When your subway card is about to expire, this orange box appears around the green arrow on the subway turnstiles when you scan it. It's a nice idea, although it doesn't give the exact date it expires like the buses.
I bought my ticket for the cruise to Helsinki online, but for some reason my credit card wouldn't go through. I tried calling, but nobody spoke English and I kept getting hung up on, so I went to Central Station to their counter. Grabbed a number, stood in line for a few minutes, and then was told this is the counter to take a bus to the ferry; the counter for the ferry itself was over there. "Where?" I asked. "Under the giant 'Viking' title."
Ah, back here.
I've always walked down and around to get between the bus terminal and the rest of central station. I thought that was rather silly and figured there must be a direct route. Yep, right here. Glad I realized that after two months.
Removing some graffiti in the subways.
A pretty big meal, so I'm going to take half of it with me and I don't care what the Europeans say about it.
Heck, I should have stuffed this person's leftovers in my box, too, and gotten a third meal of out it. So wasteful.
Two door-open buttons but no door-close ones. Not that they'd probably work anyway.
This door say you're not supposed to go through, and I'm terrified of setting off an alarm, so I've always gone out, around, and back. Then I saw someone else go right through with no problems whatsoever, sigh.
One of the coolest things I got from the Lapland trip: that this speaker exists. It's really loud for its size and cool-looking, too.
Glad I didn't check that bag.
Daim are really similar to Score, which I love.
I needed to renew my student card for the subway. You go here, prove that you're a student, get a little card from them saying you're a student, and then buy the actual card from another store. I'm supposed to bring an official document from the school, but last time I just used my acceptance letter. I tried that again, but they kept saying I needed an official note dated in the past 10 days. Which meant I'd have to go to the school, which is pretty far out of the way, and in the meantime have to pay for individual trips since my card was expired. So I just went directly to the store and said I needed to refill my student subway card (without the official card from the SL center). The clerk just did it. Sometimes it's easiest to simply try skipping all the official stuff.
Somebody likes pink: hair, scarf, iPhone cover, and yarn.
European men, whoah.
Neat little sculpture by the hospital.
One way to eat these big pizzas.
Aw, come on, out of Malibu rum? How am I supposed to make Hawaiian mixed drinks without that?
A neat picture in the thrift store.
Lots of neat stuff in Buttericks, including these laptop covers.
And toilet seat covers.
And gun drink containers.
Smaller ones.
These are actually a good idea: drink holders that clip onto your plate and free up your hand.
Those are some big lollipops.
Damned dirty hallmates.
Interesting house in the paper.
Ooh, I love these tight scrunchy shirts. The only weird part is that it's for me for the Hawaiian party.
Foosball table at the thrift store. Too bad I don't have more space in my room.
A huge line outside.
And a woman handing out flyers for it.
Ah, the grand opening of a store. Must be some really great deals for that big of a line.
Interesting ice formation.
I think the hottest outfit a woman can wear is a sports bra. Especially if she looks confident and athletic.
Flowers are super-cheap at many of the grocery stores, so I like to buy them and put them around my room. They're pretty and they smell nice.
I've always hated this poster. I think it's the expression on the kid's face: the confident half smirk. I'm not quite sure why, but it makes me furious.
That's my kind of schedule.
Oh, come on, who leaves a rotting banana peel on a bench?
I went to another liquor store for Malibu Rum, but they didn't have it either. So I asked the clerk, and he said try the store by NK. I didn't know what NK was, but he said it in a way that made it obvious everyone knows where NK is. I, not wanting to sound foolish, didn't ask. So later I asked a nurse at the hospital where a big liquor store was, and she said, "NK." This time I swallowed my pride and asked, and she drew me this map.
So I went there and found this, the NK building, with "NK" on a giant rotating spire, in gigantic letters on the front, and scattered around pretty much open spot on the building.
Neat little glasses shop with chess positions. I always thought it'd be cool to do a "beat the doctor in a 1-minute chess game, get 10% off your purchase" if I owned my own place. But then I might get a bunch of really good chess players coming by, especially because they usually don't have a lot of money and probably look for deals, and the really good ones are usually, well, really weird, and would probably scare away the "normal" customers.
Finally, the giant liquor store at NK. My saviour. Wait, what?!! Also out of Malibu rum. To heck with it, I'll just grab some vodka.
Swedes apparently love these fake fur flower thingies; they're everywhere.
At that price, it's actually cheaper for me to buy a few pots and make my own lei rather than buy a plastic one from the store.
Cool, a little kumquat plant.
Interesting how the bookstore has Erotic Message right in the front window.
One of the biggest lines I've seen at a grocery store near Central Station. However, it's not as long as the usual line at, say, Wal-Mart in the US, and it's much faster because people have 10 times less stuff.
Although everyone gets tired of holding their baskets, so they put them on the floor and kick them forward as the line moves.
Aw, man. The snow had been gone for a while, and now, on the day of our Hawaiian party, it decides to start up again.
My main concern was that I was going to get my feet snowy and cold from walking in flip flops.
However, that didn't prove to be a problem: all the snow was pretty smooshed down. What was a problem is that it was slippery and my flip flops had no traction. See those tracks in the snow? Those are my feet flying out from under me.
And the resulting cut on my elbow.
I was in the mood for some US food, so I decided to try Pizza Hut. However, their prices were awfully high: $26 for a double super supreme and $38 for a family size!
Although it looks like it's more of a sit-down restaurant than a to-go place. Even the nice ones in the US aren't nearly this upscale.
And they don't have my favorite thing about Pizza Hut: the breadsticks. At least they had garlic bread.
Pink is stuff Jenny did, green is stuff I've done.
These were all of the places included in the Stockholm card.
I pretty much got through all of the major museums and other places of interest I wanted to see. There are a few other things I'd like to do and places I'd like to go, but they're pretty expensive and so probably not worth the cost.
New vs old technology: an app with sites marked out on a map vs a post-it note. You can't edit the app, but it does show all of the streets, which would be pretty tedious to write out on a note but helpful if you get lost.
A lot of museums have these little folding chairs, which are really helpful during guided tours when you stay in a room for a few minutes.
The Dramatic Theater.
Neat building.
Ostermalms Saluhall, although it was closed on Sunday when I walked by.
Interesting statue nearby.
The name.
A view down Nybrogatan with lots of shops.
Free air.
Kayakers.
This guy seemed to be stuck in the waves. Or else he was just waiting for people.
Brr, tipping over has got to be cold.
Gustav Adolf statue. Neat armor.
The other side.
The opera house.
Some guys fishing.
Some people feeding the birds.
Nice view down the waterway.
And in the other direction.
To the northwest.
A big anchor by the Skeppsholmskyrkan.
Lots of ducks on a dock.
And one lone swan.
A fun little poker app. I especially like how it has the time up top; it's such a pain to have to exit out of a game just to check that.
Street Fighter 4 app. Pretty fun, but still nothing like the real thing. I wonder if I can hook a joystick up to the iPhone?
I hate RoverRabbit. It looks like it's free because there's no password, but you actually have to pay for it. Grr.
Head scarf being put to good use.
See the girl in the ad at the top? She's smoking hot.
But this is the site you get when you click on the link. I like the idea of a BBW dating site, but having the picture of the other woman on the link be the complete opposite of the site's entire demographic is pretty deceptive. And, if someone is looking for BBW people, they're probably not going to click on a link with a skinny little chick, so it seems like it would actually backfire.