A few things you need to know about Stockholm (please excuse all the sweeping generalizations):

A. People ask foreigners ALL the time, ‘why have they come to Stockholm?’ Like they are amazed that you have come to their tiny little town in the middle of nowhere.

B. There aren’t many ugly people in this city. And maybe even less Asian and Black people.

C. No matter what language you speak, there is always one kid at every party who gets super drunk and starts acting inappropriately. Thankfully, it was not me. This time.

D. I am beginning to think that there are no constants in Stockholm. You can ask someone a simple question here like “How much does a taxi cost to go to the airport?” And you could really get up to like 10 different answers to this question. EXAMPLE: “Hey my Swedish friend Anna, how old do you have to be to drink in Stockholm.” She looks perplexed, not cause her English is bad or cause I misspoke, but only cause there are only answers like this… “Well, you can drink at 16 but bars make up their own rules like, guys can be 25 and girls 21 sometimes, depending on what bar you go to.” Wha? Huh?

ANOTHER EXAMPLE “Hey what time do bars close in Stockholm?” … Another confused look… “Well, some bars close at 1 and then some go to like 5am and some are in between.” What? HUH? Aren’t there any rules to this city besides looking pretty and being super overly hospitable?

This city is filled with paradoxes (paradoxi?) I am more and more convinced that no one knows anything for sure here. Don’t come looking for answers in Sweden, all you’ll get are more questions.

E. The Swedish will put shrimp in absolutely anything. I swear to your Jesus, that my friend Chris, had a wrap that had A HOT DOG, MASHED POTATOES and SHRIMP SALAD IN IT! All at once. No joke.

F. One of these two statements are true. 1. It is 70 degrees in Stockholm 2. The sky ran out of rain for New York City.

G. I can currently see into 5 apartments from this balcony. These are not shy people.

H. This city is expensive. And I’m not talking ‘New York’ expensive, I am talking like ‘Dubai’ expensive. Like you can’t find beers here for like less than 8 dollars.

I. After writing these, I have realized that I have done almost nothing Swedish since I have been here. Wait, does drinking Swedish beer count as doing something cultural?

J. Buying Viking memorabilia is comparable to buying a I LOVE NY shirt. What sort of society scoffs at tourists buying swords? Tell me, what sort of society?

K. Just thought of another example of questions that can’t be answered, also strangely enough involving alcohol. “Hey, Is this the only place in the city where you can buy alcohol?” Hmmm, “well, you can only buy from this type of grocery store unless you buy it at a bodega unless you want beer with more than 2.5 alcohol then you have to buy from this store only between 10 and 2pm on most weekdays unless you buy it somewhere else.” I quit.

L. What’s the chances of going to a party in Stockholm, thrown by a friend and there being about 30 people total in the place and out of the 10 girls being there, 2 of them were from Texas. Really, what’s the chances??

M. I have only heard Peter Bjorn and John once. Strangely enough it’s was not playing in the streets when I arrived.

Well, this has been fun, let’s do it again, in let’s say, three days. See you then? Ill have pictures too.