here!!!!

well i have been in stockholm for 5 days now i guess... and it has flown by!

i left boston monday night and had a five hour flight to iceland before my three hour flight to stockholm, i hadn't been to europe recently and forgot how relatively painless these flights are... the only bad thing is that i didn't get any sleep and had to navigate stockholm having had no food and no sleep - NO GOOD!

the twenty minute train ride from the airport to the city center was absolutely gorgeous... basically a winter wonderland - for some reason here snow sticks to all the trees for weeks after it snows and so everything was white and perfect, lots of small villages and farms and animals... it was AMAZING!

got into the city center and had to navigate my way to SSE with two rolly suitcases (one big one carry-on) and a duffel bag... this wouldn't have been too bad but apparently the swedish do not believe in shoveling, plowing or salting anything so rolling suitcases on the snow covered side walks was not easy - the only thing they do put down on the snow is gravel which got stuck in the wheels of my suitcase making the rolling effort EVEN WORSE... so finally making it to SSE i then had to wait two hours for the woman with my keys to show up even though she had promised me she would be there when i got there... anyhow it was an adventure.

after getting my keys i made my way to liljeholmen which is a very close suburb of stockholm where i live (about a 20 min tunnelbana ride). my building is at the top of a very steep hill which is accessible either by 7 flights of very steep stairs or a tram needless to say with all my luggage i chose the tram option. ankur had warned me that finding our building was quite difficult and i ended up wandering around at the top of the hill for about 40 minutes before locating the building

once i made my way up to the apartment everything was great... my apartment is as expected in sweden totally efficient - lots of built in storage

shower sans stall which reminds me of the fun old days of elizabeth and my short lived apartment in beijing (although i don't have to plug in the heater in this one for 20 min before i want hot water :) )

fairly large living space

cute little kitchen

and my bed complete with $4 duvet cover from my first trip to the world's first ikea

and the view of the city from my apartment

anyhow thats all for now, i already have all sorts of other little stories... i promise my next blog update won't take me another five days and will have a lot more pretty stockholm pics, hopefully before all the snow melts :)