I had been upset that morning, but as I stepped into the Ostermalms Saluhall my mood immediately lifted. Before my eyes was a high-ceilinged hall, filled with food-stalls, and bright, smartly-dressed people having lunch.
The food is one of the things I had been looking forward to about this weekend in Stockholm. I love dishes like pickled herrings, and cured salmon with potatoes, both of which I think of as classically Swedish. The trip didn't disappoint, yet what delighted me more were the unexpected quirks associated with eating. A classic breakfast is knackebrod (crispbread) covered with butter and cheese, however one must use a special wooden knife to serve the butter - a metal one would not do. Similarly, contrary to pretty much every other place I have visited, in Sweden one serves crisps after dinner, not before.
There are other unexpected ways in which Sweden asserts its character. During a visit to the Stadshuset - one of the city's key landmarks and an undeniably beautiful building, not to mention the site where the Nobel Prize dinner is held every year - the guide informed us that anyone can get married there, including gay couples, and non-Swedes. It is open to all, and the wedding ceremony is free. He warned, however, that the waiting list is extremely long.
This reminded me of the system for renting houses in Stockholm, which is tightly regulated by the government. From what I understand, to rent a property, you need to enter your name on a government-managed list. The longer your name stays on the list (in other words, the longer you are willing to wait), the better the property you can obtain.
In both cases, the government is intervening to disrupt the market. Instead of people getting desirable things (a cute wedding venue, a smart flat in central Stockholm) through money, they get them through patience. The unstated sub-text is that patience is sometimes a more valuable attribute at the individual level than the ability to amass or hold onto wealth. I like this view, since societies need both patience and wealth to function, and the former is a lot more evenly distributed and a lot easier to acquire.
I only played the sightseeing tourist in Stockholm for one day. The city is a jumble of rock and water - 14 islands at the meeting point between Lake Malaren and the Baltic Sea. It is practically impossible to escape the sight of water. And the buildings in the heart of the city - Gamla Stan, Kungsholmen, Skeppsholmen looked, to me, remarkably homogeneous, as if they had all been built around the same time, with none of the higgledy-piggledy quality that I am used to from London. For both these reasons, Stockholm has a beauty that I recognize as European, but is also quite different from anywhere else I have spent time in. Perhaps this is the face of Scandinavia...
Thank you to Yvan and Andreas for spending the weekend with me, and for showing me so much of Stockholm.
The food is one of the things I had been looking forward to about this weekend in Stockholm. I love dishes like pickled herrings, and cured salmon with potatoes, both of which I think of as classically Swedish. The trip didn't disappoint, yet what delighted me more were the unexpected quirks associated with eating. A classic breakfast is knackebrod (crispbread) covered with butter and cheese, however one must use a special wooden knife to serve the butter - a metal one would not do. Similarly, contrary to pretty much every other place I have visited, in Sweden one serves crisps after dinner, not before.
There are other unexpected ways in which Sweden asserts its character. During a visit to the Stadshuset - one of the city's key landmarks and an undeniably beautiful building, not to mention the site where the Nobel Prize dinner is held every year - the guide informed us that anyone can get married there, including gay couples, and non-Swedes. It is open to all, and the wedding ceremony is free. He warned, however, that the waiting list is extremely long.
This reminded me of the system for renting houses in Stockholm, which is tightly regulated by the government. From what I understand, to rent a property, you need to enter your name on a government-managed list. The longer your name stays on the list (in other words, the longer you are willing to wait), the better the property you can obtain.
In both cases, the government is intervening to disrupt the market. Instead of people getting desirable things (a cute wedding venue, a smart flat in central Stockholm) through money, they get them through patience. The unstated sub-text is that patience is sometimes a more valuable attribute at the individual level than the ability to amass or hold onto wealth. I like this view, since societies need both patience and wealth to function, and the former is a lot more evenly distributed and a lot easier to acquire.
I only played the sightseeing tourist in Stockholm for one day. The city is a jumble of rock and water - 14 islands at the meeting point between Lake Malaren and the Baltic Sea. It is practically impossible to escape the sight of water. And the buildings in the heart of the city - Gamla Stan, Kungsholmen, Skeppsholmen looked, to me, remarkably homogeneous, as if they had all been built around the same time, with none of the higgledy-piggledy quality that I am used to from London. For both these reasons, Stockholm has a beauty that I recognize as European, but is also quite different from anywhere else I have spent time in. Perhaps this is the face of Scandinavia...
Thank you to Yvan and Andreas for spending the weekend with me, and for showing me so much of Stockholm.
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