Thursday, May 21, 2015 @ 6:24 PM 0 stares
You'll hear my babbling complaints about this if you ever ask me in person, but TL;DR version is that I went to the airport the day of my flight, to find out I had no flight and ended up paying 1,200 USD for a one way ticket to Stockholm. A true nightmare. Lotsa $$$ I could have funded my Michelin Star restaurant tour in Europe wasted.
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| Everything in Europe seems itty bitty |
My impression of Europe is one of complete fascination. Everything seems so tiny, starting from the chairs. How exactly do I fit my butt in one of these chairs? (Everything else is tiny too, everyone has tiny dogs, wear tiny bikinis, tiny spoons for their coffee cups... etc etc.) Good thing there was a couchesque seat as well. Thank you based airport people for accommodating for the fatness that exists in countries not your own. Also, it's true what they say about people drinking beer here like water, it's like 11 am and people be drinking hella beer. And no one here looks like they just rolled out of bed.
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| The view from the bus I took a bit too far.......... |
First day in Stockholm involved a 15 minute trek with a 40 lb luggage (and other additional bags), UPHILL to the hotel. By the middle I was a huffing sad mess of a potato and was ready to just lay down and roll back downhill from where I came from. Luckily I made it to the hotel~
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| Grapefruit juice... YAAAAAAS |
We're staying at this place called Tegnerlunden 8. Decent hotel because UIUC has this policy where we can't live anywhere under a 3 star rating. Thank God, we have real showers and GRAPEFRUIT JUICEEEE!!!! (the real important things in life) One important thing to note for all you other lactose intolerant people out there. Everything has milk, and like whole milk - straight up. You will have a nightmare of a time eating if you aren't careful. The coffee I drank in the morning, the milk additive they have is WHOLE MILK instead of the normal 2% in the US. Also, they had like cereal and yogurt (probably also whole milk based). So unless you want to be on the bathroom (which costs 10 SEK to use in most places and are like impossible to find) the whole day pay attention! And bring your lactose pills!!!
We (oh I forgot to mention, I'll be travelling a lot with my roommate Christy so when I say "we" that's who I'm referring to) went to a local place to eat and found no English on their menus (God help us) and ended up getting these two dishes, a pasta with chicken and cream sauce and sausages with potatoes with sour cream. (look at this milk heavy menu). It was pretty good, taste wise (it also came with free salad bar!) except for the fact that it was EXTREMELY SALTY holy shit so salty.
After we went on this adventure via subway (doing it like the locals!) in which we totally took the subway to a random place we thought there was an outlet (there wasn't, it was like one store. LOL) and just walked in one direction until we saw real shopping. We decided to go shopping today because contrary to popular belief, Sweden is actually quite chilly, and when we go to Munich it'll be cold and rainy and dreary. We shopped around today at Götgatan (aka "Gothia Street"). We mainly shopped for clothes, there were stores like H&M, Gina Tricot, Weekend~ Was pretty nice.
We ate at a place called Snaps Bistro & Bar we literally went around and this was the place that had English translations on their menu and it was relatively crowded too, lots of people eating here. This place, I enjoyed. I also appreciated that they had little triangles indicating what did and did not have lactose considering my afternoon. We decided to have a seafood dish, a meat dish and a dessert.
So I bought my first drink in Europe! I bought a Cosmo which in hindsight might have not been the most "worth it", probably should haven gotten a local brew beer... I need to get grown-up taste buds and drink beer soon while I'm here. Sometimes I'm just so uncultured. But it was good and I was happy with it.
Next we got this Veal in a White Wine Sauce it was delicious~ the wine sauce was really delicious and pretty distinctive. The green beans and cherry tomatoes matched well with the sauce as well. It was really smooth and tender. It came with a little Potato Chip esque side which was good as well. It was like softer so like... round coin-shaped fries... but not fried.
We also had a Cod and Salmon Tomato Soup with Green Mussels ~ it was really good, the fish was extremely fresh. Mark (my professor) said that salmon is always a safe bet here and it's true. It was fresh and well made. The soup had the tangy-ness of the tomato and was rich as well with no overly seafood-y flavor.
Lastly, the Panna Cotta topped with Mango Limoncello and Blueberry Compote. Oh my god. This was DELICIOUS. Definitely the best part of the meal!!! If you know me you know I really like pudding-like things. It was really light and didn't have too strong of a milk taste. It also wasn't too sweet and the liqueur taste wasn't too strong and the blueberries were a nice touch of freshness. Absolutely delicious.
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| Bonus picture of me being happy with all the food!!!! |
Yeah. So that's it for day zero (wow I must be ENGINEER or something) and one; this is Lihan peacin' out~
Labels: Stockholm