stockholm.... finally!

[MORE PICS OF THIS DAY WILL BE UP ON FLICKR SOON!]

today was a good day. lasse had to work in the city today, so me and susanne and the little ones decided to tag along! we left at about 6.30am and arrived a couple hours later at susanne's friend yuba's apartment (which was small, monochromatic in white, and absolutely awesome! and they have an amazing view too! seeing that kind of apartment makes me want to stay here forever, for some reason. haha.. no, seriously. it does.) yuba is originally from bolivia, but speaks perfect school-swedish, very good english, and spanish too (of course). her daughter isabelle is gorgeous and fun to watch with charlie, since they're about a year apart. so we ate breakfast there, talked, fed the kids lunch, talked, and then left for the city center at about 11.30ish.

we took the T-Bana (subway) to T-centralen (main subway station). i forgot how much i love the smell of subway tunnels... that weirdly warm, dirty, exciting smell that lets you know that whatever you end up doing today will be fun simply because you're experiencing... life! (not to be confused with elevator-pee smell. that one's not so fun and brings up no feelings except those that make you sick to your stomach.) so, from there we went to åhlens city, on drottninggatan... it's the main shopping street, like the ginza in tokyo, the magnificent mile in chicago, or really any street in manhattan.

across from åhlens was the most beautiful site-- H&M! we walked past it, down drottning-gatan a little bit to susanne's favorite godis (sweets; goodies) shop, then back to a mall called gallerian. yes, i went to stockholm to go to a mall.... that had 2 more H&M's and a topshop! luckily, sölvi rescued me from the commercialism and took me to gamla stan -the old town- where i got a mini-tour of the history and important buildings, and where we also had fika (coffee break). we then walked back to the commercialism, parted ways, and i finally, finally went into an H&M for a look-round! and topshop: got quite the bargain there- a belt that i won't be able to wear anytime in the near future with this job, and a headband... all for only 80kr! ($13)... much better deal than the MAC-quality green eyeshadow i bought on impulse earlier from åhlens for 130 kr. ($21)

(gamla stan entrance, further in through the arches, and my fab tour guide.)

so then, i sat and waited a bit on these weird blue space-age stool
/chair
/flowerpot
things in gallerian for susanne and yuba, and some random middle-eastern-looking guy sat next to me and started hitting on me! in swedish! now, if it had been a someone without ulterior motives, maybe i would've thought 'hey, i can practice my svenska!' but no. in this situation i decided it best to give the cold shoulder, say as little as possible (even though i understood everything he was saying) and scoot further away every chance i could! haha, he eventually got the hint.

the ladies finally showed up, and we went outside to meet lasse and leave back for kumla, saying good bye to yuba and isabelle. we then spent the next half-hour, 45 minutes in traffic trying to get out (maybe a 10-block radius)... but i saw lots of sites and took pictures of buildings i thought were pretty (which lasse didn't quite understand... so i took pictures of 'important' (boring-looking) buildings, like the castle and government buildings to be fair). we finally made it out of the city around 4.30ish, and made the 2hr drive back, where i now sit recounting my adventure to all of you whilst bemoaning the state of my aching legs and thinking in archaic english, for some reason :)

(pretty but insignificant building....and important but 'meh' building.)

but like i said, it was a good day! x.