(Sweden) Last snow in Scandinavia with my bicycle

[15/01/28~02/03 (D+1252)]

The ship was closing to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. There were many beautiful houses around small islands. I guessed some rich people lived there.
I didn’t expect attraction in Stockholm because there was nothing to see in Helsinki. But I could feel near the port that Stockholm was a historic place.

S looked like $. Was it for Stop or Start? Why was it white?

There were a few surprising things in Stockholm I found after arriving. First of all Stockholm looked very historic place that as a tourist I was satisfied to look around.

The second thing was that the city was dirty. Maybe because garbage was shown after snow melted.

And also there were so many beggars on the street. When I was in Finland, one of Scandinavia countries, local people told that they don’t have any beggar on the street because they pay tax a lot and the law even prohibits to beg on the road.
My question was why Sweden, Finland’s neighborhood, had a beggar. As walking on the street, I realized that actually the beggar was from some kind of East Europe. Also it was said that Sweden didn’t’ prohibit to beg on the street.

Another thing was 80~90% of pedestrian didn’t wait on the red light. They just walked or run whatever red light or green light or many cars or few cars. (100% every car followed traffic sign. ) In my experience the most pedestrian who didn’t follow traffic sign in Europe was the people from Stockholm. I thought that Spanish and Italian pedestrian waited more on red light than Stockholm people. I asked a local people in Stockholm about it. He said it is not illegal to walk on the red light. But it could be problem when the pedestrian was hit by car during crossing on the red light.

Later in the night I saw some weird thing in the center of city. There were many bars at a big main road. Two guys were peeing at the wall of bar which was just in front of main road.
Maybe bar’s toilet had problem…?

I was being used to Stockholm’s atmosphere later that I also crossed at the red light like a local people and enjoyed beautiful historic city.

Raining day at the new town
The price was more expensive than Finland, I felt.
I thought that Sweden was the most expensive country I’ve ever been.

According to researching, the place was attraction. Hm…

There was not much snow that it was easy to move. All the time I cycled in the city to look around.

City hall

A small motor car which I’ve seen in Italy

I wanted to take an ice-skate, but I gave up because it looked like I couldn’t have any safe place to leave my camera bag.

On my traveling facebook page, I got a contact from a local people, Peter Thidholm. He said he saw me I am in Stockholm. He said he would like to help my bicycle problem if I have.

I paid for a new crankset and bottom bracket which Russian guy recommended. He helped me that he installed for me. But since that time, I could not change my gear well. I only cycled with 16 gears, but it was fine because I didn’t need all gear on the snow. But maybe after arriving Poland I would need all gears.
Actually Russian guy told me that my new bottom bracket which he suggested to buy was bigger and didn’t fit on my bicycle. But he didn’t give me a new bottom bracket or money back. So, I thought that he put some other alternative. When Peter opened my bottom bracket, there was my old one, not new one. Now I knew what was problem. Crankset didn’t fit even with my old bottom bracket.
Thanks that Peter found a good bottom bracket for my new crankset. Now I could use all gear! He also solved many problems on my bicycle. Even he gave me Schwalbe tire set!!
Now my bicycle was ready to cycle again for Poland.

On the way back to center after meeting Peter.

One of touristic place(?) in Stockholm was a library. Main hall was very impressive that I wish I live in Stockholm for only library. Haha
I remembered that I loved Vancouver library as well.

I was scary to park my bicycle here

Skansen was open-air museum. But they closed early and some of building was closed because of the season. So I just walked around.

I went the other museum. But the bicycle parking lot was far from the museum and there were a few bicycle parts left after being stolen. I was too scary to leave my bicycle here. So, I decided to park my bicycle in front of the museum for the safety.

The name of museum I visited was “Fotografiska”

Entrance fee 13$ (120 sek)

It had been long time since I visited a photo gallery.
The first artist I’ve seen was Herb Ritts.

@Herb Ritts – http://www.herbritts.com/images/

It was allowed to take picture if I didn’t use flash. So, I took some picture of his art.

*I DO NOT HAVE ANY RIGHT OF ABOVE PICTURE.*

@Herb Ritts – http://www.herbritts.com/images/

@Herb Ritts – http://www.herbritts.com/images/

@Herb Ritts – http://www.herbritts.com/images/

@Herb Ritts – http://www.herbritts.com/images/

Some photo had very unique frame that I liked it. Some of them were taken in 1980’s.
The nude picture on online didn’t look good to me. It looked like just cheap Porn.

But Herb Ritts’ picture was different to me. His nude picture looked like good art. Maybe because I was in Art Gallery? Or his art was really good?

I liked his picture because the smooth line of the body looked so beautiful and gorgeous. This was the beauty of nude.

The next artist @Christian Aslund

Actually the left guy was lying down, not standing.

@Christian Aslund

This was the same. He was not standing!

@Adi Nes
At the upstart, I watched Adi Nes’s photo. He was one of Israel’s most celebrated and respected artists. He was homosexual. So, it was said that there were many young handsome guys on his picture.

@Adi Nes

@Adi Nes

The last artist I’ve seen was @Jimmy Nelson.

He was a photographer who took the picture of aboriginal tribes. There was a documentary which showed how he took the picture. And it was a bit disappointed. It was not a real(?) picture. He was preparing with aboriginal and tried to take many different shots with people.

@Jimmy Nelson

It was said that he was criticized with one reason. People told him that he didn’t care about human morality, but only picture such as he ignored female circumcision in Africa.

But he said he was just recording the moment of history which would disappear someday. He said like I am not an activist, but just photographer.

@Jimmy Nelson

I was wondering how he could find this kind of people.

@Jimmy Nelson

Maybe he was right that someday we could see this custom only on the picture of him.

The next museum I visited was Vasa Museum. The above picture was a small model of Vasa.

Real Vasa was very big.

The video I took at the third floor.

Vasa was built between 1626 and 1628. The ship foundered and sank after sailing about 1,300 m (1,400 yd) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628.

After she was found in 1950s, she was housed in the museum.

At the front, there was a lion.
I thought many of country used a lion as a symbol, because the lion present the power.

The ship was at the center of building and there was corridor at the each side. So, it was really good construction to see closely the ship.

Model of inside of ship

There were many things to see in the museum.

Only one gold object was found on board.
A ring wich might have belonged to Vice Admiral.

Vasa sank because it had very little initial stability, which can be thought of as resistance to heeling over under the force of wind or waves acting on the hull. The reason for this is that the distribution of mass in the hull structure and the ballast, guns, provisions, and other objects loaded on board puts too much weight too high in the ship.

The center of gravity is too high, and so it takes very little force to make the ship heel over, and there is not enough righting moment, force trying to make the ship return to an upright position.

Modern replicas in the Vasa Museum of some of the ship’s sculptures that have been painted in what are believed to be the original colors.

Maybe after decades, even people would recover original color of Vasa.

Vasa even exhibited human model. But it was a bit disgusting because it looked too real.

Museum had a skeleton.

There were a theater and a guide at many different hours. So, it was so easy to understand Vasa.

Before visiting the other museum, I could see people enjoying cross-country ski.

The next museum was ‘National Museum of Science and Technology’

There were old bicycles.

It reminded me of an old game player.

Dish washers in the history

Laundries..

I found a funny face!

Air helmet! Is it practical?
I just found one idea. It might be too hot to use in the summer.

The video from the museum

The history of vacuum.
Actually the museum was not much interesting. The space museum in France was so interested. That’s why maybe I expected too much here.

The first floor was the history of machine.

But from the second floor it was a bit more interested because there was some digital things. I wish I spend more time on the upstairs. It was around closing time that I didn’t have enough time for it.

This is Swedish money. The exchange rate was too bad and even I had to pay commission. So I just took the money from ATM.

Swedish Coin. Quite big and only few kind of coins. 1$=9.3 s e k

The host of warmshower let me stay at his flat alone because he told me he would be not at home for a few days.
I did some grocery shopping in Lidl, the cheapest market in Europe.
I only chose the cheapest one. If I went a normal market and chose any of them, I might pay more than it.
Chicken 1.384, 1kg-24.90 = 34.46 = 3.70$
Some vegetable 7.83=0.84@
Orange 13.99 = 1.50$
1kg Potatoes 8.71 = 0.93$
200g Garlic 8.71 =0.93$
1kg Red Onion 7.83 =0.84$
Sausage 14.95 = 1.60$
Bacon 9.95= 1.06$
Rice 1kg 16.95 = 1.82$
Eggs 6개 13.4=1.44$
Yogurt 15.95=1.71$
Pasta 6.49=0.69$
Mushroom can 6.95=0.74$
Olive 8.95 = 0.96$
Tuna 13.95 = 1.5$
Beer 8.5*2 17 = 1.8$
Popcorn 9.49 = 1.02$
Snack 5.95 = 0.63$
Snack 7.95 = 0.85$
Bread 17.90 = 1.9$

=======

251.52 = 27.04$

I found one funny thing that Lidl only sell 3.5% beer. Liquor store closed early as well. One of my hobby is to take the picture of beer at the each country. But actually it was not easy mission, because always there were many import beer. So, I had to ask a worker “Is it a local beer?”
But here was easy because there was a flag on the tag.

Mission clear!
Stockholm beer

European old elevator

I had to catch a ferry today for going to Poland. The port was 65km (40 mi) far from Stockholm. Suddenly in the morning it snowed a lot. Why..?

It looked like when I started cycling, then it snowed?

Recently I lost a key for the lock I bought last year.

Peter introduced me some shop, so I bought locks there. It was very heavy! Haha

At the noon, I became serious. I could only cycle 25 km (15mi) in the morning because of heavy snow. I had to cycle 40 km (25 mi) in four hours. It looked like I would miss Ferry which cost 100$.
The worst thing was I was too hungry now. I bought a few things on the grocery shop and then found Mac lunch for 5 Euros. It was the cheapest meal I’ve ever found in Sweden. So I bought as soon as I saw it.
During having hamburger, I checked map. There was a train station near the city. But I didn’t want to take it. I wanted to try cycling first.
I also found other train station at the next city. First I would cycle and if I was late, I would take the train at the next city.

I wanted to try cycle harder, but uphill was there.
Luckily after a few km, the load condition was so good that I could cycle faster.

AND I MADE IT. I was so happy that I didn’t give up but I tried it. I took the picture at the happiest moment.
It was really nothing special story. But for myself it was the time I got the confidence. Sometimes a small achievement could give good feeling.

It was getting dark. It seemed people were used to the dark winter that even they put a fluorescent vest on the dog.

Ice on a gear changer

Ferry which would take me to Poland
But Viking line was better than this one.

There was another person on the cabin, but she moved out!
Hurray!!!
FREE HOTEL ROOM FOR MYSELF … haha…

The last moment of Scandinavia, I was with the snow.
I had some coins that I wanted to buy beer to use all coins. But after taking the shower and having some bread, I fell into sleep.
I was too tired to enjoy ferry.

When I woke up, the sun was rising.

The breakfast was included on my ticket that I must have it! haha

I started cycling with the snow in Scandinavia and I finished cycling with the snow as well in Scandinavia. It was very adventurous that actually I enjoyed. But now it was time to go to the south!

===================================================================

Route
Days in Sweden = 6Days
Distance of cycling in Sweden = 132 km (82.5 mi)
Cities I stayed in Sweden = 2 Cities
Stockholm, Nynashamn
Expenditure in Sweden = 167.2 $
$1=9.3 Sek
==========

Gear for cycling winter

On Oct, Nov, the temperature was -5c~-10c (23f~14f)
On Jan 0 (32f)~-15c (5f)
The coldest was -21 c (-5.8f)

My gear was really cheap one

*Head-
Thin sports hat (no picture)
If I felt cold, then I wore hat of red waterproof to keep heat.

*Neck-
I had a winter buff. There was thin part. But it was very easy to wet, which made me feel colder.
I wished special winter mask to breathe well.

*Top
Long sleeved shirt (7$?)+Red water wind proof jacket (10?)- until -5c (23f) was okay
When it was colder than -10c (14f), I put winter jacket inside of water wind proof jacket. And then actually the winter jacket was wet with the sweat.
Winter jacket was also not a sport gear, but cheap one.

*Bottom –
Bicycle pants (20$?) + Long pants (7$?) + Black wind water proof (10$?)

*Hands-
Cheap ski gloves (15$?)+ simple winter gloves
My hands were painful often with coldness.
Then I made clench my fist at the inside of gloves during cycling to have heat.

*Feet-
Winter socks + waterproof socks(not much helpful)+Winter boots (30$)+ waterproof cover for shoes
The toes were the most painful part too often.
Every day I was struggling to not have frostbite on the toes
I even tried to cover news paper on my feet. But it was actually worst because the sweat stayed there. So, it was very difficult to warm up again.
Usually to warm up cold toes took one or two hours. The way to warm up was to keep moving in side of shoes during cycling.

*I didn’t sleep at the outside. I was already invited by local people except one time at -2c (28f). Maybe that how I survive with poor gear in the winter cycling.

*My experience
I didn’t need expensive gear to cycle at extremely cold winter.
The cheap windproof was very good. It was too cheap to have breathe function. So, the jacket kept all my heat. (But in the summer at raining day, it was horrible because I am wet with sweat.)

[15/01/28~02/03 (D+1252)] Last snow in Scandinavia with my bicycle