I went on a spontaneous trip to Stockholm last week to help out my sister with her kids while her husband was out of town, so I spent a couple of days in Stockholm w my sister and her kids. I love Stockholm, well at least for the beauty of the city and all the restaurants and cafés that there are sooo many of. I could easily live there just because of their thousand different kinds of restaurants and cafés. And the cafés and restaurants, they all look different from one another too, I love that, because in Malmö they all kinda look the same more or less, but in Stockholm they all look different (apart form the people, they look the same, but that´s another story=))

The nature in Stockholm is extremely beautiful and the city is surrounded by water everywhere which is kinda cool, so the city is really pretty with all its´ trees and water. However, the ambiance in Stockholm is not the nicest I would say (not that there aren´t any nice people in Stockholm) but in general the ambiance can be quite harsh and serious, and the city doesn’t really have any charm (at least according to moi, but I´m used to really sweet people from Skåne =)) so I doubt I could live there. They seem very stressed, and they all walk very fast all the time so u wonder if there has been any accident somewhere..(no, there hasn’t been any accident =)) they just have their own fast tempo that they prefer, but I feel like a lazy Italian girl who is all confused and who walks really slowly when I walk around in the centre. I walk around this beautiful city and I look at all the cool cafés and elegant buildings and I get this feeling; I don´t really fit in here. Everyone´s so good looking it´s almost scary and everyone has extremely nice looking outfits that I feel like a big outsider. Everyone is very correct and serious (again) and I don´t really see anyone smiling when they walk towards me (or maybe they smile on the inside, who knows…) and everyone seem to be very social (which is really nice) and there I go all by my lonesomeness and sometimes I feel so alone, but nowadays I let that thought pass me by and I continue my walk and I have a good time anyway.

Altho, one thing (more) that I unfortunately do is comparing the way I dress to the stylish people that I see everywhere. I see so many people with such nice clothes that it´s almost ridiculous (in a good way) and everyone look really stylish with their long jackets or really nice-looking shoes, and I think; I don´t dress that way. But the funny thing is that i love the way I dress and I´m proud of how I dress, and I think I can look very stylish from time to time so it´s not that I feel ugly or don´t like the way I dress, but I don´t dress as elegant as they do.

I ran into a childhood friend of my family that lives in Stockholm and she spotted me before I spotted her, and when we said hello and hugged each other she said ” oh, that just has to be Hanne, cus she always wear so many strong colors” (and she said it with a  big smile) (I wore a very bright yellow shirt) and when she said it i thought; hmmm, that is a big compliment (to me) and it gave me more self-confidence when it came to wearing colorful clothes. She also said that she just had had lunch with her parents (they live in South Africa during the Swedish wintertime) and she said I could go there and say hello because they were still at the restaurant, so she explained where I should go and i went back and forth in the restaurant and outside the restaurant looking for them but then I lost track of where they could be so I just went someplace else (I don´t know Stockholm by heart so it´s still quite hard for me to find my way around Stockholm). So it ended with me not running into them (it would have been so much fun saying hello to them) but I went to Gamla Stan in stead which I´m glad I did. It took me a little while but eventually I found my perfect cappuccino and I could finally just sit down and enjoy my cappuccino and the view. Sometimes just watching people walking buy is a great pleasure I think. I asked my sister later that day if people living in Stockholm ever go to Gamla Stan (an island between the northern part of the center and Södermalm, the south part of Sthlm, and this is where all the tourists go to) and she said no. She hadn´t been there in ages she said, but that she thinks it´s really beautiful there. It kind of not looks like Stockholm cus the buildings are very picturesque looking there (and less modern and normal looking buildings), and the buildings are quite small and they have really cute squares and churches there. I really like walking around there I must say, maybe it´s because there are so many tourists there so i feel less like an outsider…I don´t know..but it´s veeery pretty there so…

I had a really nice time in Stockholm (despite my comparison to the Stockholm people=)) cus the weather was soo nice, it was soo hot that u did´t even need a jacket on. And Stockholm as a city when it´s hot weather…oh la la..Stockholm is soo beautiful when it´s beautiful weather and I could almost (and I say almost) feel the people,relaxing a bit when I was strolling around on the street of Karlavägen (a big and long street with an alley in the middle where u can stroll around) because of the nice weather. I had lunch with an old friend of mine who I usually see and that is always fun.

I could also spend a lot of time with my nieces and really have quality time with them and with my sister (which doesn’t happen too often) so that was really nice and I could walk one of my nieces to her kindergarten and pick her up that same day, and spending that time with her is really quality time (cus the time goes unfortunately very fast, heeeelp). and speaking of kids and compliments, when I was picking my niece up at her kindergarten, one boy said to me (with an Stockholm dialect) ”I like ur clothes, u have really nice clothes”. He was like 4 or 5 years old and he spoke like an adult… I mean whaaat? It was so cute. And it happened on the same day as i ran into my childhood friend too, how fun isn that? I smiled so much. I love getting compliments, especially from kids(and men) because u know that they are always honest when it comes to giving compliments (they only say compliments when they mean it). So that must mean that I had a really cool and different outfit that day…sweeeet.

Even tho I usually compare the way i dress to the way the Stockholm people dress I also see that as a way to up beat my outfits, to step it up a dodge so to speak. I´m usually not a ”tävlingsmänniska” (a.k.a competion kind of person) but in this case i become a ”tävlingsmänniska”( but in a  healthy way I would say). I get inspired by the way that they dress and I make sure that my next buy is a really cool buy. So it´s not always a bad thing to compare urself to other people, at least not for me in this case. So I guess I should say thank u to the Stockholm people for always inspiring me to dress really nice and chic.

Here are some of my pictures from Stockholm. Hope u will enjoy them

This one is from the bus on my way to Malmö Airport. i think there is something fascinating with rapeseed…so so pretty.

This is my happy face at one of the cafés and I´m just about to eat my beloved breakfast.

I love having breakfast at airport. There is something special and luxurious about it that I love. I don´t do it that often (flying) so when I do it and my flight is in the morning I always have breakfast at the airport. I just love the feeling of drinking my beloved cappuccino and eating my breakfast at a really nice café at the airport and feeling the excitement that there is in the air at airports. Everyone´s happy at airports and excited about what´s to come. and just knowing that I will be up in the air a moment later is just soo exciting…

me and my youngest niece L. She´s growing so fast. she´s soon 11 month old. Crazy how fast time passes by.

How beautiful isn´t Stockholm? This is at Gamla Stan, and yes everyone in the picture is a tourist =) but I kinda like taking pictures of tourists cus they make the picture feel a bit alive, and it´s also so obvious that they are tourists too, and they are all really focused on listening to the guide who´s explaining to them thing about the city. 

I really love the light that comes in between the leafs. It reminds me of Barcelona and all the hundreds of leafy trees and how the light shone in through the leafs. so pretty, and a bit magical too…

the leafs also give quite cool looking contrasts on the wall behind the trees.

The air was quite airless and hot, but who am I to complain when there were no clouds in sight and a big big sun…

Whenever I go to Stockholm and I get a chance a chance to go to Gamla Stan I always make a stop at the café Fabrique stenugnsbageri (they have that café on many different locations in Stoc cus they make really good coffee and there´s this really nice spot overlooking the water and Södermalm that is on the other side of the water. It´s like a  big open square where you can sit down and just enjoy ur take away (which I always do when I´m there).

I´m btw wearing the yellow shirt that my childhood friend was referring to. it´s easily one of my favorite shirts (bought it in Palermo, Sicily last summer) and i love it so much. I always get soo many compliments for it which is yaaay.

This is at Lidingö, a big island east of the center where my sister and her family lives. i always go for a run on this track when I´m there. I love this kind of nature. It´s so pretty with all the water surrounding the island.

This is a church at Gamla Stan. I thought the church looked very pompous and still gentle with the way people were relaxing their back towards the wall. Looked very relaxing and chill.

This is at Karlavägen , a very long and beautiful street going from one part (Karlaplan) to another part of Stockholm (Humlegården), and as you can see it´s very pretty and very green. Me like that. A lot.

 

Lunch and coffee with my old friend Anna who I always make sure I see when I´m in Stockholm. She´s the best. We´ve known each other for 10 years now, how cool isn  that? That´s awesome I think. Cheers for that my dear friend.

Friday afternoon when it was hot hot and beyond hot outside and my sister had bought a lot of berries to us. That must be a sign that the summer is on it´s way right? (the kids were only at the table for like 15 minutes and then they went inside, so much for us having that perfect long moment outside together).

Just the feeling that we didn’t need any jacket on or even a cardigan on. What an amazing feeling. so so amazing. So thank u Stockholm for this time. See you another time.

Lots of love,

Hanne