Scavenging in Stockholm
On Monday, we had our first day of orientation with DIS. Right after the beginning remarks, they handed us a map of Stockholm, split us into groups of six, and sent us off to old city Stockholm for a scavenger hunt! Mind you, at this point, probably the vast majority of us hadn't been in the city. We shuffled off to the T-banan (the underground rail) stop to find our next stop.
Destination: Gamla Stan.
Gamla Stan is the historical district of Stockholm, with courtyards, alleys, and waterways from centuries ago. We each had a booklet with 10 different stops in Gamla Stan, each of which was a stop in the scavenger hunt. Most of the stops had a question related to it e.g. How many street lamps are in the narrowest alleyway surrounding this square? or What do the four bronze statues guarding the royal palace gate have in common? Overall, Gamla Stan is a pretty touristy destination but since we are in the smack middle of the winter, there weren't too many people around though we did run into a couple groups of kids on a field trip.
Fun fact: The parliamentary building is actually in the location of the old Swedish National Bank. Once parliament realized they needed to relocate to a bigger location, they waited for the bank to crash and swooped into the vacated spot. Pretty brutal.
I looked like a complete tourist, with a huge map in front of my face, trying to read of the Swedish names of the streets, but it was all a part of the fun! I met a great group of girls and we all worked really well together to find all the locations on the scavenger hunt.
The last stop of the day was the parliament building, which is on an island connected by a bridge. (Stockholm is literally on a clump of islands; it's an archipelago city built on rocks.) There was a street full of restaurants and cafes so we decided to stop there for lunch. While going out for meals or drinks in Stockholm can get really expensive, many restaurants have lunch deals with a bit of a lower price. We found a Swedish-Italian place where I got Swedish meatballs with mac and cheese and lingonberry sauce for 99 SEK. With the current exchange rate, that turns out to about 11 USD, no tip, and free salad bar!
I took a lot of pictures while we were walking around, and I've included them in a slideshow gallery below. Stockholm is an absolutely beautiful city -- my pictures won't do it justice, but I tried my best! (I also left my DSLR at my homestay that day, gg Hanna, but my phone got some surprisingly decent ones.)
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