Getting Cultured

One of the perks of living in a big city is the amount of incredible things you get to see and do. In the past few weeks, I’ve gotten the chance to learn about some of Stockholm’s biggest cultural attractions–from traditional to modern, art to politics, I feel like I’ve really been getting cultured lately!

Last Wednesday, I had not one but two Field Studies, first to Stockholm City Hall and then to the art exhibits at the National Museum. A few of the Swedish Language and Culture classes, including mine, got a tour of the city hall, which is one of Stockholm’s most well-known landmarks and hosts the Nobel Prize banquet every year. It’s also home to some of the most interesting historical art I’ve seen here. I’m not always a fan of landmark tours, but I learned things that I never would have guessed otherwise.

If you’ve ever seen a picture of the Stockholm skyline, this is probably the highlight.

The prince who painted this was so unhappy with it that he had to be stopped from repainting it over and over after doing it for years. Having studied art, I can relate.

In this room, the Nobel Prize winners, the royal family, and all their guests gather for a banquet. It’s apparently very crowded.

Then it was off to Nationalmuseet for Nordic Contemporary Art, where we saw some of the defining works of the late 1980s in the 1989 exhibition. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

It was a long day of art, culture, and history, but that’s not all! I also witnessed history in the making the last two Fridays when I joined the Fridays for Future climate strikes. Since I wrote more in depth about this last week, I won’t repeat too much, but it was definitely worth including in two posts! Since last Friday, another strike took place, this time with a focus on everyone instead of mainly students. And it did indeed seem like everyone was there–at the rally and concert at the end of the march, they estimated at one point that over 60000 people were there!

Kungsträdgården, packed at the end of the march, during a speech from local activists

Robyn performed at the finale to show her support

The summer events are over and classes are getting more involved, but as you can see, it’s still been quite a time to be in Stockholm! Vi hörs nästa vecka!