After 24 hours of being in Stockholm I have noticed several small things that make it quite different from Vancouver. The traffic light rotation is not in the same sequence as I’m used to so it’s a bit of a guessing game when crossing the street. I could always just go when the little green guy lights up, and stay when his red counterpart is visible, but what fun would that be? Secondly, 7/11 is EVERYWHERE. It is in more places than Starbucks is on Robson St. I have yet to see a Starbucks in my short time here, but there is a chain called Wayne’s Coffee that looks suspiciously like it came from Seattle. The next observation may not be a difference but after spending a week in Estonia I feel as if I’m currently bleeding money. I realize Van City is on the list of most expensive places to live in the world but there is something in the conversion rate that makes Stockholm seem worse. I’ll give you an example using a six pack of beer (0.5L cans). In Canada we would pay somewhere in the neighbourhood of $12 for this item. In Sweden I just spent 71 Swedish Krona (currently $10.65 CAD) to bring home a sampling of the country’s finest brews. It just hurts to pay 71 of something! The conversion rate also makes it difficult to figure out what I’m truly paying for things. Time for a quick math lesson, so feel free to skip ahead. My previous two stops both used the Euro. 1 Euro is equal to approximately 1 and a third Canadian dollars. I could just multiple the price by 1 and 1/3 and have a rough idea what an items value was. Currently 1 Swedish Krona is worth about 15 cents or alternatively 1 Canadian dollar is worth 6.67 Krona. Neither of those numbers lend themselves to simple calculations so for now I’ll rely on my handy iPod app to do that for me.
Two quick similaries.
1. Vancouver is 16 degrees and raining vs Stockholm is 12 degrees and raining
2. Vancouver likes hockey vs Stockholm had hockey on TV at the restaurant
The weather for the rest of the week is forecasted to be much nicer than today so I have planned my walks and other outdoor travels for then. Today has been a day of errands and getting settled in. My next project is to actually buy a ticket to the AIK vs Frolunda hockey game on Saturday night. My two previous attempts have failed as the ticket site is in Swedish and doesn’t translate properly. If this next attempt fails it means I’ll be forced to make friends with a Swedish person, and you can bet she’ll be blond with blue eyes ;)
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