Stockholm - 31st August 2005

[squirmelia]

Stockholm's Gamla Stan district was lined with cobbled streets, each laden with its own history and style- the road of boxed ears haunted by brawling poets, the narrow corridor/portal painted orange, the subversives and black-robed monks, the rune stone and cannon protecting street corners, liquor wars traipsing onwards from the gargoyled main square.

Pippi Longstocking (Långstrump) grinned at me from every shop window, but I never did conclude why giant inflated orange plaits stuck out from the top of a high-rise building, as if Pippi was trapped inside.

In the park outside the palace, needles were strewn around ornate fountains, bags of meths were hanging from bushes and it seemed somehow fitting, that it would be only then that it could be seen by those that were there, outside, as a real palace.

Some of the youth hostels in Stockholm are shaped from boats and former prisons, but the one I stayed in mainly seemed to contain schoolgirls who would excitedly run down the corridors during the evenings. I sipped pear cider in the bar, which I was quite wrong in expecting it to taste like the strong British kind of perry. Cactus/lime xider also seemed to not resemble normal cider, and I suspect neither did the other flavours - mandarin/chilli, pine/citrus, wasabi/lemon.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_evening_rain_/]

Interesting flavors! Where did you find it? Don't know when I'll get around to going to Stockholm, though.
My sister used to live near a place that served blueberry cider and I'm determined to taste that someday.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

The Xider seemed to be sold in quite a lot of bars and the full range was available in the Systembolaget (state owned off-licences). It seemed more like an alcopop than cider though really! Blueberry cider definitely sounds good - there also seems to be cloudberry cider (http://www.gellivarecider.se/eng/produkter.asp).