scandinavia

Thanks, King

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And thus Jim Thorpe greeted King Gustav V, after the king had called him “the greatest athlete ever.”

Seeing this stadium had to be one of the highlights of all the travel I’ve ever done. Usually, when you see places that you’ve seen in pictures, they disappoint. Only three places I’ve been in my life made me feel that seeing them live way surpassed the photos. Those are Red Square, the Mona Lisa and this stadium.

It was raining the first time I went to see this thing. I assumed it was a tourist attraction that they had guides to and maybe charged admission. Instead, it is an actual, functioning stadium. This made it all the more weird when someone, in the pouring rain speaking in a New York accent flagged down some boys in a golf cart who worked there. No doubt they were perplexed about my wanting to see the thing. Did they not know of my long standing obsession with the Olympics?

Anyway, here are some NON ARTISTIC photos of the stadium taking in the pouring rain:

That person down there actually had the forethought to wear some kind of clothes that protected them from the rain. I wasn’t that smart.

This is going to sound like the cheesiest of cheese-ball statements, but I walked into this thing and could almost hear the cheering and the crowds from the Olympics that was held the year my grandfather was born.

Some more rain soaked photos:

Rib vaults? Rib vaults on a stadium? The thought that went into building this place really amazed me. Its a stadium, but it seems to be influenced by gothic architecture. Sublime.

Here are some from a day where the weather wasn’t totally suck ass:

And, an “artistic one” for the haters out there who think I am not longer artistic. Again, I had between 5 and 20 minutes to photograph this thing, so just kinda capturing it took center stage:

To close, a picture of the street where the stadium was located. Finally, something will replace a place in my in my past that my animosity towards is too large to explain here. That Valhalla is exorcised from brain, to be replaced by the street on which this lovely stadium is located:

Take that Mrs. Cialfi, whereever it is you are.

You can live in a place your entire life and never see it all

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What is this you ask?

A mural in the entryway to a Barclay Rex building on Wall Street.

The internets, circa 1920. The glorious start of being able to read in a online German newspaper about the ‘splosion in front of your job in New York ten minutes after it happens, subtitled video of cats asking questions of presidential candidates and being able to watch Tim Gunn telling Wendy Pepper not to defending the shoe to him in a Swedish hotel room and of course, making the disappearance of Paris Hilton’s dog worldwide news.

Thanks International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation. Paris Hilton appreciates all of what you have done for her.

All joking aside, I loved this window into what people in the 1920s and 1930s thought the future would like.

I kind of noticed that this mural kinds of looks like this other iconic symbol of power:

Anyway, here’s the rest of Mr. Lightening Bolts:

Globes cover up his bits. Like I said, different places, different attitudes. Globes here, full frontal male nudity in Scandinavia. Globes covering up the jewels here. Neither is better or worse. These things are just different.

An edgy cafe in Central Stockholm

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Look at these hipsters at this edgy Stockholm cafe:

Wait, something is a little different about this cafe. Actually, there is a lot different.

Baby carrots? BABY CARROTS? I’m from America, Stockholm McDonalds employees with your perfect English. We’re lucky they don’t give us a deep fried block of fat with our meal. Oh, wait, the fries. My Swedish Big Mac, tasted like the Big Mac I had a couple of weeks ago in South Street Seaport, but the carrots, were, kind of, um, unbelievable. And, I got a Ramlosa to drink with it, aka a spring water.

The Golden Arches, there where you need them.

Of course, there is always the suck nearby:

But this I thought just looked really Swedish. Or, as my friend put it “yeah, Europe.” Yeah, I guess it is Europe, after all.

An extended ode to the Stockholm metro system

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As the five people who know me who actually visit this place infrequently (I’m trying my best to get my numbers up), I have a thing for Scandinavia. Ok, maybe its more than a thing. But there are a lot of things about it that I find really unique. My favorite thing is the fact that every corner of every place seems to have been intelligently thought out to make people feel at home or cozy. A lot of it makes people feel good. I realized after just visiting that the metro stations there can look like the ones here, kind of dirty and drab. The New York City subway system is a place that people have to drag me into kicking and screaming, but when I go in there, I look at the tiling on the walls, I think they could do so much with it just to make going in there a happier experience.

So, here I present some of my favorites and my little commentaries.

On my first visit to Stockholm, I got off at the Solna Centrum metro stop and I couldn’t believe my eyes:

I think this is the guy who did the art for the place. The art seems to be organic and matches the surroudnings. Here’s another example:

That is a little model house built into the walls. Amazing.

I don’t understand what this plane is for, but it seems to be going somewhere:

And, this is the whole station:

This place I found because I overestimated my knowledge of the Stockholm metro system being jet lagged. But this is the one metro system in the world that I completely do not mind getting lost in. Have a look-see:

This station had to be my favorite on so many levels. I went to see the Olympic stadium in Stockholm, which was also amazing and there will be another entry about that.

But walking through this place I thought — this would automatically put a person in a good mood:

What about this? I smiled the minute I saw this:

This is Scandinavia and the Olympics, two of my multiple obsessions together. And this was almost the icing on the cake:

After looking like I was casing the stadium for a while, I took a walk around the neighborhood next to it. I kind of got lost on purpose just to find another station to photograph. My aching feet were worth it. This was the metro station next to a technical college.

Check out this lovely geometical solid figure that I am sure the engineering students know what is called:

I was a humanities major, so I am safe from math. Still, I walked around the station knowing that there was something else to look at and I was not wrong:

Unbelievable. I turned around at this place and thought — this is amazing:

Here are just some random examples of the various types of art that saw on the metro:

So, this is my suggestion for the urban planners of America — create inviting spaces in the undergrounds containing the trains and perhaps the people around would be less stressed out and much happier in general.