†††URSIFORM†††: CULTURE RAT

† upon being in stockholm, i've been able to expose myself to quite a bit of their native culture. being a female alone in a foreign city doesn't really allow for safe night activities like going out to bars. so instead, i opted for watching some movies in the warmth of my north face sleeping bag. this week i borrowed two swedish films from the hostel: fucking åmål and mammut. fucking åmål was my favorite. it's set in the swedish countryside and it's about two young high school girls that fall in love. it's a very sweet and unexpected story and the acting is brilliant. mammut was alright, it's about a successful new york couple with a young daughter and it's basically a movie about modern day globalization which i'm seriously tired of (it was sort of reminiscent of babel which i didn't really care for). i highly, highly recommend fucking åmål to anyone looking for a good movie to watch. i also love how foreigners will not even think twice about using "fuck" in their movie title.

† sweden has 2 great art museums. 1 is the national museet, and the other is the moderna museet. i had initially only planned to go to the moderna museet because thats just my cup of tea. but on the way there, i passed the national museet and saw that they were having a caravaggio exhibit. i was also pleasantly surprised at their collection of masters paintings. both museums are located on skeppsholmen which is an island south east of the downtown stockholm area (technically, national museet is on the main part but it was just across the bridge).

† after coming back from my museum frenzy, i had dinner with two german girls who are also staying in my room. we walked over to a very cute restaurant just north of our hostel. i had flounder. what i soon realized when the tab came was that sweden puts a 25% tax on your restaurant bill to cover the costs of healthcare and high wages of their employees. i have no qualms about paying for that but i am glad this was the only time i ate out at a sit down restaurant during my whole trip. and needless to say, the food was delicious and the atmosphere was lively.

† lastly, i actually did make it out to a bar last night. i met an american girl who is now my roommate in the hostel and her friends (another american, an australian, and a slovenian). we all decided to trekk out to gamla stan in search of a club/bar. we ended up at a place called cattelin which seemed to be comprised of local swedish kids around 18-20 years old (no doubt i felt old). i had fun hanging out w/ new people and i'm glad i got to experience stockholm nightlife at least once. best part of the club- played good house music all night. wooooo. here's a really shitty video.

† and here are some other photos of the scenery as i was walking to my destinations. i've also included a video that shows the panoramic view from the bridge going to skeppsholmen.