Fatbursparken

While walking from Stockholm's Södra Station to Medborgarplatsen, or vice versa, you will unequivocally arrive to Fatbursparken. It is a simple park but what makes it a nice place for just a relaxing walk or even a picnic is the crescent-shaped building designed by Ricardo Bofill, and known as the «Bofills båge», depicted below. The building will be on your right —if you are going towards Medborgarplatsen— or left —going towards Södra Station—. In the image you can also appreciate the «Afrodites brunn» fountain by Roland Haeberlein, sadly, off duty.

Central Train Station

This is the Stockholm's Central Train Station or simply Centralstation. This is the neural center of interurban/intercity commuting; as almost all European capitals, Stockholm is well served by rail services to other major Swedish cities and other neighboring foreign cities. IMO, when you are here you feel like time has stopped, as if you were in the 1950s. Have I told you that I love trains?

City's Theater

This is Stadsteatern or The City's Theater, the main venue for big or renown productions coming to the Capital of Scandinavia. For example, the day I took that picture they were presenting the musical «Chicago».

As you can see, downtown Stockholm is very versatile.

The King's Garden

Kungsträdgården or The King's Garden is a major reunion point for the locals, many times —perhaps weekends would be more appropriate— a year there are mini concerts and other kind of company-sponsored kind of festivals and it's close to both the river and the popular spots around.

Hötorget complex

Just across Sergels Torg you get to the Hötorget buildings, which are 5, most of them filled with offices, clinics, clothing and a few electronic stores.

Nonetheless, it's a nice promenade from and around T-Centralen/Centralstation and you don't just get to know the real core, the heart, of the city but a clash of several different construction styles and periods among the little streets; from Classical Scandinavian to contemporary and experimental architecture.

Crystal - vertical accent in glass and steel, by Edvin Öhrström.

The sculpture Crystal — vertical accent in glass and steel by Edvin Öhrström is the dominant feature of Sergelstorg, the heart of the City. Chances are that you will pass a lot of times by this square while sightseeing around downtown since it's the main commuting hub of the Greater Stockholm Area. During different months (that I currently do not remember, but I'm tempted to say June/July) the square is filled with food trucks/stands where you can buy food from different countries. For example, you can have Australia with kangaroo and alligator steaks or France with a kind of snail in a silly French name like, Kébab à la sauce inspirée par le parfum d'un été aigre-doux and, of course, Unitedstatian hotdogs, burgers, etc. I think it's a bit expensive but hey, I want to see you paying for the trip to Australia in order to try a alligator burger, lol.

Stiftelsen Östekonomiska Institutet

This is the North wing of the Stiftelsen Östekonomiska Institutet (Institute of Transition Economics or SITE) building. I like the style of the building as a whole and I enjoy the fact that this wing was built in an Art-Deco-y kind of style, at least accordingly to my —really— poor "expert" architectural eye. The façade is very cool, I will leave it for another day.

City Library

This is (actually, the back of) the city's Main Library building. The architecture is, to my taste, quite boring for a library. Call me crazy, but I think a library building should always have columns; always! I said. Its interior, par contre, is way better than its exterior and it's worth the visit. I guess I get it: sure, uggly building, nice interior. Kind of «don't judge a book by its cover», thank you for the moral Mr. Asplund =P

By the end of the day

I was on the bridge that connects Norrmalm to Gamla Stan and, this, to Södermalm. During autumn you can actually track Earth's revolution around the Sun by looking at its apparent position over Södermalm. This picture is from October 31st, 2014 at 13h59 (2014-10-31 13:59:28) and, yes, I know: it's 2pm and it's almost night, I damn right love it.

The Old Town

Gamla Stan, the Old Town, is Stockholm's core downtown. Besides the beautiful architecture, you can find the Royal Palace, the Nobel museum, the Mint museum, churches and a lot of other tourist attractions. Personally, I love walking in Gamla Stan any time of the year, being among its small streets feels like traveling back in time.

The City Hall at sunset

The Stadhus or City Hall, built in 1911, is the seat of the city's government. Every year a dinner for the Nobel Prize laureates takes place in the premises. Most of the building is open to the public; you can also, for a price, go to the top of the tower and have a nice view of downtown.

Pizza doesn't ask silly questions. Pizza understands.

Walking on Götgatan I passed by the window of a small pizzeria called «Denniso» —which has been around for over XXX years— and I read this full-of-wisdom statement. It's funny because it's true, isn't it? I yet have to pay a visit and try their food but I confess that every time I pass in front of it is because I'm en route to get my Flamin' Cheeto's fix ^_^ but sooner than later I'll give it a try ;)

Towards Fatbursparken

When you come out Stockholms södra station you have the option to walk North, towards Medborgarplatsen, and pass through Fatbursparken. It's a very nice urban park where you could have a nice picknick/lunch on the grass or under the trees shadows.

At half-mast

After the terrible events on Parliament Hill in Ottawa (Canada), the Canadian flag flies at half-mast over the Embassy. I always wondered what was the thing that sick person was trying to accomplish killing Corporal Nathan Cirillo; certainly only hate for him and, sadly, his family.

That's Civism

Remember I told you that Solna was one of the most upcoming neighborhoods/counties around Stockholm? Well, this is it's tunnelbana station and, as you can see, people leave their bikes outside the station and a lot of them don't even have a lock; that's civism and trust that nobody will come and steal it—perhaps because around that area there's no need to do so.

Rainy day at the pier

This little pier is located at the shores of the Hammarby sjö (lake); IMO, the area is very beautiful, perhaps the best to live in according to my residential preferences ^_^ One day the universe will bring me to live there, preferably with a view to the lake.

The main mean of transport is the tramway, it has a lake, high new buildings, and lots of people, what else could I ask for? It's a very residential area thus not a lot of tourist-y things to do in this side of the city.

Commuting at Stockholms Södra

This is Stockholms södra station, one of the main and busiest pendeltåg stations in Stockholm. Here you can switch between all the commuter train lines or get off and walk around the southern end of Medborgarplatsen area.

Huge escalator / Alby Station

Alby tunnelbanestation has a set of huge escalators leading to the northern exit and riding them can easily take over 2 minutes. During the fall of 2014 the SL started changing them thus you could only use them, thankfully, to go up, imagine if you would have to climb those stairs every day? Well, at least you'd save in gym fares due to the amount of cardio you'd be doing daily.

Solna commuter train station

Together with the tunnelbana (subway), tvärbana (tramway) and buses, we also have the pendeltåg (commuter train) serving the Greater Stockholm Area.

This particular station is widely used due to its closeness to the Mall of Scandinavia and the Friends Arena, where the Swedish national soccer teams play their local games. Solna is also an upcoming neighborhood/county, which has been revitalized a lot in past few years and thousands of people are consistently moving in within its borders.

The pendeltåg service, although very efficient, sometimes get delays due to accidents —mostly suicide attempts— and electrical failures, due to overloads during summer and winter. It can take you as far as Nynäsham to the South and Uppsala in the North. And remember, the price is included in your SL månadskort (monthly card).

Rainy day at Hötorget

Hötorget is a public square in downtown Stockholm, you can visit it via T-centralen or Hötorget tunnelbana stations (a piece of trivia: in both stations Madonna recorded part of her «Ray of light» video). The square is fairly big, it has one of the biggest open-air public fruit/vegetables market in the whole Greater Stockholm area. There it is also a major cultural hub with hundreds of bars, pubs, restaurants, stores and many many events through out the year. A must-visit location if you are ever in the City.

Flower and fruit stand

As I mentioned before, outside a lot of the tunnelbana stations there are small fruit, vegetables and flower stands where you can regularly find good, if not great, prices in national produce, besides you will certainly be helping a lot of local farmers. If you have the chance to stop and check it out, I truly recommend you to do so.

Tvärbanan

Have I already told you I love rail transportation? If not, well, I LOVE trams, trains, subways, etc. This is Stockholm's tramway, very comfortable and reliable. Something I like about our månadskort (monthly transport card) is that you can ride all buses, subway/tramway lines and a few ferries since they are all included in your monthly fare. Tourists can also benefit of the 1, 3 or 7 days all-included cards and, believe me, it worth it to get one of those if you are visiting Stockholm.

On my way school

This is how Alby tunnelbanestation looks like. Perhaps you cannot appreciate it, but the mural is painted over the actual hill inner walls. It was my daily departure station for the four months I was studying at Liljeholmen SFI center.

Arrivals sunset

This is one of the breathtaking postcards you can appreciate from the windows in my previous entry. As I said, spending some time in the waiting area and a nice hot cup of coffee will ease the nervousness of a new trip or the anxiety of seen that special someone once again.

Waiting to leave. Waiting for me.

You can lose some time staring at the beautiful views that these big windows provide while waiting for either your afternoon's flight or the arrival of your beloved one.

Sverige

This picture was taken while at one of my SFI (Svenska för Invandrare/Swedish for immigrants) classes at the Liljeholmen SFI center. You can only imagine how bored I was that day.

September the 7th

Today is September the 7^th, and this date reminds me the homonymic 1990s song by the Spaniard group Mecano.

If you have never heard this classic Spanish-language pop song, here's the video:

Cloud and Backup Services

A few weeks ago Dropbox made some changes to its mobile app, making it mandatory to have its desktop application installed on a personal computer if you wanted to keep activated the camera pictures autoupload feature.

For me this represented no problem since I do own (and use) a desktop computer. Unfortunately, my mother's only connection to the web—as for other million users—is via her mobile phone thus she lost access to this very useful feature which ensures that, in the event of losing her phone, she could keep her most important digital possessions: her pictures.

Being «Transparent» in dark ages

I have recently started watching a TV show called «Transparent». Obviously, the name of the show is a portmanteau for the words «trans» and «parent», implying that the main topic of the show is transsexualism and the —needless to say— awful situations a person can go through while living a life that can possibly lead them to happiness.

Afternoon at Liljeholmstorget

In Stockholm, it's very common to find little markets outside the tunnelbana (subway) stations. In these little markets you can often find better offers in fruits and vegetables than in big stores and, usually, part of the produce (mostly berries, potatoes and mushrooms, among others) comes from local Swedish farms. This particular square is located outside Liljeholmen tunnelbanestation in Liljeholmen, a very nice Stockholm neighborhood.

Walking towards the sunset

This picture was taken while taking a walk with my good friend @tanialu on Karlavägen, Karlaplan neighborhood in Stockholm. I might say that the view of the sun setting down in that boulevard could be breathtaking ^_^