Stockholm, October 2008

Saturday morning, around 8 or 9 am. Many bikes, no people. Dozens and dozens of bikes strewn about the sidewalks, many lying on their sides. Some were unlocked. Must be apartments above the businesses that front the street.

If you are a tourism and make a meal out of stuff you buy at the grocery store, this is called self catering.

Grocery stores have entire sections devoted to crispbread.

Saw dogs on trains and in the subway. Weird.

In the main train/subway station, there was a tennis court, with a match going on during rush hour. I think it was a promo for a tournament.

Rush hour at train/subway station was crazy busy. Almost got bowled over.

The bike I used belonged to the Hotel Globen. It was parked under a staircase in the lobby. Because the tires were soft, I walked it past the Gove arena and over the bridge to Sodermalm. I was looking for a place to get air in my tires. They mentioned a green box, and I figured it must be part of a service station. I followed directions but could not find it. Turned out the green box was maybe the size of a two-drawer filing cabinet. The valve on the tire was different. As it was our first morning in Sweden, I was not sure about asking for help in English. I let another cyclist go ahead of me, so I could watch how he did it. When I heard him swear...in English...I asked for help and got it.

Saw a pigeon-sized black-and-white bird, but slim like a Swede. Turned out there were plenty of them...a Swedish crow?

Pregame entertainment for Sens-Pens was a heavy metal band. One of their songs was: We don't celebrate Sundays.

Once inside the arena, you could have been in any NHL rink. Many of the fans were Canadians or Americans, wearing Pens or Sens jerseys. All the announcements were in English, and the ice surface was NHL size -- tiny. Chris and I were shown and mentioned on the CBC broadcast. It was fun, but I think it would have been more interesting to see a Swedish Elite League game. The media certainly covered the Swedish league games more extensively than the NHL game.

The second Sens-Pens game was probably more fun. Chris and Connie sat in plum centre-ice seats. their immediate neighbours were Mario Lemieux, Eugene Melnyk and Gary Bettman. After the game started, I bought a ticket from a scalper for much less than face value.