At last! I have my elusive Spring break photos uploaded on my computer. I shall try to recreate the experience for all you fans out there.
The first stop on my Spring break voyage (back on March 27th!) was Stockholm. When Hannah and I left London it was starting to feel a lot like spring (unlike now, it feels like freakin November). Stockholm was...cold. Note to self: travel to Scandinavia during the summer/white nights.
On our first day we mostly just wandered all over the city. Here is a very typical, foggy sight.
A narrow alleyway in the older part of Stockholm
Throughout the entire trip we frequently took breaks at coffee shops, to give our feet a rest and pump ourselves with caffeine... We were inevitably seduced by the desserts.
On our first day in Stockholm we had some truly delicious, warm apple strudel with cream.
On our second day we ventured to the Moderna Museet and the Arkitektur Museet, which are housed in the same building.
One of the museums' cafes had a really cool long glass-top table with lots of leaflets and things visible underneath.
At the Moderna there was an interesting exhibition of artist Lee Lozano's work, which included some of her notes and work concepts. I found her work to be really interesting, a lot of it reflected on the largely male-dominated art scene in which she was immersed.
The hostel we stayed in was, as I mentioned in an earlier entry, very clean and pleasant, but small and crowded. We stayed in a small four person room (both ending up in top bunks). I can't recall how many of these rooms there were, but there must have been at least eight or so. The only common space in the hostel was a kitchen area. Needless to say, there wasn't much room for privacy or solitude. While this wasn't a problem, per say, the sudden lack of alone time (or at least, free of strangers time) was very noticeable, and sometimes tiring. We did so much walking on this trip that looking at the photos literally makes me feel exhausted, so not having anywhere to just mellow out was an adjustment.
Hannah on her bunkbed
On our last full day in Stockholm, we went to Djurgården, a big park(ishthing?) that takes up one of the many islands that make up the city.
The frozen over body of water implied that these probably weren't the best strolling conditions.
After Djurgården, we went to the Vasamuseet, a museum dedicated to a restored ship which had sank in 1629. It was cool... but also creeped me out a little too much. Not my cup of tea...
A sample of the ships ornate design. P.S. It's giant.
On our final day in Stockholm, the weather was surprisingly pleasant for most of the day. We literally walked to The End Of The Earth, Stockholm, to go to an art gallery called Magasin 3, which seemed really awesome. It was located at the port. By the time we got there we were pretty thoroughly exhausted, and it turned out the place was closed on Tuesdays! Har Har.
A Dole building at the end of the earth.
After our failed journey we took a long, luxurious bus ride back (which was free after some clearly 'desperate American' behavior). That same day we left for Oslo.
We got into Oslo late in the evening, somewhere around 11:30pm I believe. We waited around for the bus to get into the city for an hour! In the cold rain, mind you. When the bus finally arrived there was a stampede. The next 35 or so minutes consisted of being squished in the middle of a Spanish family that was yelling a conversation over me, with the older "father" dude basically trying to edge me out of the line. Somehow Hannah managed to angle herself in a way such they she ended up getting on the bus 20 minutes before I did. The bus ride itself was another hour, then we had to take a cab from the bus terminal because it was too late to try and walk. Quite the exhausting commute. Finally arriving to our tacky Radisson hotel room was sheer bliss.
I immediately liked Oslo more than Stockholm. It seemed overall less tourist ridden and calmer, and almost all the museums were free!
On our first day we went to the Architecture and Modern Art Museums. They were both small and pleasant—the perfect size, if you ask me. The architecture museum had an interesting exhibition of work from the Danish architecture firm BIG, it was called Yes is More. The exhibit was in a comic book format and was... comedic, and interesting. They also have a book out by that title, I recommend checking it out!
Afterwords we went to the Design Museum which was obviously my cup of tea. They had a Marimekko exhibit, as well as really cool permanent collection, which was presented as a timeline throughout the decades and focused specifically on Norwegian and Scandinavian design.
After museum overload we watched corny American sitcoms in our hotel room (and loved it).
The following day we walked a good bit through some neighborhoods that had a more Williamsburgy/Berlinish feel
Exhibit A.
The end point of this pilgrimage was the Edvard Munch Museum, finally getting to the damn thing was like a mirage.
I particularly enjoyed Munch's Alpha and Omega series.
On the way back we stopped at the new Opera House, which was designed to resemble an iceberg. The building won the EU prize for contemporary architecture in 2009. It was really awesome visually, and equally great to wander on/through.
Views from the Opera House
Inside
A sculpture outside the National Gallery, where we saw Munch's "The Scream"!
When we returned to the hotel we had found that the maid had decoratively laid out my princess blanket on my bed—clearly she thought I was a child.
The view from our hotel!
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