Where to begin...in Stockholm?

Let's start here, downtown Stockholm:

But that's not even a minute 1 % of the city!!! Such shortsightedness if I was only to focus on this!

Stockholm is an incredibly diverse city. Therefore, before I start posting really truly peculiar things about the city, I want to give my most fervent readers a chance to get to know the normal city first. 

First, to exactly point out the geographical region I am talking to, here is a highly detailed map with the very accurately illustrated location of Stockholm.

Exact location of Stockholm, so now you know

To introduce readers to Stockholm, therefore,  I will introduce Stockholm here in numbers and facts. They are randomly enlisted below with a complete absence of structure - since this is the way I looked up the data. If you feel any important data is missing, please leave a message so that I may update this vital list with even more important facts.

• Stock means 'log' in Swedish. It could also come from an older German word for fortification. Holm stands for 'islet', which is an adequate name for a city that ...

• ...Is shattered across at least 14 islands

• More than 870.000 people live in the municipality

• More than 1.400.000 people (that is: about 'one-and-a-half MILLION) live in the urban agglomoration*

• The urban area is about 381.63 sq km (147.35 sq miles in yankee-lingo, or 1897.07 furlongs if you're really weird)

...That makes the entire urban area bigger than Malta

• The Stockholm Syndrome has nothing to do with this city (anymore)

• It ranked 24th on the 2008 Global Cities Index

...this was the 10th of all European cities

... and first of Scandinavia

• In June and July the least rain falls and the warmest weather occurs (a smashing daily mean of 15.4 and 17.2 C Celsius, respectively!).

• It is called 'Venice of the North'

Which is absolutely ridiculous because any proper Venice should have a nice climate, funny boats with singing - otherwise incomprehensible Venicians - and lots of cheap wine. Instead, Stockholm offers rainy and ghastly weather, fluently English speaking Swedes and very very very expensive wine. 

• It is home to the Vasa-museum

This is a museum dedicated to the sunken Vasa ship - still has some 'pieces' of it, too. Vasa was built by a Dutchman  (but it was not HIS fault) and commissioned by king Gustavus Adolphus and sank on its maiden voyage after less than 1 nautical mile (2 kilometers, 2000 meters or about 7 times the length of the Eiffel Tower, if put on its side). It was later partly recovered by marine archeologists** in the sixties. 

• In winter, it looks like this:

• In summer, though, the city is green. So green, even that it won the European Green Capital Award in 2010. This title was passed to Hamburg in 2011

The strange thing is that the Award-giving organisation already seems ahead of us, she has already declared the winner for 2013 and 2014 as well... What kind of time-traveling device do they use, I wonder... 

• There is a street in Stockholm especially designed for foreigners like me, Dutch people: Hollandagatan. If you are Dutch, and happen to be in Stockholm, try to find it (it is really quite hard to miss...)



Hollandergatan: somewhere in Stockholm but up to you to find it!

No, fellow Dutchees, 'gatan' does not mean 'hole'. I know the Dutch dictionary specifically states this to be the case, but a Swedish 'gatan' does not equal Dutch 'gaten' like those holes that we have in our cheeses. Come to think of it, how do you explain to a non-cheesehead what the difference is between 'a whole cheese' and a 'hole-cheese' (cheese with holes, e.g. Maasdammer, look it up, ignorant non-cheeseheads!)?

So much for the tedious and boring 'standard' facts of Stockholm. Next posts will be more interesting, I will dive further into the peculiarities of the city, its people and its surroundings.
The upcoming post is about Svamps (mushrooms!)
*Agglomeration: yet another posh and fancy word, which basically means 'a heap or cluster of usually disparate elements' (special thanks to Merriam-Webster's online Dictionary). In Swedish, you would say "tätbebyggelse", which looks like a terrible word to pronounce (try "tets-bah-buggles"). Fortunately, Swedes have acknowledged their mistake at thinking up that word, and are also familiar with the word "agglomeration". 
** (Marine) Archaeologists  scientists - although this is disputed - or scholars who investigate what happened in the past by looking at traces that humans - or other animals - have left behind (imagine those crazy scientists on National Geographic who lie in the burning dessert sun in Egypt while excavating pottery shelves with toothbrushes, tweezers and binoculars, but instead of visualizing the dust of some sandy Egyptian plain, dress them in aqua suits and equip them with wet toothbrushes. Got the picture? Then you've got 'marine archaeologists')