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Gustav Adolphs Torg (square) in Stockholm, with the Stockholm Opera house on the right.
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Birch trees in a forest near Västerås. Feels like looking into infinity. |
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Dala horse in Mora |
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The finish line for the Vasaloppet cross country ski race in Mora. It's the longest, oldest, and largest ski race in the world. |
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I was absolutely shocked when I saw this thing in Mora. It's a robotic lawn mower! Apparently they are somewhat common in Europe. |
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An old movie theater in Stockholm called the Röda Kvarn (Red Mill) that's tragically been converted into a clothing store. |
A night at the Opera - my first one! It was Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro at Stockholm's Opera House. The opera was in Italian, but luckily there were Swedish subtitles displayed on a sign above the stage", so I knew exactly what was going on of course. It was really difficult to take a good picture, so here's a little video that kind of shows the inside of the theater. Hopefully it works.
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Fried herring in Stockholm (with mashed potatoes, coleslaw, pickles, crispbread and Ramlösa). |
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View of Stockholm's Gamla Stan (Old Town), the royal palace and some boats. One of them is a steamship that was puffing away pretty loudly. |
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The cinema at the Swedish Film Institute - the film being shown was Nosferatu (a silent film from 1922). Not only was there live music (three musicians playing a number of different instruments), but one of the musicians was the Swedish composer Matti Bye, who's written a number of compositions for silent films, and had written a new score just for this screening. It was an amazing show! |
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A nice park on Djurgården island in Stockholm. My question is, why are there leaves on the ground in the middle of August?? |
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Bust of actor Max von Sydow in Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theater |
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Lunch at Gamla Uppsala - meatball and beet salad sandwich, washed down with some pretty nasty mead (alcohol made from fermented honey). |
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Burial mounds at Gamla Uppsala that date from around the 5th century. There are three large burial mounds and then a number of smaller ones. No one really knows who was buried here, but they were probably royalty of some kind. |
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Map of Mora - there is actually a part of the town called "Canada." As far as I could tell, "Canada" was either a residential area, or the trees behind the residential area. |
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Bach on a wall in Stockholm's Gamla Stan |
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The GB Glace clown has a wife! |
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Old movie theater built in 1919 in Uppsala. It's been restored to exactly how it was originally, other than the seats. Ingmar Bergman went to this cinema as a kid, and on the right you can see some of his movie posters. |
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Fika - the tradition in Sweden of drinking coffee and eating something sweet, often a kanelbulle (cinnamon bun). This kanelbulle was from a cafe in Uppsala and was by far the best one I had in Sweden. |
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Gamla Stan in Västerås - a very well preserved area with lots of old, wooden, colourful houses and winding streets. |
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Pirate ship docked at Västerås harbour |
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Cute, modern house in a pretty suburb in Västerås |
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Rune stone, burial mound and stone ships at Anundshög |
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Self portrait taken from on top of a garbage bin. I'm in front of Skattungbyn church (featured in the Ingmar Bergman film Winter Light). It's hard to tell, but the church is located at the top of a large hill, and there's a great view down into the valley. |
There was a cultural festival going on in Stockholm, with lots of free concerts from all different genres. This is a clip of the opera orchestra playing a piece from Bizet's Carmen.
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Sunset at Rättvik. The wooden pier there is over 600 meters long, and goes out to a very small island, which is the clump of trees on the right. |
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At my Rättvik hostel, drinking a local beer brewed in Mora |