What a week! I fall short of finding any word to adequately describe this past week in Sweden, so I will do my best to explain.
The obvious highlight of the week was the Arrival of my younger (but not little) brother Drew! After braving the trans-Atlantic flight with no cell phone and no prior solo international travel experience, we managed to meet up without any hiccups at Arlanda Airport this past Saturday. It never ceases to amaze me how powerful family can be! As great as a time as I have been having in Stockholm, it seems that everything really seems to click when you are in the company of your family!
As a member of the Hawkins' family, that isn't always the easiest thing to accomplish. While always close in heart, our geography doesn't seem to match up! Right now, My sister Ashley is overseas with my brother-in-law Matt, and my sister Brittany is running an educational center in Boise, Idaho while raising the two cutest kids to ever grace the planet Earth. Mom and Dad are hard to pinpoint to one location. Always up for travel and never short on spontaneity, their fervor for seeing relatives and experiencing no things is rivaled only by their love and passion for their children. Drewbob has been based in Boulder finishing up school but decided to sacrifice a week of babes in some undisclosed tropical locale to come hang out with me in Sweden. While I haven't laughed this hard in quite some time, we are actually managing to get some serious sigh-seeing done as well!
After Drew arrived on Saturday, we took the Arlanda Express into town and hopped on the Subway as fast as we could. I had told Drew that we had to hurry, but I did not tell him that we were rushing to beat the clock in order to get to the Sold-Out Rise Against Concert in time for optimum show experience. Neither of us had ever seen Rise Against play a show outside of warped tour, and they didn't disappoint. Playing inside a concert house at the internationally-renowned Globe Arena (it is the largest spherical structure in the world), between 8 and 9 thousand people sang, laughed, and cried their way through such hits as Prayer of the Refugee, Give it All, and Swing Life Away. After spending the entirety of the opening sets working our way to the front and center of the stage, we were greeted with a tidal wave of people smashing you into the stage when the concert began. I have been at crazy, highly populated concerts before, but nothing came close to the combination of a bunch of crazy Scandinavians jumping, fist-pumping, and rump-to-rump romping that this crowd pulled off! At first it was a bit surprising, but once you got used to the lack of air, abundance of sweat, and random elbows to the face that these close quarters provided, it wasn't so bad. The band played a great show, and masterfully mixed in old hits with the new favorites. It was nothing short of awesome, and having my brother there for the whole experience made it even more memorable.
The next day Drew and I had to wake up at the crack of dawn in order to get started with another exciting day. We ran to the Subway and hopped on a train to the exact location of the concert the evening prior. However, this time we arrived not just as fans, but as Security. The Swedish National Bandy Finale was to be played in Uppsala Sunday afternoon, and several members of my Stockholm Mean Machines squad were scheduled to work the event. After trying to navigate several Swedish Websites to find tickets, I decided that working Security and getting in for free would be much better than trying to scalp tickets from the already sold out event. For those of you who don't know what "Bandy" is, it is basically soccer played with hockey equipment. While it irks any quarterback to see a football field covered completely in ice (as it was, literally), the game was extremely exciting and provided lots of good action throughout the match. Watching 20,000 fans screaming and chanting outdoors to a hockey-like game was very impressive. To me, the game atmosphere seemed very similar to how American's perceive European Soccer, but with more hitting and speed and good ole futbol. Maybe it is that desire to take something the English do and make it more violent and intense that separates the Swedes from the rest of Europe. The Vikings were great warriors, as were the British, but while the red-coats were mending their suits and bowing to their majesty, the Vikings were cutting-off heads, kicking butt and taking names. Heck, their lifestyle was so exciting that they didn't bother to tell anyone about their discovery of North America. When Christopher Columbus discovered North America, he freaked out, but that is because he had been having tea and strumpets for most of his life while he illustrated maps. The Vikings were out burning down villages and having a party wherever and whenever they wanted. Maybe that is not exactly the point I am trying to make about Bandy, but you get the idea! The National Championship match between Bollnas and SAIK was awesome, coming right down to the wire and ending in sudden-death overtime in favor of SAIK. Drew and I had great seats, as we appointed ourselves the Aisle-patrol in the VIP section right at midfield (err....rink?). While others were checking tickets and settling down hooligans in the other parts of the stadium, the Hawkins' boys made sure no one spilled their coffee or dropped their scarves while we enjoyed a classic Swedish championship game. Sorry to everyone else who reads this and was at that game, we did our best but couldn't travel to Uppsala and NOT see the game when Drew was here. Plus, have you ever seen a Swede spill their coffee? Yea, its hectic, and they needed us there....
After a long day of Bandy, Drew and I grabbed some Kebab with Jonathan Westny at Palmyra, a nice little hole-in-the-wall joint near Gullmarsplan (south of Sodermalm) that serves up tons and tons of delicious middle-eastern meat for a low price. I think I may have wrote about Martin Sohlberg's infatuation with it before, but it is well-deserved. Drew needed to feast after the long day...
Monday provided Drew's first real taste of the city, as our exploits the first two days didn't allow us much time near downtown. We saw lots of cool areas, including the shopping center near T-central, the Castle in Gamla Stan, and the beautiful architecture on the seafront to Djugarden. The highlight of the day was seeing the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is a HUGE old Swedish Warship that sank in the waters offshore of Stockholm in the early 1600s. I really wish I could describe it to you, but it is absolutely impossible to effectively convey. It is so historic, majestic, and just impressive in every way. When you walk in, it is hard to say anything but "WOW". We really enjoyed our time there. Dennis Stockblom had met up with us for the journey, and was kinda enough to translate an old historical documentary that told the story of the Vasa. Its creation, its short maiden voyage, all the way up to its resurrection in 1961. If any of you come visit, I promise we will go there. It is just so impressive to see a sea vessel of that kind, with that history, up close in person. It is very similar to the titanic in my eyes, but closer to the hearts of Swedes, and made of wood, not steel (or whatever Leo DiCaprio's massive boat was composed of). Imagine a Catholic Person seeing Saint Peter's Basilica for the first time. That is pretty much how a Pirate would feel when he saw the Vasa. Since I am equal parts Catholic and Pirate, I was equally blown away.
We spent quite a bit of time there, and probably wouldn't have left if it weren't for the security guards urging us to exit as their working hours had come to a conclusion. We ended the night with a nice dinner and waffles w/ whipped cream and strawberries for dessert(Thanks Felicia and Dennis!). I woke up this morning because I felt the need to write, and update my friends and family back home. Drew and I didn't have to share my twin bed thanks to the donation of Dennis' blow-up mattress. Yet, as I sit here and he continues to sleep, his bed looks more like a Drewbob Burrito than a bed haha...I guess I will have to sleep on that tonight...
Thank you all for reading, and I will try to keep you updated :)
Hawkins/Hokansons - you are awesome!!
Friends back home - I miss you all!
Hej Da!!
P.S. I just got a huge craving for meatballs....IKEA anyone??
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