Why Does Santa Live in a Gift Shop?

Hello America. I hope you’ve been alright without me for the past couple of weeks. So much traveling since the last time I wrote, I don’t even know where to begin. Wait, yes I do. Stockholm. You know why? Because “chronologically” is a simple, logical way to structure narratives.

I got to Stockholm at about 10:30 at night. If you’re planning to travel to any unfamiliar cities any time soon and don’t have the budget for a cab to you hotel, I highly recommend arriving at a time when you can see landmarks or, you know, street signs. Had I been more on top of things, I would have used my awesome Boy Scouts of America sqilzz (the cool way to say “skills”), found the North Star, and been off in the right direction in a matter of seconds, but I guess I’ll just have to do that next time. In Stockholm, I stayed on a boat. An actual boat. Formerly one of those sail-around-the-harbor, have-a-bunch-of-drinks type small cruise ships. Now a hotel with one hostel-style dorm room. It was a great place, with the one drawback being that it was a 16 person dorm. The Law of Large Numbers states that when you get that many people together, you’re bound to have at least one weirdo. In my case, it was an individual who I nicknamed “Captain Hairyhaunches,” who insisted on walking around in tighty whiteys and speaking Russian or something.

Outside of the dorm, Stockholm was beautiful. I spent most of my time in Gamla Stan, the Old Town, where I could explore the narrow cobblestone streets, get fantastic views of the newer parts of the city, and be a total democracy nerd and visit the Riksdag, bringing the count of “buildings housing elected legislative bodies” I’ve visited up to: four. Also in Gamla Stan is the Royal Palace, where I witnessed the Changing of the Guard (Changings of the Guard I’ve seen: 3), complete with marching, shouting, and a military band. I know what I’m about to say will sound like a joke, but it honestly happened. Really, there’s no way I could have ever thought of something this good. The music the military band played?... Dancing Queen by Abba. John McCain would have loved it (number of people I expect to get that: 4).

Stockholm is also home to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is a warship the Swedes built almost four hundred years ago. At the time, it was the biggest in the fleet. That was the general idea, anyway. They went a little overboard and the ship sunk as soon as it left port. The good news is that it sunk in mud and was perfectly preserved until it was recovered in 1961. It seemed kind of pointless to re-commission it for military purposes – it’s made of wood and driven by sails, after all – so it was placed in a museum, for the purpose of educating (done by the ship) and frightening (done by all the skeletons on board the ship. Again, not joking) Swedish children.

From Stockholm, I went on to Helsinki. This required an overnight voyage on a “ferry” which turned out to be one of those monstrosity, affront-to-God style cruise ships with seven floors of passengers, duty-free shops, and casinos. I guess I’ve been foiled in my attempt to go my entire life without sailing on a cruise ship, but, since it was actually for the purpose of transportation, I think it’s still OK. Next time I see Al Gore I’ll ask him if cruise ships are acceptable as long as they’re being used to get from point A to point B, not just making a big pointless circle.

A few things about Helsinki. First, it’s “Helsingfors” in Finnish. And Finland is “Suomi.” Really, “Suomi” isn’t even close to “Finland.” What’s wrong with these foreigners? I kept trying to tell them they were getting the names of both their country and capital city wrong, but they didn’t seem to appreciate my attempts at help. Same thing happened in Germany when I kept patiently explaining “Duetschland” can’t be right because it doesn’t even start with a “G.” Second, Helsinki was my number two choice of cities to go to for study abroad. It’s a nice place, but thank God I’m in Copenhagen. After two days, I got the impression I had really seen the bulk of what Helsinki has to offer.

Day one was a trip to Suomenlinna, a set of five small interconnected islands where the Finns built a fortress to protect Helsinki’s harbor. Today, there are a few buildings still being used by the Finnish military as well as an open-air prison. Originally, I assumed this to be an attraction that was part of the old fortress. But no, it’s a prison surrounded by a three-foot-tall hedge.

The second day I wandered around the city, ate Salmon in the city market, saw the Russian-inspired architecture, and even walked as far as the Olympic Stadium (which, it turns out, was closed). Helsinki, like all European cities, has a lot of art all around the city. In keeping with my habit of presenting funny statues, I thought I should pass this along. The official title is “Three Smiths,” but I prefer, “Careful with that hammer, dude.”

From Helsinki, I took a night train to Rovaniemi, a small city in northern Finland (very northern, on the Arctic Circle) where, according to many Europeans, Santa lives. This notion is just ridiculous, though. Everyone knows Santa lives at the North Pole because it’s outside of any national boundaries and therefore he can get around labor laws with his elf workshop. I will accept, however, that he needs a mailing address located somewhere with a post office, so he has a corporate branch set up in Rovaniemi. The innumerable gift shops surrounding the post office would deter any sane person, real or imaginary, from making it a permanent residence.

I stayed in Rovaniemi just long enough to buy a few Christmas decorations and walk across the Arctic Circle (it’s actually painted on the ground. Or perhaps those dashes that you see on maps really are marked on the Earth and Rovaniemi happens to fall on one of them), then took a bus across the border – or “Finnish line” – and headed on to Ostersund, Sweden. Ostersund is another small city with amazing hiking – I tend to visit a lot of those – and the lake, according to legend, is the home of a relative of the Loch Ness Monster. This one doesn’t have a catchy name like Nessie does so I’ll just call it Bjorn. In all my hiking, providing many excellent vantage points, I never saw any trace of Bjorn and the Bjorn sightseeing trip only runs during the summer (I guess they don’t think tourists want to spend a few hours in an uncovered boat on a lake when the temperature is below freezing). I guess, between the Santa thing and the Bjorn thing, the theme of those few days was “crushing the dreams my inner child still holds dear.”

From Ostersund, I continued on to Bergen on the West coast of Norway, the only city in the world surrounded by seven mountains and seven fjords. There is no doubt that this was my favorite stop of the whole trip. If you'd like to know why, just look at the pictures... all 167 of them.

The Torget is the central outdoor market in Bergen. I tried reindeer for the first time. The place where I got it had all sorts of sausages, ranging from standard American hot dogs to, as already implied, reindeer sausage. The menu item I’m about to suggest is so simple that I can’t believe it wasn’t already offered: a reindeer sausage served with a single cherry tomato, called “the Rudolph.” Sure, a few kids might cry, but that’s funny, right?

Again, I took a day for some beautiful hiking (I’ll stop rubbing that in eventually), then, the second day, decided to take the scenic route back to Oslo and hopped on a ferry from Bergen through the Sognefjord to Flam. I was thinking of recycling a joke I used about canyoning and calling the fjords “gorges,” but instead I’ll just say: I can understand why Slartibartfast won an award for those things (number of people I expect to get that: 2).

From Flam, there’s a railway up a mountain to Myrdal to reconnect with the Oslo-Bergen line, the highest rail line in Europe. The Flam-Myrdal railway line has 20 hand-excavated tunnels (I assume they also had tools) and is the steepest rail line in the world. One might even be inclined to call it “awesome engineering” (number of people I expect to get that: 1).

Anyway, this is far and away the longest post I’ve written so far and I’m sure I’m testing your patience, so I’ll just end abruptly.