Maybe we need some color

It occurred to me that we haven't been taking many pictures lately. We took so many while traveling...maybe Stockholm got boring in comparison? Its certainly more monochromatic. Nah, I know I have *seen* things that are picture-worthy, I just haven't had the camera with me. And come on, I am not really that interesting...the blog is just better when there are pictures. So I am using what we did this weekend as an excuse to steal a bunch from the web. With a little more color.

We went over to our friends' place for dinner Friday, and while they impressed us with filet mignon, and fancy salad and two different kinds of risotto, I brought chocolate glop. It was supposed to be brownie pudding, but it didn't set, and it turned out to be mostly pudding goo. It tasted like heaven, but turned out looking nothing like this:

Aaaaaaand I still suck at baking in Stockholm.

We stayed out too late Friday and slept in too late Saturday, and missed the few hours of sun in the day. Story of my life. But in the afternoon, we went out to an opening at Magasin 3, a contemporary art space in Stockholm. The curators there are huge supporters of my grad school program, so it feels a little like kissing up by going to the openings, but then again, they show some really great art! The current exhibition is "Always in a Spiral" by Maria Nepomuceno:

She creates these Dr. Seuss-like woven constructions, using rope and pearls and whatever else. They feel very organic and some look almost phallic or yonic, but since they are so super colorful and fun, you just wanted to lie on them like a hammock. We got the chance to meet the artist on Saturday (which is a privilege you get surprisingly often in Stockholm...galleries really support the artist meeting the audience!) and she was very nice. There is an interesting little video showing the installation and more pieces on the M3 website here.

Art sometimes makes me sleepy and hungry, and I think my body is now set to Swedish fika time. So when out for coffee, we also got our first semlor of the season. I feel like maybe the semla bun should have its own dedicated blog post, they are so good. Or maybe its own dedicated blog.

Because Lent is a time of self-denial, these only seem to come out in the weeks before Fat Tuesday. You can see why. Basically, its a sweet cardamom bun filled with almond paste and topped with whipped cream, and when you've finished the entire thing in 12 seconds flat, you want to order another. And then another.

Okay, so more pictures, of the non-hunger-inducing variety. We finally saw Avatar this weekend. It was pretty. It made you think. However, I liked the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus far more. Go see them both.

And Sunday, there was sun, and we actually got out to enjoy it! We walked to the Medeltidsmuseum, the medieval Stockholm museum, on the day it re-opened after a lengthy re-furb. Its built into a bridge in front of the castle, the oldest bridge in the city, in fact. The Norrbro:

I realize this is NOT in color, but what a cool image of the North Bridge from the 1840s!

They had the bridge closed while they reinforced it, so we hadn't even gotten the chance to stand on it until this past weekend. Saturday, the Crown Princess Victoria laid the final stone:

More photos of that here.

The medieval museum was packed with people, even people so hardcore they got dressed up in renaissance clothing for the opening. And I was struck that it had so much more information in English than most Stockholm museums. So we learned, too. We learned that we would never want to live in medieval Stockholm.

And I actually took this last one, a shot from the Norrbro over the river...in our most familiar color palette.