17 | June | 2022 | The Cannon Family's travel blog

This morning showed some of the smaller quirks of our apartment home in Stockholm. Namely, the curtains in the bedroom weren’t quite the right size to cover the window. So when the sun rose at 3:31 am, the light started filtering into the bedroom. By 4am, it was bright enough to wake me up. (Grrrr….) Frank still happily snored away until about 7am and I was lucky enough to grab a few more winks over the intervening 3 hours.

Even though it was bright, the morning was still cloudy and the forecast indicated cooler temperatures and a chance of rain. We braved a cooked breakfast – eschewing the toaster for the broiler in the oven – and managed some delicious egg and cheese sandwiches. It was another interesting shower experience but once clean and fed, we headed out into the partly cloudy morning.

We considered buying a day pass for the buses but in the end would up walking through Södermalm to the first stop of the day: the Royal Palace. It was time to really get our heads around Swedish royal history. We visited the Treasury (crown jewels!), the Royal Apartments (too much furniture!), Guest Apartments (which apparently no US president has stayed in?) and other overly ornate rooms. My factoid from this trip is that Gustav III was assassinated in 1792 when he was shot at the opera (echos of Lincoln anyone?)

Our ticket also included visits to the Three Crowns museum which highlighted the building itself. A building of some sort existed on the site starting as early as 1200 with additional bits continually being added over time until much of the building burned to the ground in 1697. The museum had lots of interesting information about the early and medieval castle. We also got to visit Ridderholmen church where many of the royals (including the unlucky Gustav III) are buried.

After all that history, it was time for lunch. We stopped at a wonderful little French bistro in the Old Town where we had Spaghetti Puttanesca (Frank) and Chevre Chaud (me) with some lovely Albariño. The waiter put us both to shame by speaking more languages in the course of our lunch than I have ever been able to speak. 😦

Then it was off to the Nobel museum which was not at all what I expected. It was as much about the ceremony as it was about the recipients. Of course I was most interested in the economists and still felt a little proud when I saw the references to Chris Pissarides, Nobel Laureate in 2010 who was also my macro professor at LSE in 1987-88 – and likely the reason I got into any PhD program since he wrote recommendations for me.

We still had most of the afternoon ahead of us so we wandered all over – mostly in search of vinyl stores that carried a particular Swedish metal band that Frank was interested in. We also wanted to try some of the local spirits so we visited the Hernö gin bar to taste was was on offer. Frank had a flight of straight gin – most of which were very yummy – and I had a strange cocktail that involved blackberry foam which was quite delish albeit somewhat strange to see. I followed up with my go-to drink, a Tom Collins, which had an annoying perfume quality that I couldn’t place. I’m glad it wasn’t my first drink!

Now it was time for dinner. My GF app suggested a restaurant that was good with GF issues even if they didn’t have a GF menu. So off we went to Blå Dören (blue door) and grabbed some seats outside. The waiter gave Frank a hard time because he was only partly under cover and the skies were lowering. He laughed it off and we ordered, biff rydberg for me and Hjort Wallenbergare for Frank. Translated: my dinner consisted of cubed beef in a brown sauce with fried onions and diced potatoes served with spicy mustard and an egg yolk in horseradish (my sinuses will be clear for weeks!). Frank’s dinner was deer patties served with lingonberries, peas, and mashed potatoes. Delicious all the way around! And of course, halfway through dinner the sky opened up. Frank got under cover and we watched torrential rain come down with accompanying thunder and lighting. And we had a 1.5 mile walk home….

So we ordered more drinks and hoped that the rain would let up. We sipped slowly. Very slowly. And still it rained. Then it poured. When we had run out of drinks, we decided to head to the nearest shop for the few things we needed for breakfast and if it was still pouring, we’d grab an Uber (love internationally useful apps!). We paid the bill and started walking in the rain. By the time we had gotten two blocks, it was barely a drizzle and the sun was peeping through the clouds. A rainbow popped up as we headed home from the store and by the time we got to the flat, the storm had passed. Seems that the weather gods do like us after all.

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