Swedish Summer (Part II)

Sandhamn
A move to an unfamiliar city--or even an unfamiliar country as I did--requires you to be both creative and adventurous.  Investigating a city using websites and books for things to do/see is do-able when taking a small vacation or trip, but it is damn near impossible for an extended period of time.  Before I departed for Stockholm I attended a brief wiki history lesson where I learned about the archipelago, the jet stream that provides enjoyable weather despite its northernly location, and that the hipsters occupy an island called "Södermalm."

It was convenient for me to ask students who I worked and went to class with for restaurant recommendations and places to explore around Stockholm. Thanks to them, I quickly learned that: The usefulness of an answer is a function of the effort you put into forming the question.  Common sense can go a long way...If you are looking for a nice place for hiking or running then don't go ask someone who clearly hasn't gotten any sun in over 2 years and wears velcro sketchers, ask the guy who spends every weekend camping and brings his lunch to the office everyday of the week.  Are you looking for a new coffee shop to add to your list for the times when your office seems to be closing in on you?...then don't waste time asking a person who thinks an espresso is spelled with an 'x' and that the world really does run on Dunkin', ask someone who has coffee stains on their teeth, knows that tea doesn't belong in a bag, or even just a cute girl with dark-rim glasses who looks like she could pass for a barista.

A visit to Sandhamn, the eastern most island in the Stockholm Archipelago, was a recommendation I received early on in my stay, but I decided to save it for the end.  I was waiting for a beautiful weekend to make the 3 hour boat ride out to the outer archipelago, and it happened to be my very last weekend in Sweden!  I spent the day exploring the island with Jakub, an exchange student from Czech Republic,  and even got to watch the end of a yacht race.  It turned out to be a perfect day...I am very happy that I got to squeeze in the trip to Sandhamn before I had to leave Sweden!

Brunnsviken
Nothing beats a nice bike ride or run along the shores of Brunnsviken, the lake that separates Solna from Sweden.  A quick 5-10 minute jog from my place, as the nighttime fell upon Stockholm the views from this area were amazing...my last joyride through Stockholm was no different.  I am sure going to miss this place!

Swedish Summer (Part I)

6.5.2012
I celebrated my 25th birthday (quarter century!) earlier this summer.  Although I am not completely sure where I would have celebrated my 12.5 birthday (if I celebrated 1/2 birthdays), lets just say it was somewhere between Devils Tower in Wyoming and the world famous Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.

It is always a bit strange, and sad, to celebrate birthdays or holidays away from your family and friends...but the internet (especially Skype!) makes it so much better.

6.6.12 Swedish National Day

Sveriges nationaldag (National Day of Sweden) occurs on the 6th of June every year, and is meant to celebrate the foundation of modern Sweden.  As an american visiting Stockholm, what this meant for me was that I didn't have to go to work and could head down to Kungsträdgården for a food festival.  Luckily we arrived just after a cooking competition had ended and they were divvying out their dishes to the hungry crowd...mhhhhmm beef and asparagus! 

In search of something we had never had before, Jakob and I stopped at the "X-treme Food Guerrilla Cooking" tent to try some Tjuraballa Tacos (bull balls tacos).  As it turns out, a bull's testiticle is HUGE, and a bull balls taco is essentially just one large cross section...hmm.

For some reason I was expecting a texture similar to pork, but of course it was nothing like that.  It was soft, a bit too thick, and really quite tasteless.  The pico de gallo saved the taco from being a complete bust...but in the end it was more about saying that I downed some bull's balls rather than thoroughly enjoying their taste.

Later that night I headed over to Lidingo to have a BBQ at my advisor's home.  After spending nearly three months alone in a tiny apartment, it was wonderful to enjoy a real family dinner.  The food was fantastic, the family is great, and of course the sunsets were amazing on the way back to my island!

6.7.2012
The week before I left Sweden, myself and 8 other members from the E2C group at KTH took part in the Blodomloppet 10K race in Stockholm.  The race was in Djurgården (which used to be the hunting grounds for the Swedish Royal Family), and considering that the sun was planned to set at 21:58 that night, a start time of 18:30 gave us plenty of time to finish the race.

Sometime during my second week in Stockholm I was told about Norra Djurgården (North Djurgården), a large wooded region directly behind KTH to the North.  The area is filled with a handful of small lakes and ponds, borders Brunnsviken (a larger lake) to the West, the Baltic Sea to the North and East, and has tons of trails made more hiking, biking, walking, running, and even horseback riding scattered amongst its hills.  Stockholm is sneakily far North at 59.33°N--compare that to NYC which is at a latitude of 40.71°N, Seattle at 47.60°N, and Anchorage at 61.19°N.  As a result of this, the summer months had long hours of sunlight, allowing me to go for runs in Norra Djurgården 4-5 days a week after I was done working.

I have always enjoyed sports and keeping active, but running has constantly been one thing that I never really enjoyed doing...it seemed so boring!  After training for and completing races such as the Mens Health Urbanathlon and The Tough Mudder as a way to stay active and get some fresh air during graduate school, I began to realize that I enjoyed running if I could make it fun.  This was a bit difficult (but doable) in Illinois; I would run on trails in the woods, hills in the park, and mix in intervals and even pull-ups on low-hanging tree branches into the runs.  I quickly found that in Sweden I didn't need to try to have fun while running...every run was enjoyable.  I never planned any run beforehand, I never ran the same track twice, and I always tried to find something beautiful.  I used these runs, commonly lasting between 0:45 and 1:30, as a way to scout out areas where I could later explore with my bike and camera.  I loved running in those woods, and I deeply miss them now!

The Blodomlopet 10km track was very typical to the running trails sprinkled throughout Stockholm.  Parts of it border the Baltic Sea, some were through rocky and muddy hills in the woods, some on old un-paved access roads, portions on sand-laden horse trails (which are extremely difficult to run on by the way), and other portions are even on paved roads.

I ended up running a 43:11 (you can find a video of me crossing the finish line here), and had an amazing time.  After everyone finished our team collected our two picnic baskets from ICA and went to town on bagels, muffins, and of course some assorted dairy products.

As we were heading back home after the race there were two large rainbows high up in the sky...one a mirror image above the other.  The amazing thing about these rainbows was that they were not caused by the reflection of light off water droplets, but instead by the reflection of light off ice crystals high up in the sky.  Sweden rocks!

My advice for anyone visiting Sweden:  NEVER go anywhere without a camera.  If you do, you will regret it; you will be astonished by the natural beauty.