in Södermalm, where I spent half my trip.
-----
Stockholm Visitors Board, Stockholm Convention Bureau
http://www.stockholm.se/
