smooth flight from bkk to stocks! slept almost the entire journey, save for the pillow thief in the next seat. i'm appalled that she'd the gall to blatantly steal my pillow. her modus operandi was, rather unimaginatively, to sit on it and hug her own. and her impeccable toilet timing had her poking me awake the moment i had entered deep sleep and after my second valiant attempt to achieve REM, she did the exact same thing. hazily remember glaring and growling at her. maybe.
hit the ground running at 0635h (!) and made my way to the hotel. so much for being an intrepid explorer and checking myself into a 10bed mixed dorm, which i did book initially but ended up cancelling, although that is a story in itself. i take for granted the ready availability of free luggage trolleys back home and spent a better part of my awake time on the plane hoping for a free trolley. thank god for trolleys and elevators for without them there is no way i could have lugged my weight in baggage from airport to central station to suburb station then 1km to hotel. and the hotel receptionist lied! she claimed it was a 5-10minute walk from the station and maybe it is, for regular pedestrains. it did not take lone asian female lugging her aforementioned weight in baggage 5-10minutes. multiply by 10 to figure out actual time. and my trolley bag had cranky wheels so we were quite the sight, my bag and i, rolling sideways like a crab along the pavement. and the pavements! why why why are they tiled??? the joints in the cement kept impeding the wheels. again, thank god i did not stay in the hostel which happened to be in the heart of old town. because old town is charming and, like many other old towns, filled with equally charming cobblestones that make rolling a trolley bag the size of a baby elephant a most unpleasant task. anyhoos, i'm spending five nights here and then moving into the university accommodation on monday. am not looking forward to the commute and carry.
had an eventful first day. soon after checking in and freshening up i headed to the city centre to meet a family friend for lunch. overestimated the time it'd take to get there (hotel is central! yay!) and had time to buy a stockholm simcard that only speaks swedish. but i am undaunted because i have googletranslate! and a brain :) lovely lunch at the zink grill where the restaurant is built around a zinc bar that the proprietos fell in love with in paris and brought back to stockholm. it serves a mean grilled selection and i had a curious duck fillet cooked in a vacuum. didnt take a photo, unfortunately, but it is definitely one of my (few) stocks must-gos if i have visitors. visitors who don't mind buying me lunch, that is. but back to the duck! it was moist and tender and because it was fresh, as opposed to duck margaret it wasn't too salty. yummy stuff! met Z for the first time and he strikes me as a grandfatherly type but oh myy he is so well-read and open-minded in a way i wouldn't expect someone of his generation to be. he shed some light on swedish culture and gave me a much welcomed insight into their psyche. it was good to hear a local's perspective and see how it matched up with my own preconceived notions. i left lunch enlightened haha.
wandered around after lunch visiting the same haunts i saw when i was last in stockholm, about three summers ago. it is as if time stood still and whatever stuck in memory was still there when i returned. i saw the galleria that S and i shopped for belts at, the coffeeplace i lazed around at with my family and the familiar shops with their familiar facades. it felt like a homecoming of sorts and it is good to be back, and for so much longer this time. bought some fruit and back at the hotel to rest up before heading out tonight. can't believe the sun sets at 10! it's surreal to suddenly have such long days. summer makes everything look nicer :)
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