DIARY OF A ONE-DAY TOURIST

Prologue

Finally, Stockholm, mid-morning, after almost 2 hours by taxi and bus from Ranas Slott.

Ritual check-in, then the the churches of Gamla Stan.

The next day...

6:30 am [Street Shooting]

...I took the streets of Gamla Stan, empty and cold at that hour but exuding with a soft and almost sublime early morning light.

Perfect for street photography.

Marten Trotzigs Grand [Alley of Marten Trotzigs] at 90 centimeters wide is the narrowest street in all Stockholm and the Prastgatan [The Priest's Street] reputed as the most beautiful street of Gamla Stan.

8:30 am [The Royal Palace]

High walls rising from a protective moat and tall towers crowned by fluttering triangular flags where pretty princesses wait to be rescued. 

That's the castle I know from those fairy tale books. 

So I was quite disappointed with the box-type architecture of Stockholm's Royal Palace [a glorified and ornate SM Mall?].

A first impression, the pompous spectacle of the changing of the guards as the sole connection to royalty.    

The Inner Courtyard?

It's almost an American prison from a Discovery Channel documentary where inmates exercise, socialize, and do their stabbing frenzies.

But inside the Royal Apartments [NOTE: photography not allowed], royalty hit me: 600 cavernous rooms, the State Hall and its dominating silver throne [circa 1650], the Apartments of the Orders of Chivalry and its array of royal medals and decorations, the Council Chambers where Nobel Prize winners were feted and dined, several State Bedchambers where kings and queens slept, the White Sea Room and its classical ceiling paintings of voluptuous bra-less women, the phallic symbols of the Pillar Room, and regally furnished drawing and study rooms.

In the Treasury below is a display of crowns, swords, orbs, and scepters [might have been a medieval dungeon once].

Opposite is the Royal Chapel [also off limits to camera], circa 1754, Christ in Gethsemane as its altar centerpiece.

The Tre Kronor Museum tells the palace's beginnings as a defensive fortification [10th century], its evolution into a castle [13th century], and the building of the present structure to replace the gutted old castle [17th century].

Adjacent is Gustav III's Museum of Antiquities where various Roman artifacts, perhaps plundered loots of war, are on display.

11:00 am [Riksdagshuset, Riddarhuset, and Bondeska Palatset]

Going back to the hotel, I gawked a little at the recently built Riksdagshuset [Parliament Building, circa 1905], ornate but box-type like the palace...

...inspected the Riddarhuset [House of the Nobility], a 17th century Baroque house, again ornate but box type, said to be one of Stockholm's most beautiful structures where noblemen of yore met and plotted...   

...and quickly shot the Bondeska Palatset [Bonde Palace], also 17th century, once the residence of a Lord High Treasurer and now seat of the Swedish Supreme Court.

1:00 pm [Stortorget]

I checked out and dragged my suitcase-in-wheels to the heart of Gamla Stan in Stortorget [Great Square]. 

In the square center is an old well with the name   Stortorgsbrunnen --- the city center from where all distances are measured [their Luneta].

Bordering the square is Borshuset, 18th century, once a stock exchange building, and presently the Nobel Museum where the Swedish Academy announces the Nobel Prize for Literature. 

And there I lunched on the much touted Nobel ice cream.

Epilogue

I walked to the Central Station from Stortorget.

There I took the Arlanda Express Train to the airport.

I'm going home...

THE CHURCHES OF GAMLA STAN

Finally, Gamla Stan --- that cobblestoned island bursting with an array of well-preserved medieval buildings that is Stockholm's heart and soul.

And an old town means old churches.

Quite old, like the 12th century Great Church which is also the Stockholm Cathedral --- the Swedish royalty's preferred  house of worship --- home to a massive sculpture of St. George slaying the dragon, a rather huge candlstick, a silver-plated main altar, and a collection of interesting church paintings.

Nearby, a needle of a spire easily gave away the German Church, unique for its two massive pillars in the middle that effectively blocked a view of the Baroque altar from what was once the main entrance, the interior almost drowning in archaic church art like the lavish King's Gallery for a Swedish queen of German descent, a replica of the more-than-ornate church organ, the alabaster-and-ebony pulpit, and the bible as illustrated in at least 119 paintings that hover like butterflies around what space is left inside.

And finally, the Riddarholmen Church which is a bridge away from the center of Gam Stan, one of Stockholm's oldest structures and its only surviving medieval abbey, perhaps too old that it became the preferred burial ground of kings and queens whose royal coffins today served as the church's main tourist draw.

The end of the day found me contemplating a blisterred toe and numbing legs along the Riddarfjarden while trying to chase away creeping hunger and thirst with my stash of Marlboro Lights.

I was both sore and happy.

As I made way back up a slope, the spires of the three churches slowly unfolded like striptease show, an encore for an amazing day walking the cobbled streets and shooting the ancient churches of Gamla Stan... 

BEYOND THE CASTLE

We came to Sweden to work.

Only two months is left before parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meet in Warsaw to try to deliver the Doha mandate on addressing loss and damage due to the adverse effect of climate change.

And we have to catch up on the lost session in Bonn [no thanks to Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia].

It's amazing how 2 days of informal talks can accomplish compared to 2 weeks of formal negotiations.

I think we did well in Sweden.

It was thus with happy feet and a good night sleep that I went out of the castle gates.

The small town was embraced by fog and still sleeping.

I was hoping to get a church.

But perhaps, some other time.

Maybe further out the gates.

In Stockholm. 

In an ancient place called Gamla Stan...

MAD HOUSE

DAY 1 DINNER CONVERSATION

JAMAICA: Is that a human head or what? These murals sure are weird.

ST. LUCIA: Just so you know, this was once a mental institution.

ARGENTINA: Really? Now that might explain those strange drawings.

PHILIPPINES: So this is was an old castle then a mad house. In my country, this will qualify the place as haunted.

DAY 2 DINNER CONVERSATION

NORWAY: Is that a nude figure bleeding a headless goose?  

SWEDEN: My theory is, those are the work of one of the crazy people who was interred here.  

UNITED KINGDOM: Yeah?

PHILIPPINES: Wow, there must be crazy spirits dining with us now.

SINGAPORE: [Nods and continued conversing with UK].

DAY 3 DINNER CONVERSATION

AUSTRIA: You really eat fish head?

GRENADA: Yeah, and the eyes are the best part. It helps you become smarter.

JAPAN: Sometimes we deep fry the fish too and eat everything.

PHILIPPINES: If we have visitors, we usually use a spoon to scoop the eyes out. During normal days, we just suck the eyes from the head.

MORNING OF DAY 2

ST. LUCIA and JAMAICA: How are the spirits? Did they come visit you?

PHILIPPINES: I was so tired and sleepy I did not actually care if they slept in my room.

[Laughter].

MORNING OF DAY 3

POLAND: [Said "Hi!" while jogging in the morning drizzle].

NORWAY; [Did a clock beating sprint before slowing down and saying "Hi" too].

PHILIPPINES: [Cursed the rain. Before that, a deer crossed his path while he was walking from the lake. The deer stopped briefly and gave him a mean look. Must be one of those crazy spirits].

MORNING OF DAY 4

GHANA: You are early. Did you go for a walk?

TANZANIA: [Looks at Philippines while sipping her coffee].

KENYA: [Cracks his soft boiled egg].

PHILIPPINES: I went out to take some photos. I was hoping to capture at least one the crazy spirits here.

[In the afternoon of DAY 2, Sweden's Minister of Environment and Ambassador for Climate Change came to toast us. She did not speak about the odd paintings in the dining hall. The semi-human painted figures seemed not to care]. 

IN SEARCH FOR THE SWEDISH EROTICA

But before that was a pleasant surprise.

Air China does not sell comfort seats!

These are available on a first-come first-serve basis.

And I completely understood why while boarding the connecting flight from Beijing to Stockholm when I was kindly asked by a travelling Chinese family of three if I can exchange seats so they can be together which I did not mind since I was moved within the same comfort seat area, and then again by the flight steward in behalf of a Chinese couple which got me an upgrade to a semi-business class seat.

I did not mind that at all, except that I have to do with a paper plate of rice and chicken drowning in mushroom sauce washed down with an anemic blend of cold milk tea in Beijing International's Terminal 32 for lunch because I can't find any noodle restaurant around.

But I guess the two churches during the taxi ride from Stockholm's Arlanda Airport to Ranas erased that and raised my expectations on more churches to come although since this is Sweden, I have low hopes of having a noodle experience but was eagerly anticipating an encounter with pickled herring.

What I was not prepared was the hormone shot I got from Ranas Slott [not slut]. 

Everything inside me just boiled, balls and all, but not in a sexual way.

I have found my Swedish Erotica and it is an 18th-century castle where I will be lodging for the next 3 days.  

I am in Sweden and I am king!