Europe 25: Stockholm, Day 6

On our last full day in Sweden we had braseola at breakfast in addition to the usual cheeses and meats and we spent some time getting boarding passes for our flights. You have to do that – the boarding passes, not the braseola. It would be nice if the braseola was required as well but it is prohibitively expensive here in the US so I suppose I’ll just have to go back to Lucca so I can buy more there. It is a burden I must bear, my good citizen. No need to thank me.

The plan for the day was that Kim and I would go back to Gamla Stan, where we had a couple of specific things that we wanted to do, and Lauren would head to the local gym for a bit and then join us later. Mats had to stay home to deal with some issues at a camp he is on the board for, and Sara and Frieda had plans of their own. In the end, though, it was just Kim and me, as Lauren’s eSim card had some troubles that very much needed to be sorted before we got on our respective planes so after her gym time she spent most of the day getting that resolved (with occasional input from us). It all worked out, but it would have been nice to spend the time with her since she was heading out on her own adventure once she left Sweden and it would be a while before we saw her next. So it goes.

We took the 41 train from Huddinge into Stockholm and walked from there into Gamla Stan. It was a grey, chilly day whose high temperature was only 13C/56F – perfect summer weather as far as I was concerned – and the city was a lovely sight as we made our way across the bridge and into the old town.

Our goal was the Nobel Prize Museum, which is exactly what it sounds like – a museum dedicated to the winners of the Nobel Prize, an award given annually by the Swedish Academy which is located right around the corner. Kim is a scientist, after all, and the Nobel Prize Museum was a fixed point for her – we were going to go to this before we left and that was all there was to it. Since it sounded interesting to me as well I was happy to go along.

The museum is right on the Stortorget, just across the plaza from the house with the cannonball and the other house with the white blocks in it. It’s not actually that big of a place – there’s a fairly large entry way that has some exhibits lining the edges and, off to the right, a small movie theater showing short films about various winners on a continuous loop and beyond that a children’s exhibit. Straight ahead from the entryway there’s a big main room with more exhibits. Overhead is a track full of banners showing photographs and names of past winners, and these slowly migrate around like plastic-wrapped dresses on an old-fashioned dry-cleaner’s hanger system. We were there for maybe an hour and a half and we pretty much saw everything there was to see about the place.

On the right as you walk in there’s a giant replica of the Nobel Prize medal hanging on the wall, and you can take selfies there if you want. Of course we did that. Why on earth would we not?

We watched a couple of the short movies and explored the children’s section before heading back to the main exhibit hall where we wandered around looking at the various displays.

One of the more fascinating things about the place is that they usually manage to get winners to donate something personal to display. It’s interesting to see what they choose – everything from t-shirts to signed chairs from the Nobel banquet that they hold every year.

I will admit that this particular donation saddened me a little bit. This is almost exactly the calculator that I use every day – a bit newer actually, since mine is an 11C rather than the 15C. My grandparents gave me mine as a gift on the Christmas before I went off to college, back when I still thought I was going to be a math major (or perhaps a physics major – an idea that did not survive AP Physics), and it has been working faithfully now for over 40 years. When I think about it that way it shouldn’t surprise me that the newer model is in a museum now, but still. It was a bit of a shock. The days crawl, but the years fly.

One of my favorite displays was this one. I’m honestly not even sure what it was for, but in some sense that’s kind of irrelevant when you find yourself confronted with a display like this. You just have to soak it in and be glad you’re there to see it.

They funnel you through the gift shop when you leave, as all good museums do – you have to keep the lights on somehow, after all – and while I didn’t buy this on the grounds that I would have no room for it in my carryon, I did like the quote from a Nobel Prize winner.

By this point it was getting on lunchtime and we found our way to the Jerusalem Kebab and Café on one of the little side streets of Gamla Stan. It was really tasty, and very filling. I haven’t had a kebab since I got back to Wisconsin, and I have to say I miss it.

From there we walked around a bit. We passed by this place, which I remember as one of the first places we’d ever gone out to eat in Sweden back in 2004 when the kids were very young and so were we all.

They did not serve moose stew. That was a delicacy left to another place.

We found our way into a couple of bookstores, including one dedicated entirely to science fiction and fantasy books – a favorite place that we try to visit whenever we are there. It’s where Kim bought the new Game of Thrones book when we were there in 2012, and no subsequent volume has been published since. The European edition (in English, thankfully) was printed on slightly nicer paper than the American edition which meant that it was about half again thicker, and that was fun getting home as I recall. It’s still on my bookshelf, patiently waiting for the next one in the series.

We also just sort of wandered around seeing what there was to see in general.

Kim’s other mission on this day was to find a little ceramic house to go with the ones we already had at home. Ten years ago this would have been simple, but here in 2025 it was a lost cause. Most of the souvenir shops in Gamla Stan are either owned by the same people (we noticed several that had the same cashiers working there) or must get their supplies from the same places, because everything we looked at along these lines was the wrong scale, either far too big or far too small. We stopped at a lot of different places but never did find what Kim was looking for.

Eventually we found ourselves sitting on a bench at the top of the stairs that lead down to the plaza where you can go into the train station, just resting and watching the world go by. Kim said there was another store she wanted to try across the way and I said I’d be happy to wait for her on the bench, so she headed out while I sat there on the bench enjoying the people passing through and scrolling aimlessly on my phone, as one does.

This is how I ended up on Swedish television.

Or will, eventually. I think.

As I was sitting there, I noticed a young woman approach and sit down on the steps just in front of me. Normally this would not be particularly notable in a public place like that, but she was followed by a guy with a backpack-mounted camera, another guy with a boom mic, and a third guy with one of those clapper things that they use to announce scene takes.

Ah, I thought to myself. My brother and sister-in-law worked in television for years – I know what’s going on here. So I sat there, quietly scrolling and trying not to be That Guy mugging for the camera in the background of every live television shot you ever see. The woman would walk over, sit down, pretend to scroll on her phone for a minute or two, and then get up and walk away in front of me. They repeated this maybe three or four times before they wrapped things up, and I suspect that my feet are going to be nearly famous in the background of this shot someday.

I asked them about it when they were done, and they said it was for a made-for-television-movie about the Swedish education system that would probably air next year, so a genuine blockbuster event as these things go.

I’m gonna be on TV!

Eventually Kim came back – without ceramic houses in hand, unfortunately – and we headed into the station, stopping by a bakery on the way to pick up some sweet buns for that evening. It took a while to get home as the train was delayed, but we made it out to Huddinge and Sara came to pick us up there.

The evening was a quiet one, which was nice. We hung out with everyone at the table for a while, and even the cat joined in.

We made dinner and then continued to hang out. We packed for the flights out of Stockholm the next day. We said our goodbyes in case Sara and Frieda wanted to sleep in, since we would be on the road by about 3:30am the next day. It was a peaceful and lovely way to spend the last night of our trip.