Stockholm June 2015

One of the fringe benefits of watching obscure football matches all over the world, is that you inevitably end up seeing a country and its people as they are, not as the tourist guides try to present it. Over the last 9 years Stockholm has signposted many significant times in my life; I jump on plane and 2 hours later there it is, welcoming me back. But until now I’d failed to take the short-cut and visit all the touristy bits.

So I took 3 days and deliberately sought out the obvious, but here’s the thing, everywhere I went the guides and people in the ticket booths kept giving me a knowing grin. I don’t think they thought I was a local, why would I be?  I don’t speak Swedish, so maybe they saw how comfortable I was in their city, and enjoyed the moment as much as I was.

Of course the real Sweden soon found its way into my consciousness, the coffee at the bay with friends from Nacka, and the beer with a journalist I know from a locals guide to Oxford I helped him with, courtesy of a beery night in the Turf Tavern.

Yes time after time I return to Stockholm, and we welcome each other back, and the adventures begin, and for that Tack Stockholm.