Yet another night out has come to an end - but there will be more tomorrow! Me and Björn met up with Viv from Italy who is in town for a few days. We went to Anchor together with Corvus (in picture) and three of Björn's friends.

Today I've visited the exhibition Mary - The Dream of Woman at Historiska museet, as I was in the neighborhood anyway. It's about virgin Mary and how the image of her has influenced the ideal of women throughout hundreds of years.


Is a woman supposed to choose between being a madonna or a whore? Men have been taking on both - or none - of these roles in all times, without even considering it to be a choice.

Since the museum closed already at five, I will go back some other day. It's quite relaxing to walk around in a big, almost empty museum and just look at things.

You'd think a double espresso and that chokladbiskvi for breakfast would make me less sleepy. Still I went back to bed and I'm not sure if I've woken up yet. Today I've only been grocery shopping enough to make salmon pasta for dinner.

New Year's in Stockholm was busy and crowded as usual - with pretty fireworks! It wasn't as cold as expected. Still many people wanted to go inside the nearest bar - or even rather, McDonald's - for warmth.

We ended up in a pub along Götgatan but I only stayed for an hour. Me and Vanessa took a walk to her hostel in Zinkensdamm, where I had a nice burger before catching the night bus home at 3 am.

I've been out and about since 9 am and now I'm frozen to the bone. The coffee at the restaurant barely helped and now I'm so happy to be home with a big cup of tea.

Our first stop this morning was Sigtuna - the old capital of Sweden, from a thousand years ago - and of course, Tant Brun. It's a café situated in a small wooden building from the 1600's. The roof is very low so you have to watch your head!


Here you can see the view over parts of Sigtuna and the lake Mälaren. This point was actually meant for people, in historical days, to watch out for unwelcome ships.


Me and Vanessa then went to Naturhistoriska riksmuseet, which we barely got through in two hours. It all looks the same as when I was there five and fifteen years ago, except for the exhibition about gay animals and the one about climate changes.

The former one got me thinking about how researchers tend to be influenced by society in their own time and culture. It used to be said that "homosexuality must be abnormal since humans are the only ones doing it" - while this exhibition wanted to show that homosexuality is quite common also among animals.

Now I'm off to a hot shower and to prepare myself mentally for tonight - I WILL wear a skirt despite it being -5 degrees and windy in Stockholm.

My friends Ruth, Willie and Vanessa came by today, together with Ruth's sister Eva and her friend Anja (did I get the names right?) for a house-warming fika. There was indeed a lot of cookies - they brought both lussekatter, wienerbröd, chokladbiskvier, some German cookies and also carrot cake. They left some for me and now there is only this left:


It's a sweet almond cake in the bottom, filled with chocolate cream and then covered with more chocolate. I love them very much but even I can't have more than one in the same evening!

We have been planning tomorrow night, talking about the weather appearing to be much colder in Stockholm and discussing the women who are still brave enough to wear only stockings in -5 degrees.

And I've realized now that not everyone in the world have experienced their toes going numb from cold.

My new place - so far. Now I'm off to Ikea.

You'd think shopping right before Christmas would be stressful. After 7 pm tonight I had the entire mall practically to myself - and the sales have already started!

So I got myself these as an early Christmas gift - less than 5 euro. Sorry, they were the last pair.