Stockholm, what a wonderful city!
I've got to know Stockholm for the first time many many years ago, when my aunt and uncle lived there. I had visited them twice, once with my family and once with my brother and a friend.
They showed us Stockholm from a totally different perspective, that of non-tourists. Of course we had visited touristic places, but also those, where the "just-rushing-through"-tourist never goes. That way we experienced Stockholm in an amazing way which left such great memories of Scandinavia and that town. Stockholm left an incredibly positive image in my mind ever since.
November 2009 I had been to Stockholm for work accompanying a group of Italians [see blog entry] and I was delighted of being sent to Stockholm again for work this December. The big hotel chain Choice regularly organises study tours. Among others a day in the capitals (Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen) visiting their hotels there. Last year I participated already in the Oslo hotel tour. This year it was a good occasion to get to know their Stockholm hotels better.
This year's tour in Sweden's capital was set up for Monday, 6th December. Monday! Wow, that's great: I can combine that with a weekend in Stockholm!!! Perfect, then I will finally visit some friends over there.
I know, I have never mentioned Gerlinde and Mike before, so maybe at this point I should give some more background information - so that Mike doesn't complain any longer of never having been mentioned on my blog before ;-) After all he's one of my most faithful readers :-)
Gerlinde is a Dutch colleague of mine in our Stockholm office. She is Haman Group's purchasing manager. Mike, Swedish, is her husband and responsible for our IT issues at work and they live together with their kids in Stockholm.
Not only for the fact of being Dutch, but simply for being a likeable, nice and always-happy person, I really like Gerlinde - though I haven't seen her that often. During the last year, since Mike and his company took over our IT matters, I also got to know Gerlinde's husband. Due to many IT issues we had been in contact a lot. In somehow it seemed that I was one of the few in the office understanding him when talking about servers, settings, soft- and hardware or other pc-stuff etc. so that I ended up helping him on the spot in Oslo.
By the time this kind of IT-business-talks turned into chats about this and that (often late at night, because he's like me a night person and always online late) and we figured out that we get along quite well, somehow being on the same wavelength. So by now I'd call it friendship.
For IT reasons Mike also had to travel to Oslo a couple of times. During his stays in Oslo - preventing him from eating out dinner at McDonald's ;-) - I showed him slightly better alternatives in town during which we had nice conversations and discussions.
I know, I have never posted about all this. The reason for this is that I had never taken pictures of that and being always so much behind with posting I totally forget posting about events when not having pictures with it reminding me that they need a post.
To make a long story short: Gerlinde and Mike always said that I had to come and visit them once. So that work trip with Choice Hotels was a perfect occasion. When I told them I'd have to be in Stockholm on that Monday and that I would love to use already the weekend to come to Stockholm they invited me to stay at their place.
Saturday, December 4th:
So, I booked a flight to Stockholm for early Saturday morning 4th of December.
When I arrived they picked my up and so I got to know also their two girls, Amelie and Milou. We didn't directly drive to their home, but they showed me all around Lidingö, an island in the inner Stockholm archipelago north east of downtown Stockholm so that I could see the area they lived in. Very nice area and it was all so beautiful with the snow.
In the afternoon, we made an excursion by car to Värmdö, a large island and municipality in the eastern Stockholm County. We went to Siggesta Gård to visit it's Christmas market.
(The black-framed and signed pictures are Mike's - and one sees the difference between my pictures and those of a professional photographer)
(Amelie and me)
After the Christmas market we went to the gård's café to enjoy some glögg (kind of mulled wine) and hot chocolate.
(Amelie)
The two girls are really sweet and we had so much fun... though I didn't know how to properly communicate with them (English they don't speak yet, and in the end there is a difference between Swedish and Norwegian that I don't speak 100%)
(Milou, me and Amelie)
(Mike & Gerlinde)
(Amelie and me)
(Gerlinde & Milou)
Back home after a nice excursion we had some tea before a yammy salad and Lasagne dinner.
(Amelie)
Sunday, December 5th:
The next morning Amelie was singing in a concert in a church. Actually that would have been nice listening to as well, but still we decided to split up and so I went with Mike and Milou to town.
It was already a long time ago - last time when visiting my relatives as mentioned in the beginning of the post - that I had been to the popular Vasa Museem. It is a maritime museum located on the island of of Djugården. It displays the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628.
I remembered that I was really impressed by the ship when I went there with my aunt and uncle so I was really eager to see it again after a long time and Mike turned out to be a perfect guide. He commented on so many things and could tell me so much more about the ship and it's history. I really enjoyed visiting the museum again.
(a model of the original)
It was incredible how quickly time passed. When we left the museum we didn't have any more time to stroll through the city, because we had to go back home. We had some snacks for lunch and then prepared for going out. Gerlinde and Mike invited my to a Christmas gospel concert. A friend of them, who was singing in Gerlinde's choir before, was performing in the choir of this evening. They had asked me before if I liked going to a gospel concert and I affirmed that I really do like things like that.
And indeed, it was a really fantastic evening with good music and great voices. Also Milou and Amelie - who were sitting or lying during the whole concert in somehow on my lap - enjoyed it. They clapped and sang as well :-)
After the concert we prepared some really delicious dinner: meat in gorgonzola sauce accompanied by rice. Very tasteful.
While Gerlinde was helping Amelie with the last (forgotten?) homework for school the next day, I brought Milou to bed... testing if my "au-pair qualifications" still lasted ;-) Well, I managed to get her to bed :-)
All the time that I spent with Gerlinde, Mike and the kids this weekend felt in somehow like being at home. The atmosphere was so natural and uncomplicated. Just nice! I reeeeeaaaallly reeeaaally enjoyed staying with them at their place.
So at this point: tack så mycket, Gerlinde og Mike for den så hyggelige tiden sammen!
Monday, December 6th:
Well, the private part of this trip was over now and the morning started very early for me. At 7:30 I already had to be at the Clarion Hotel Sign where the hotel tours started with a vast breakfast buffet. Well, actually that's not such a bad start of the day...
During the day we were meant to visit eight different hotels.
Below a picture taken of the hotel's spa pool outside on the roof, overlooking the city.
Quality Hotel Globe: located next to the Globe Arena and in the middle of Stockholms event area. All year round there are ice hockey games, concerts, horse shows and a lot more happening in the worlds largest spherical building.
The hotel's bar faces the arena so that you can directly be part of the events taking place in there.
The tour was over by about 6 p.m. I was quite exhausted but I still had quite a lot of time before I had to head back to the airport. So I decided to walk over to Nybrokajen where Hotel Diplomat is located. In two days I'd have a very special and demanding group coming to Stockholm for 4 days. They'd stay in that hotel and I thought it'd be a nice idea to say hi to the staff I had been in contact now so much while planning this group's stay.
Well, after that I really had to leave. I walked back to the central station and took the Aiport Express train to the aiport and was then on my way back to Oslo.
What a pity that this wonderful weekend is already over!
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