Stockholm, Sweden

I just got back from an almost three week trip to Stockholm. I wanted to write up something similar to what I did for my Tunisa trip.

To some approximation, this was my first time traveling internationally alone. Overall I had a great time, but I was a little surprised by how much trouble I had deciding what to do or getting over the activation energy of getting out the door of my apartment. Working full time on BIOS didn’t help.

The trip reminded me of a recurring conversation with Erin. Erin and I are both positive people, and like most humans we enjoy spending time both on activities and on other people. But Erin schedules and prioritizes around her activities. She wakes up and says, “This is what I’m going to do today”. Then, she’ll message people and see who, if anyone, wants to join her. If you wanna spend time with Erin, your best bet is to be where she’s going to be. One the other hand, I’m pretty indifferent to the specifics of the activity. I’m going to have a good time doing pretty much anything, as long as I’m doing it with people I like and care about. But it’s often difficult for me to say, “I want to go do XYZ”. I’m not saying I’m bad at being alone. I’m great at being alone. I’ll read, I’ll go on a walk, I’ll workout, cook, play games, do research, start a coding project. But I’m probably going to be at home. There’s some barrier to me going out and paying money on some event or activity. My hypothesis is that it’s just a function of growing up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Entertaining myself at home is just how I grew up.

Despite my hangups, I still did stuff, so let’s talk about it!

Groceries

One of the first things I did was go to the grocery store. There were so many little differences!

• The back wheels of the shopping cart pivot
• It was multi-story and you had to put your cart on an escalator
• The potatoes and onions came out of a funny dispenser thing
• A lot of the fancy food was from Italy
• The eggs weren’t in the refrigerator

It was kinda fun shopping when I didn’t know the language. Pictured are things I bought that I wouldn’t normally buy at home and/or I didn’t know exactly what they were.

The mangos with ginger and lime were amazing. 10/10