Mark's Travels

10 years of travel blogging from 35+ countries around the world

New Years Day in Stockholm 1st January 2003 in Stockholm, Sweden


Today I woke up early and walked around Stockholm taking photos and exploring. One thing I have noticed, there are sooo many Russian tourist here. I hate to dawn on stereo types so I will quote the woman working at the 7-11 instead: "They look like they paint their make-up on, they have those hats with wings like the kind you see on TV and they pay for coffee with 500 Kroner notes". I got a load of souvenirs that I had found unique and hadn't seen before. When I got back to the hostel Anja had some bad news. Her brother, whom had stayed behind in Germany with his wife and child, had been shot in the face on New Years Eve.

At the time she didn't have any details other than he was at a University hospital and the police had arrested 2 suspects. I was shocked by this and it really killed my good mood. I ended up going for a walk for a while. Stockholm is very pretty but its hard to enjoy it with other things clouding your mind.

In the evening we got some Chinese takeaway with desert. I ended up reading a book I had bought called "Nickel and Dimmed", it's about living below the poverty line with 2 jobs in America, scary thing is that those people make more than I do. The book reminded me of the times at Moxies. Moxies had a social life which distracted from the horrible reality of what was going on, this book was a microscope on what was going on and put me in a worse mood but I must say the book is very interesting, I've never read a paperback that fast in my life. Another thing it reminded me of is the amount of money Scandinavia has cost me, this place is extremely expensive, I can't bare to look at my bank account. At least I'll be in Canada for most of January so I won't have to worry about buying food or paying my half of the misc expenses that come up every day. I should have just enough left for the bills and rent though.


    Recent Posts