Girls' Night

When we finally got up we just went straight back to watching Mad Men. Maybe a little bit pathetic, seeing as to how we're in Stockholm and everything but...first of all, I'm still getting better. Second of all, nobody was home and we didn't know what we were going to do today. I figured we would just rest (i.e. watch Mad Men) until somebody came home and/or called and then we would figure out some sort of plan.

Daniel came home sometime in the early afternoon. He told us that Hakan had called a hot air balloon company this morning but hadn't been able to reach them. Hakan had been helping us last night try to see if we could work an hot air balloon ride into our trip here, because that would be super cool! He said he'd call this morning, but when we woke up he was gone. So I thought it was so nice of him that he remembered to call anyway. All three of them are so sweet! Helen called and We decided we'd meet up with her around 530.

We met up with her in the center square and Sandra was with her, so that was fun because we haven't gotten to see Sandra very much. She is super busy and has a lot going on in her life right now so we only see her for bits and pieces here and there. When we parted ways with Sandra, Helen had taken it upon herself to help me find a traditional Swedish plate! We went to a couple of department stores and in the first one, the plates were great but they were also ridiculously expensive. Like 250 crowns (~8 SEK to $1 USD) for a single plate. But then we went to another store and I found a pretty cheap plate than Helen says is very traditional. I'll take her word for it. Also, in this store, I found something very exciting for Hilary the Cook. It's an olive oil and vinegar flask that just screams Sweden to me, because it's so cute and well designed. It's hard to describe but I am in love with it. I get my plates because I "have to" for my collection (I do like it, I just also like to complain about it), but I also try to find other small/light things from countries. This is definitely my Swedish thing.

With that accomplished, we wandered around a part of town called Ostermalm which we hadn't really explored yet. We ended up practically walking into a giant market food hall that coincidentally Laura and I were planning on going to Saturday before Laura made me come home and stop dying. Helen promised us this was REAL Swedish food, like the kind of thing she would eat, and I got a little taster-sized portion of something that ended up being DELICIOUS. It was a cabbage leaf wrapped around minced meat and was served with mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam. They serve a lot of things here with mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam. Lingonberry jam is delicious and reminds me a lot of cranberry sauce.

If you look up "things to do in Stockholm" you will see suggestions for "just go to design shops in Sweden. Just do it." As we passed random design shops on our evening stroll, we stopped in to admire and look at and play with all the funny things. Everything here seems adorable and very well designed. It's all just cute. Too cute. I've never been into a store like that with so many practical everyday things that are so pleasing to look at. Then these stores also have things that you wouldn't necessarily think of but once you see them you're like, "that is genius!" It's lots of fun to window shop in these stores.

At this point, we decided that we would have a girls' night. This was pretty much our last night in Sweden since tomorrow we have dinner plans with Lisbet and we're leaving on Wednesday. We went to another one of Helen's favorite bars which is famous for it's cheap (read: reasonably, by USD standards) priced drinks. I still think my system would have collapsed under more beer and wine was twice as expensive so I ended up drinking cider for the night. It was almost as cheap as the beer and it was clear pear cider. Not only was it delicious, but since it was clear liquid I told myself it was probably good for me. Also, people drink cider all the time here! In the US it's not very common, I don't even think you could find it at most bars, but here it's like a normal drink option.

We proceeded to have an incredibly fun(ny) night filled with girl talk and laughter and Helen-Language. She explained that sometimes when we say things, she hears them in her head totally differently. So as we were talking she kept being like, "what? did you just say ...." And she without fail always heard something outrageously funny! We were trying to tell Helen the story of the Slovakian boy (long story, also, not my story) and Helen heard "slow walker" and then made up a hilarious urban-dictionary-esque definition of what a slow walker was. That might have been the funniest thing of the night. It was such an amazing night, I love hanging out with her! It's just fun non-stop. Sam had recommended Swedish chocolate and pastries to me so before we got to the bar we got some chocolate. Helen said she loves to get chocolate with her friends and then go to a bar and just eat the chocolate they brought with their beer. You can totally get away with that in Europe because once they seat you and you order, the wait staff leaves you alone because they don't really work for tips. It's actually so nice, just to be left in peace and never felt rushed or like they're trying to get you out of your seat as soon as possible. I'm going to miss that dining style a lot back home. We tried to find Laura a Swedish boy in between laughing about other random things but that didn't work out very well.

Finally, we decided to call it a night and head home. A stop at 7-11 was necessary though to get more chocolate. It was here that a boy named Bjorn started talking to Laura and Helen and I got our hopes up for a second, but alas, Laura was not so much into Bjorn from 7-11. By the way I have a huge thing against going into American shops, but I justify my trip to 7-11 because all I got was Swedish chocolate.

When we got home, Helen went to bed (like a smart person) and Laura and I...guess what we did. No really, guess.

Aww.... you got it. We watched Mad Men again until I think 3 AM when Laura decided we should go to bed.


Quotes:
"My internal GPS is off." - Helen, a classic comment when trying to find her way somewhere.

"You can't turn your back on girls' night!" - Helen, when I tried to only have one or two ciders.