Skål

My wits recovered (well as much as ever), I was off to Hornsgatan and a coffee shop that not only features in the books but was apparently a hangout of author Steig Larsson. A little way up Hornsgatan, I noticed a bookshop across the road so darted over to see if they had a Swedish phrase book I could buy, as clearly Teach Yourself Swedish Chapter 1 (and part of 2) wasn’t getting me very far. They didn’t, but the lady behind the counter kindly wrote down a couple of survival phrases for me (including “I don’t speak Swedish”). Next door to the bookshop I couldn’t help but notice a coffee shop that appeared to be packed with men gorgeous enough to make me as dizzy as August Strindberg had. Even allowing for the fact that quite a few of them were suffering under the unfortunate predilection for moustaches that seems to afflict the men of Sweden, it was quite a startling sight. But I had no time to drool, I was on a Larsson mission! So, with difficulty I tore myself away from the Coffee Shop of the Beautiful Men and charged on down Hornsgatan. After stopping for a brief lunch in a sandwich shop owned by a man who had lived in Nigeria and Orange County, CA and now wouldn’t live anywhere but Stockholm, I arrived unexpectedly at the end of Hornsgatan. Which was when I was confronted with the uncomfortable fact that my map ended long before Södermalm did. And I was lost.

After a little bit of hopeful wandering that reminded me I’m entirely over confident with regards to my sense of direction, I was just about to admit defeat and, well panic really as there wasn’t much else to do (I was on a main road with traffic whooshing by, but very little in the way of other pedestrians to approach for directions), when a man appeared apparently out of nowhere (that’ll be another sodding Viking ghost then). Or a homeless man, asking me for a light. Pleased that I was able to respond jag pratar inte Svenska as I’d just been taught, I was a bit thrown when he – humblingly in perfect English – begged to differ as the fact that I’d said I couldn’t speak Swedish in Swedish rendered it untrue. Which was perfectly reasonable if somewhat disconcerting from a homeless man. He turned out to be extremely kind, and walked me back to where my map started, giving me a running commentary on the area as we went. Apparently Hornsgatan was all factories in the seventies. Who knew?

Another bit of frustrated wandering, turning my map this way and that in a vain attempt to find this mystical-bloody-coffee-shop that appeared not to exist, I finally rounded a corner to discover that the coffee shop I’d spent the entire afternoon looking for was… of course it was… the Coffee Shop of Beautiful Men that I’d clocked hours previously. And most of the Beautiful Men appeared to have now gone home. Sigh. A cup of tea was welcome in any case, and there was a very kind man (fairly beautiful) behind the bar who taught me to say “more water please” in Swedish and helped me translate a review of The Hurt Locker in a local newspaper. A group of men in the corner (not particularly beautiful) were having a lively debate – political I’d like to think, though let’s face it they could have been talking about broccoli for all I’d know – and I felt as though I could imagine Larsson ensconced in the corner with his laptop (did he write on a laptop? Who knows) listening to the debates and churning out his story. Course I might simply still have been hallucinating from the Strindberg blow.

One advantage to getting lost was that I, completely accidentally, stumbled across Lundagatan, where Salander lives in the first book, and Mimmi in the second. I'd imagined it'd be a reasonably, err, less than salubrious area, but it didn't seem to be, particularly. Not as picturesque as some others, it's a neighbourhood of fairly non-descript apartment buildings, but perfectly alright otherwise. That said, a drunk man did lean out of an upstairs window and shout at me, which was kind of awesome. Now I think about it, quite a few people shouted at me in Swedish. I wonder why I'm dying to go back?

Having made it also to Blomkvist's flat, I'm dying to go back and read the third (well all!) book again, as it's so steep and the cobblestoned street outside so narrow that I can't imagine how anyone could have kept it under surveillance. Fictional secret people apparently have impressive surveillance skills.

Evening was drawing in again, so I decided that I deserved the last stop on my Millennium tour: Kvarnen bar, hangout of Evil Fingers. Where it seemed rude not to sample some Swedish beer. Then I made friends with some lovely guys at the table next to me. And learned to enthusiastically shout ‘skål’ before swiftly downing a beer. And there was some more beer. And accidentally walking into the gents’ and standing for excruciatingly long seconds while I tried to remember Swedish for ‘sorry’. Then another bar… other friendly Swedes… some more beer… Anyway. Skål.

Glasgow Kissing in Stockholm

Friday morning found me raring to go and waiting outside the Stockholm City museum… about an hour before it opened. Right then.

I was back in Slüssen and curious about the giant right angle that dominates the view, which is created by a lift that rises into mid-air then is connected to the cliff behind by a narrow footbridge. My curiosity about a lift to nowhere didn’t extend to paying 20-something kronor for the privilege, so I took the wooden stairs cut into the cliff, stopping regularly pretend to take photos while gasping for breath, as elderly Swedes leapt past me taking the steps two at a time.

I discovered at the top of the stairs, a theatre. Which is a somewhat odd thing to find at the top of a flight of stairs, but there you go. A beautiful old theatre, in fact, which put me in mind slightly of the Old Vic but bigger and perhaps grander (not least by virtue of its situation at a cliff edge). Making a mental note that it might be interesting to check out some Swedish theatre, I wandered across the square and down a side street, where I was accosted by some teenagers thrusting a microphone in my face and saying things that you don’t learn in Teach Yourself Swedish Chapter 1. I apologised that I couldn’t understand them, and they offered to interview me in English for their student radio station, about my views on Swedish troops being in Afghanistan. My deeply intelligent and worldly response? "Err, I thought you were neutral?" "No, no", they replied. "That was the Second World War". I’m not entirely convinced that they’ve really abandoned 200 or so years of neutrality without telling anyone, but it didn’t seem prudent to argue so I muttered something about it all being a terrible mess and ran away.

My future as a political commentator on Swedish student radio assured, I headed back to the museum. It’s a fascinating building, once the city hall of Södermalm, which sort of cuts into a hillway so you enter by taking a lift three storeys down, then climb back to street level through exhibitions. Such an old building is deeply atmospheric, particularly when you’re the first – and only – visitor on a Friday morning, and so have the place to yourself. I’m reasonably convinced I saw a ghost, or at least, I saw a scraggly-haired man (slightly Viking like, if you squinted and really, really wanted him to be a Viking) sitting at a table in one of the exhibitions who darted away when I entered and promptly disappeared (because of course I followed him, just call me Alice).

The Millennium exhibition on the top floor (which consists mostly of the set of Blomkvist’s desk from the films) reminded me that I’d read you could purchase ‘Millennium maps’ from the museum which point out the various locations in the books.

Guess what I did next?

Guess how excited I was when I discovered that the 7-eleven in which I’d bought an apple for dessert the previous evening was the very 7-eleven frequented by Salander? On a scale of 1 to 10, just how tragic is it to take a photograph of a 7-eleven where you bought an apple and Lisbeth Salander fictionally bought numerous Billy’s Pan Pizzas? Don’t answer that.

I then had to re-trace my steps, as the cliff-top theatre (some call it Södra Teatern) features in the books: Salander and Annika Gianni have a drink there at the end of the third book. It’s also right round the corner from Fiskargatan 1, address of the apartment bought by Salander after she filches Wennerström’s billions. That apartment building isn’t at all how I pictured it. For some reason I had the impression it was a bit off the beaten track, whereas in fact it’s barely a minute’s walk from the theatre. If you lived there, you could roll to the theatre, if you were so inclined. The view, however, is just as described: spectacular. At least, the sight of the matchbox city and icy Baltic Sea is spectacular from the street far below the penthouse apartment; I can only imagine that from the top floor you can see half way to Finland.

There was a terrace at the side of the theatre that appeared to promise a view unbroken by trees, so, noticing that the gates were open, I crept up the stone steps with my camera ready feeling very naughty and trespasser-y. Slithering and sliding over piles of snow and ice (I take it the terrace is more of a summer hangout, then?) I managed a couple of photos before a man emerged from the theatre and shouted something at me. Assuming it was something in relation to the fact that I was trespassing on a clearly shut theatre (it was still mid-morning), I frantically wracked my brain for a way to explain my presence, then with triumphant relief the phrase for ‘what a beautiful view’ popped into my mind so with no further ado I spread my arms wide and announced vilken vacker utsikt with no little gusto,. The look on his face suggested strongly that he hadn’t in fact been asking me what I was doing there and was mildly stunned by my sudden pronouncement on the view. So naturally I did the only thing a cool and sophisticated person such as myself would do; I turned heel and ran. Which isn’t the cleverest of ideas when you’re on a terrace covered in snow and ice.

Looking probably a little like Tom and or Jerry when they run off a cliff, I flailed on the spot for a bit before finally finding a little traction and… skidding a couple of meters at speed and slamming into a statue of August Strindberg. Forehead first. I saw stars and for just a moment thought my forehead might explode, but was still convinced that the confused man was about to make a citizen’s arrest for trespass so dizzily zig-zagged down the steps and back onto Moseback square.

Incidentally, the following morning I passed by the terrace again at around the same time and found it heaving with tourists taking pictures, not one of them running around in a panic and head-butting August Strindberg.

Garbo and Herring and Porn. Oh My.

All that said, language issues didn't trouble me too much that first night.

Well, there was a minor hairy moment when I tried to buy a cup of tea and a croissant at the airport and realised that I hadn't yet learned, of all words, "and" (turns out it's och). Rather than chicken out and speak English on my very first Swedish attempt in Sweden, I settled for asking the tea in Swedish, then pointing to the croissant and nodding in enthusiastically in a manner intended to convey "and that too please". It seemed to do the trick.

The minor thrill of asking in Swedish for a cup of tea and receiving a cup of tea paled though in comparison with the fact that the coffee shop radio was playing, fabulously, Lay All Your Love On Me. Less than an hour in Sweden and I'd heard some ABBA. Not even being charged a small mortgage payment for a ticket on the Arlanda Express could dampen my good mood after that.

Nor could the fact that when the train pulled into Stockholm, I remembered that I'd forgotten to check the address of the hotel and knew only that it was "a couple of blocks" from Centralen Station. After walking "a couple of blocks" in most directions from Centralen Station in fast fading daylight and light snow, I finally noticed the helpful sign that lists most of the major hotels in the area with arrows pointing in their direction. Ahh. The Sheraton will be that way then. Yes, I'd chosen the Sheraton because a character from the Millennium books stays there. What's your point?

After flouncing around the hotel hallways pretending the Secret Police were after me, I headed out into early evening Stockholm to flounce around the streets pretending the Secret Police were after me. And also, find some dinner. A few hair raising moments with an oddly complicated road crossing that took me via a bus stop to the opposite side of the road from where I wanted to be, and I made it onto the bridge that took me to Gamla Stan.

The city of Stockholm, as you may or may not know, is made up of lots of islands. Not unlike Venice, though chillier and with rather more Swedish people. Gamla Stan, the Old Town, is the original island, from where medieval kings and queens ruled the not un-intimidating Swedish Empire. Not least amongst them, one of my heroines Queen Christina, daughter of Gustav Aldolf who succeeded him upon his death when she was six years old. In fairness, my heroine is the Greta Garbo version of her which may or may not be entirely historically accurate ;) Happening upon the royal palace while looking for something else (namely, dinner), I was so inspired that I stopped flouncing around pretending the Secret Police were after me, and started striding around pretending to stop wars and fall in love with John Gilbert.

The best way I can describe Gamla Stan is to say that I expected at any moment for witches with long knobbly fingers to reach out of upstairs windows and snatch children to eat. The tall, narrow buildings, crooked windows and cobblestones are right out of a fairy tale; but no bluebirds singing along with princesses here, this is the world of the original, dark and twisted Grimm fairy tales.

And even better, porn. Not in the fairy tales, but in a bookshop on a main road in Gamla Stan. I was idly wandering along, glancing in shop windows and testing my Swedish by trying to translate signs announcing sales and book titles and such. I had managed to puzzle out a couple of the titles on display when I noticed... well let's just say I didn't need to understand Swedish to guess at the plot of the book. It was the sort of image normally wrapped in several layers of cellophane in England (err, I imagine). Naturally I came over all British, jumped a mile, blushed to my toes and glanced around in panic to see if anyone had caught me looking.

In an attempt to lower my blood presure a little, I decided it was time for dinner, so pressed on and crossed another bridge. I would discover once I looked at a map the following day that I'd wandered over to Södermalm and Millennium-land which was exciting except I didn't know it at the time. Assailed by a gorgeous smell, I headed straight for a fish & chip style van where I informed the friendly man that this was to be my first Swedish meal and asked him for a recommendation. Shockingly enough, he recommended herring.

I sat on a bench overlooking the Baltic Sea (right on the lock in fact, that separates the lake Mälaren to the Baltic Sea - wonderful things, maps) and tucked into undoubtedly the yummiest meal I've ever had out of an aluminum carton, of fried herring, mashed potatoes, red onions and carrots.

Having pretended to be Greta Garbo, seen some porn and eaten some herring, I decided I could call it a successful first night in Sweden.