January 21, 2007 - City Hall.
There it is! The city hall of Stockholm. It was build in the 20's (1920s, of course!) and its still used by their "congressmen" today. Being that its a socialist country, I guess they don't really have a Congress, but a meeting once a week between all the high level officials from various parties (there are 7 parties in all represented). The sessions are open to the public, but with the invention of the television and the newspapers, no one really goes to the sessions anymore. Last year, they averaged 1.7 people in the audience per meeting.

Despite the hour walk it took us to get there, (that includes time that it took to read the map, get lost, study the map some more, getting more lost, debating whether we should hire a taxi, getting coffee, checking out the local train station, buying souvinours at a souvinour shop that was owned by an Indian guy that spoke Swedish like the guy on the Simpsons), the tour was well worth it. We saw the blue room (which is the room where they serve dinner during the Nobel prize ceremonies. It was pretty big, impressive, and comes with a set of marbled stairs. Up stairs, after going through numerous chambers and resting quarters for people depending on their social status, we come upon the gold room, which is where the dancing takes place.



Upon its completion in the late 20's, the Gold room was heavily criticized by the Swedes at that time. Their biggest complaint was that it wasn't built to the traditions and the style of the Swedish culture. As you can see in the pictures on the right side, the art isn't really traiditional, and neither is the color. But, from today's perspective, its quite a piece of art. the whole room was lined with gold plated tiles (Noticed - "plated", so not worth stealing) that measures 1/4" x 1/4". This means, back then, each tile was placed by hand. That is impressive in itself. Anyways. It was an impressive sight.

Two other tidbits of information thats interesting that might be worth mentioning: The tower means 106 meters tall, which is exactly 1m taller than the city hall tower in Copenhagen. They have to be one step better than the Danes. Also, they ran out of money towards the end of the construction of the City Hall. So instead of a City Hall without a roof, they decided to offer the Swedish people a chance to "buy" a piece of Sweden by buying a roof tile. You are allowed to wirte on the roof tile whatever you wished, and that is how they were able to finish the construction of the City Hall. Although, the only hard part is - how do you go see your tile?

Upon exiting City Hall, my boss had the unfortunate mishap of stepping in a puddle that has ice on the bottom. He slipped, got soaked in freezing water, so we had to go back to the hotel and change. Good thing he took the fall for me (no pun intended.) hahaha.

On to the Vasamuseet!