Some things I saw while running in Stockholm

Entrance to the old town

Streets were pretty empty at 6am

Fast moving water

At the national theatre

Swans! Cygnets!

I thought you'd be taller

"I was expecting everyone to be seven foot tall and blond," I said. "I still feel pretty tall."
"No, we're just like anybody else." Our host, Axl, was blond but wasn't a giant. He was teaching us how to make kroppkakor and telling us about life in Stockholm.

Potato dumplings with bacon and onion drizzled with melted butter and a lindenberry sauce. Doesn't count unless you cook it yourself.

Earlier that day he had sent me to his favourite cafe in Stockholm, a few blocks from the hostel. I asked the mustachioed barista if he knew what a flat white was.
"Of course," he said. "We were not born yesterday." One of their staff was from Sydney, he told me, and flat white training had become mandatory. When he brought it to my table he boasted, "That one is so flat."

Better than passable, it was really good coffee.

With a coffee and a sandwich to fight jetlag, I explored central Stockholm, following the mall until I reached a huge building with guards. It took a few minutes to find the signs; I had found the royal palace.

Just guarding the crap out of it

In a way Stockholm reminded me of Sydney; a city designed with the landscape in mind. It's built across a number of islands in the mouth of  Lake Mälaren and I walked along the water's edge, crossing any bridge I came to.

There are many boats in Stockholm. Here's one.

Not wanting to be late for dinner, I strolled back through the streets towards the city center. As I went I passed these guys.

It took me a couple of goes to see that their story was told around the statue.

The kroppkakor were good, the linden berries were fresh and tart and set off the potato well. I let the others tell me about what they had seen and done so far in Stockholm to get a sense of what I should do the next day. One thing kept coming up.

You've got to see the Vasa.

A very West Wing day.

With the Liar tucked safely in bed, the rest of us got up early to tour the Library of Congress.  I had been for a run the previous evening, which let me have a bit of a look at the mall and the river.  This was the first real exploration of the city.

Even the nice buildings in Washington look sort of fake.

The walk down took about twenty minutes; we were staying right in the middle of downtown.

National Archives

Some dork walking up to a fountain.

With only one major war having been fought on US soil, there was a level of predictability to the statues around D.C.

General Winfield Scott Hancock

General George Meade (and friends)

As much as I disparage the 'fake' nature of the buildings in D.C. they were certainly very impressive.

The Capitol

I don't know what I expected the Library to be.  It was an amazing building.

The Library of Congress

The decorating is pretty crazy.

The total lack of books, we were told, was part of the design. The opening rooms of the building are designed to welcome people, surrounding them with images and names and phrases of learning and inspiration.

Look! Up on the ceiling!

"Too low they build who build beneath the stars."

After the tour we went for a walk up and down the mall.  The Smithsonian dominates, a splash of red in the field of white.

Joseph Henry

The most impressive Department of Agriculture I've seen.

Squirrel! And he has a nut!

It's easy to find the monuments people know best.  They're not subtly designed.

The Washington Monument isn't hard to spot.

Nor is the Lincoln Monument.

Oh, that's what the pool is for.

The Lincoln monument was my favourite, I don't know that pictures can do it justice.

What a great statue.  It's so big!

On our way back we stopped for some photos of the White House.  People around us were making a fuss about seeing Michelle, but we didn't see anyone.

Is this the White House?

Just a few blocks from where we were staying, we found the Talk's favourite diner.  I don't know why he made such a fuss about Ollie's Trolley, when the Skeptic didn't care at all.

Famous for its Ollie Burgers and Ollie Fries.

That night we went to dinner in Georgetown with a couple of cool people we had met in the hostel.  I read the description of an item on the menu (a Wisconsin burger) which stated it was a burger between two grilled cheese sandwiches.  I checked with the waitress, and she confirmed my suspicions. One of our new friends overheard my conversation and said, "Shut up! You have to order that."

So I did.

Oh yeah, I ate it.

Afterwards we went to Capitol Brewing and had a scotch, and a few beers, and a "Monumental brownie."

I ate some of it.

The night was a total victory for Washington D.C.  We were sad to be leaving in the morning.

The US healthcare system is in chronic need of reform.

This was not the best day of the trip.  The Liar got up and announced that he had to see a doctor, because he was getting worse, not better.  He headed off for George Washington University Hospital, while the rest of us had a wander around downtown Washington.

As the weather cleared up, Washington became appealing.

Soon afterwards he sent me a text saying, "I have HIV or mono." I jumped the next bus to the hospital and went to see if he was okay.  We waited another hour for the results to come back.  He said that the guy admitted before him had been stabbed in the arm, that the woman across the hall (who spent twenty minutes screaming) had lost the end of her finger.

The Liar having a 'little drink.'

The results came back positive for mono.  "You know what mono is, right?" I asked.  "Glandular fever."  He hadn't known, and he wore an expression of relief.

"Glandular fever," his doctor said, "I'll have to remember that."  She gave him a list of stuff he couldn't do; "No paracetamol, no drinking, no contact sports for at least a month."

"It's been twenty-three years," I told her, "another month won't hurt."

He had to finish the saline in his bags, so we waited another hour or so for that.  One of the hospital research assistants fainted next to me while we were waiting.  The Liar was checked out just as she was admitted.

Aleksander Pushkin

We walked through the GWU campus to find a pharmacist, where we learned it takes several hours to fill a prescription in the States.  So I took the Liar back to the hostel for a nap.

Shipping up.

The day we used to explore Boston was soaking wet, and humid.

Boston is a city of concrete and stone.

The most 'historic' city in the USA, we didn't have to work hard to find interesting things in Boston.  Just wandering down the street took us past a fascinating cemetery.

Samuel Adams is kind of a big deal in Boston.

Even in death, John Hancock suffers from small man syndrome.

Paul Revere's stone was surrounded by tourists.

Looking for nuts? Or something more sinister?

And just past that was the Boston Common.  From there we turned back and headed to Quincy.

Boston Common

Every street we went down was full of students.

The business district was intimidating.

Quincy Market, just over the road from...

Faneuil Hall, at the other end of which stands...

Samuel Adams...

And this guy.

Boston City Hall is an achievement of brutalism.

That evening the Skeptic opted to stay in the hostel to sleep off his headcold, while the rest of us walked to Harvard to meet up with the Professor, who took us out for burritos and beers on campus.  We told him how much we were enjoying watching American Football.  "As much football as you want to watch," he told us, "that's how much is on."

Later we headed to a bar next to a bowling alley, where we watched the replay of the AFL final with the Boston Demons AFL club.

Harvard was quite pretty at night.

On the ride from the campus to the bar, I accused the Professor of racism when he made fun of the Boston accent.  "I don't think that's racist," he told me.  "Bostonians of all races have the same ridiculous accent."
We got home so late it was early, dissatisfied with the game, but happy with the amount of beer we had consumed.