En annan dag i vinterland - Another day in winterland

Hello, guys! I'm bringing you the second part of my last trip to Sweden. The truth is that I was really looking forward to writing about this day because something really exciting for me happened. And that's why I decided to go on my little ritual for special posts: I took my headphones with the Mild Man's new album as background music, a piece of paper and a pen so I could write this post. I'm not gonna lie, I'm a lover of the traditional pen-and-paper way of writing!

I started my morning practicing Swedish. Sometimes I would just randomly talk in Swedish with Frans, which happened to be this day and some others I would just take Frans' newspaper and read some pieces of news out loud because Tommy would listen to me and correct my mistakes. Or at least, that's what I wanted to believe. In fact, he pretended to do so from time to time, some others he would just scream "vad?!". Actually, I liked a lot when one of those days Frans hadn't read the newspaper yet and we shared it, like in the movies haha. I think he was quite impressed that I read the newspaper and that I was really trying to learn Swedish.

After having breakfast and cooking our lunch–Tommy actually cooked it– we took the tunnelbanan to Östermalm, where Tommy showed us his university, Kungliga Musik Högskolan, KMH for friends, and we met a couple of friends of his. It was a very nice university and they had old pianos even!–please, forgive me if that's not the right word, but I'm not quite familiar with music vocabulary. Anyway, after that, we went to visit the Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, because we were meeting my friend Martin there for the very first time and the KTH campus was in my architecture bucket list–because who doesn't have an architecture bucket list? Duh, everyone does, haha ;). I really don't know what those reddish bricks have that makes the buildings so beautiful. It's like the city hall building, especially in autumn with red leaves or in winter with snow.

Then, we walked around to checked out the campus and we sat on a bench to read for a while. Unfortunately, I don't have more photos of the KTH. Dumb, isn't it? haha. We thought of staying there until Martin finished school, but it suddenly became very windy so we took the subway to Riddarholmen again to have lunch. Because nice lunches deserve nice views, right?

At 15:00 we were back at the KTH and we were stopped by a girl who worked for Amnesty when we were running a bit late. I honestly thought Martin was gonna give me that look of "of course, Spaniards are always late" when we arrived, but, guess what?, he wasn't even there! We were less late than a Swede, haha. You guys must admit it, it's a bit funny, since Swedes are known for their punctuality, among other things, of course. But, to be honest, I had a really interesting talk with the girl from Amnesty for about five minutes.

When I met Martin, I had my first cultural shock, or maybe linguistic shock, because he asked me for directions–I was the GPS of the group– and that is my weakness in every language, haha. When we found the way after a while, we head to Stadsbiblioteket, where we got lost again, haha. This trip was full of orientation fails. Mostly mine.

Visiting the city library is something that I had planned because I wanted to visit it with someone who liked books as much as me. And that someone is Martin. You guys can't see it in the photo, but it's so beautiful and it has so many books that I wanna die! Haha. We were there quite a while: my sister looked for books about Irish English or Portuguese and Martin and I took a look at a book about Stockholm. I also tried to check out the engineering section, cause I guessed it was something that Martin would like, but it was Friday and he probably was tired of school. Poor thing. And, just in case you guys are wondering, he's that guy on the stairs with cool hair.

I don't remember what happened next or how Martin decided to show us Sergels Torg and Hötorget, but I really liked it. I'd never been there before and I've been meaning to because of Veronica Maggio's song Sergels Torg. Actually, on our way there, I had another funny linguistic shock in the underground, but that one happened because I'm a little bit special and it takes me double time to process things properly. Let's just say that, haha.

A little after that we went to fika. Guess where? Yes, Expresso House, hahah. This was the second time I tried to order a hot chocolate in Swedish. The first time, which was the day before, was quite messy and the barista and I had a good laugh, especially when I tried to get in the card through the wrong slot. But, this time I thought I was determined to get everything right until the word marshmallows in Swedish took me by surprise. But, never mind that, I really liked when I failed, though, because it meant that I had to practice more, which I love doing. I don't remember much about the fika, to be honest. Only that I got to hear Martin speaking in Spanish. Boy, that guy is good! He has such a determination that he makes me feel jealous 99.9% of the time, haha. After that, we just walked around in Gamla Stan, the city hall and the Parliament, which I was looking forward to seeing! I usually watch my other friend Martin's, the Swedishlad, videos, and he often goes to the Parliament, but I never knew the location until I saw it that day. It was so beautiful! And also city hall at night. I had never seen it at that time nor Martin had visited it, so, of course I had to take him there.

While we walked through Gamla Stan in search of a good and cozy photo of it, I had another cultural shock–I kind of screw it up a bit in this hang out, but I blame Martin for taking my clumsy side out, haha. I had never seen a trash bin with a cover before, at least not in the part of Spain where I am from, and as I was walking towards the bin, I was kind of doubting that it was a real bin and I looked at Martin for confirmation, cause he was watching me, probably thinking that I was such a dummy, hahaha. But, as soon as I got back, he asked me something like: "Isn't annoying when they have covers and you get your hands dirty?"

After the complete Stockholm tour with Martin, we just head to the station and hugged us goodbye. I loved this day: it was so relaxing, we improvised most of the time and I got to meet Martin. I loved the places he showed us and I had a great time with him. I actually felt quite comfortable to be the first time that I met him. I felt so comfortable that I got a bit sad when he left, haha. I felt like a tiny little part of me just left me. He's really nice and I admire a lot of things about him. On our walks, we took pictures of the same things together, and that I really liked because it's like we were sharing a hobby. I love having relationships this enriching. Martin teaches me so many things and I really appreciate that. Here's to more enriching relationships!

I hope you guys enjoyed reading about this day as much as I enjoyed writing about it! Stay tuned for the next post and take care!

Photos: Ana Ramírez and Martin Hviid

~ Love, Ana ~