About 3 months ago, Henrik and Celeste told us they were going to get married, so finally the big day has come! The stag night that is!
In Sweden, they go a bit OTT with the stag night, if this was Scotland, we would all just get pished, tie the stag to a lampost then put the lampost on the overnight train to London. But, in Sweden it’s an all-day event that takes a bit of thought…
06:00 Henrik is kidnapped by an electronic voice phonecall that informs him that a taxi is waiting downstairs for him to go to Arlanda Airport. He is reminded to bring his passport.
07:00 Henrik arrives at Arlanda Airport (about 50 miles from Stockholm). He goes to the check in desk and is handed an envelope with a ticket, but the ticket is for the Arlanda Express train back to Stockholm.
08:00 Henrik arrives back at Central Station with a key for a locker and instructions to take the clothes from the locker and get changed.
08:07 Henrik emerges dressed as a female wrestler/stripper much to the amusement of Gary and Jan hiding in the background and taking pictures. Henrik buys a coffee as instructed by his envelop and awaits his fate…
08:30 A young lady starts to talk to Henrik and somehow convinces him to follow her onto the Underground, two stops south to Slussen where all is revealed! Breakfast follows on top of the Katarina Hiss buildings where Henrik was able to prove his aerobics skills with his new found instructor…
10:00 After a nutritious beer breakfast, we walked through the streets of Söder and arrived a martial arts club where we told Henrik it was about to go down Ninja style, but in reality it was something much more terrifying…
That’s right, we dressed him up like a pole dancer and got him an hours pole dancing lessons! And you know what? He was good! Almost too good… I think he had done it before.
11:15 After the pole dancing, it was time for a beer at Medborgarplatsen while Henrik was sent off with a bat and ball to convince girls to play tennis with him. It was at this point that someone took a picture that I think perfectly defines life in Stockholm. They should use this for postcards…
12:30 Hungry for lunch we went down to the shore of Mälaren for a picnic and beers. Just when Henrik thought it was safe, another suprise was around the corner. Sumo wrestling!!!
You can’t believe how warm it is fighting in these things on a sunny day! Just as well that Henrik wasn’t wearing too many clothes then!
15:00 Now it was time to hit the city, walking up and down the main streets and through the old town heading towards another beer in Kungsträdgården. Henrik got one last chance to show off his pole dancing skills in front of hundreds of bewildered tourists at the Swedish parliament.
17:00 Down to Jan’s new house for a massive BBQ and drinks. Henrik allowed to get showered and changed and put the bad memories of the day behind him, safe in the knowledge that the worst of the day was behind him.
21:30 Journeyed back to the city and into Cafe Opera. I wouldn’t normally go to somewhere like this, the people who go here are a bit too “Östermalmy” for my tastes, but it was fun to finish off the day with somewhere a bit different. Mustn’t have been too bad because we managed to stay until the last subway home.
Great day had by all, but unfortunately my last ditch attempt to get Henrik on a train to the Arctic Circle proved fruitless.
The wedding is in 2 weeks time!
