{"id":6214,"date":"2024-07-22T10:01:11","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T17:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/?p=6214"},"modified":"2024-10-07T07:12:36","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T14:12:36","slug":"summer-sojourn-in-scandinavia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2024\/07\/22\/summer-sojourn-in-scandinavia\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Sojourn in Scandinavia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>We decided to combine this year’s ASRS meeting<\/a> in Stockholm with a visit to Copenhagen for a week-long Scandinavian vacation. Melody and I split the work planning the two cities, but between the Copenhagen Card<\/a> and Stockholm Pass<\/a>, our itineraries felt very similar. Our flight<\/a> via Toronto got cancelled after a long delay, necessitating a frantic Uber<\/a> ride from SMF to SFO for another flight via Frankfurt, arriving in Copenhagen only 4 hours behind schedule. After checking into our artsy and audiophilic Airbnb<\/a>, we climbed the Round Tower<\/a> and ducked under bridges on a canal tour<\/a> before queuing for ramen<\/a> for dinner. We awoke Monday to visit the genetically-modified Little Mermaid<\/a> on the way to the more touristy landmark<\/a>, then passed through the Kastellet<\/a> and City Hall<\/a> to learn more about Hans Christian Anderson’s<\/a> fairy tales. Lunch at the Tivoli Food Hall<\/a> included sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d<\/a>, hot dog<\/a>, pizza<\/a>, and a\u00a0wasp sting (my first!) that fortunately did not distract from the festive Tivoli Gardens<\/a>. Westley was not yet tall enough for the Demon<\/a>, but hauled me up Temple Tower<\/a>, drove a Vintage Car<\/a>, piloted a Dragon Boat<\/a>, and went trigger-happy at the Mine<\/a>. We pigged out over Ma Poule’s<\/a> duck confit sandwich, Sushi Lover’s<\/a> sushi, and Il Mattarello’s<\/a> pasta carbonara at Torvehallerne Market<\/a> before returning to Tivoli to enjoy the park’s nighttime magic<\/a>. On Tuesday we explored Rosenborg Castle<\/a> and Amalienborg Palace<\/a> to learn about the old and newly-crowned Danish kings, then strolled through their gardens<\/a> and Nyhaven<\/a> for street art<\/a> and street food<\/a>, including Poulette’s<\/a> chicken sandwich, Haddock’s<\/a> fish & chips, and Pasta la Pasta’s<\/a> pasta. We browsed plaster sculptures at the colorful Thorvaldsen Museum<\/a> and more opulent chambers at Christiansborg Palace<\/a> before joining my co-fellow Francisco for a seafood feast at K\u00f8dbyens Fiskebar<\/a>. In the morning we supplemented our daily breakfast pastries from Buka<\/a> with congee and risotto from Grod<\/a> before catching our early morning train<\/a> to Stockholm. We arrived in time for a quick lunch<\/a> on my way to Stockholmsm\u00e4ssan<\/a> to give my talk on teleophthalmology. Our evening stroll took us past Norrmalm’s<\/a> shopping district, Stromgatan’s<\/a> harbor view, and Kungstr\u00e4dg\u00e5rden’s<\/a> giant fountains to Ostermalms Food Hall<\/a> for Lisa Elmqvist’s<\/a> toast skagen, mussels, and fish soup. Our hotel<\/a> offered free breakfast but poor security, leaving Melody bagless for our day at Gamla Stan<\/a>. We walked through Old Town snapping photos of the narrow Marten Trotzigs Grand<\/a> and mysterious Stortorget cannonballs, <\/a>enjoyed hot and cold chocolate drinks at Chokoladkoppen<\/a>, and swung by Storkyrkan<\/a> to see the sundog painting<\/a> on the way to the Nobel Prize Museum<\/a>. Here, we read the stories behind the artifacts of past laureates, and was surprised by a chance encounter with my med school classmate Jai. After traditional<\/a> Swedish meatballs and dumplings, we caught the end of the changing of the guards, then explored the Royal Palace<\/a>\u00a0before our guided tour of City Hall<\/a> and its impressive Golden Hall<\/a>. With canal tours canceled and most restaurants requiring reservations, we settled for nearby Stockholm Fisk<\/a> before turning in. On Friday, we visited the Vasa Museum<\/a> to witness the impressive recovery and preservation of the 17th-century ship that sank 25 minutes into its maiden voyage, along with details from other shipwrecks at the Lego Brickwrecks<\/a> exhibit. We filled on wallenbergare<\/a> and more meatballs at the Viking Museum<\/a>, then toured its exhibits and dark ride. The nearby Skansen<\/a> open-air museum gave us a chance to see arctic foxes, pet reindeer, and practice walking on stilts until our timed entry to ABBA The Museum<\/a>. After our Dancing Queen sing-alongs, we dined at Tak<\/a> for rooftop Scandinavian-Japanese fare. We kept Saturday light with a ferry<\/a> to explore Drottningholm Palace’s<\/a> expansive gardens and Chinese Pavilion<\/a>, followed by ramen<\/a>, gelato,<\/a> milk tea<\/a>, and Westley’s first try of black licorice<\/a>. After a hot pot<\/a> dinner with my vegetarian collaborator, we picked up Vete-Katten<\/a> pastries for dessert and airport snacks next morning. Fortunately, our flights were not impacted by the Microsoft outage<\/a>, giving us time at our Toronto layover to complete Westley’s Global Entry<\/a> interview and his first taste of poutine<\/a>. With one trip down and two to go this year, we immediately got back to planning our upcoming trips abroad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We decided to combine this year’s ASRS meeting in Stockholm with a visit to Copenhagen for a week-long Scandinavian vacation. Melody and I split the work planning the two cities, but between the Copenhagen Card and Stockholm Pass, our itineraries … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6214"}],"version-history":[{"count":77,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6343,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6214\/revisions\/6343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}