Stockholm Travel Quotes

Kundalini means, according to Zeena ‘She Who is Hidden,’ and points to the dormant goddess in every human being’s body. While the kundalini force is found in muladharachakra, she hypnotizes humans, like maya herself, and renders them slaves to the illusory. Kundalini can only awaken people if she travels up along the spine.' --About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004

When Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, only five Americans had previously been so honored. Accepting the prize in Stockholm, he gave an impassioned speech in which he argued that “the ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.

Sweden’s capital is an expansive and peaceful place for solo travellers. It is made up of 14 islands, connected by 50 bridges all within Lake Mälaren which flows out into to the Baltic Sea. Several main districts encompass islands and are connected by Stockholm’s bridges. Norrmalm is the main business area and includes the train station, hotels, theatres and shopping. Őstermalm is more upmarket and has wide spaces that includes forest. Kungsholmen is a relaxed neighbourhood on an island on the west of the city. It has a good natural beach and is popular with bathers. In addition to the city of 14 islands, the Stockholm Archipelago is made up of 24,000 islands spread through with small towns, old forts and an occasional resort. Ekero, to the east of the city, is the only Swedish area to have two UNESCO World Heritage sites – the royal palace of Drottningholm, and the Viking village of Birka. Stockholm probably grew from origins as a place of safety – with so many islands it allowed early people to isolate themselves from invaders. The earliest fort on any of the islands stretches back to the 13th century. Today the city has architecture dating from that time. In addition, it didn’t suffer the bombing raids that beset other European cities, and much of the old architecture is untouched. Getting around the city is relatively easy by metro and bus. There are also pay‐as‐you‐go Stockholm City Bikes. The metro and buses travel out to most of the islands, but there are also hop on, hop off boat tours. It is well worth taking a trip through the broad and spacious archipelago, which stretches 80 kms out from the city. Please note that taxis are expensive and, to make matters worse, the taxi industry has been deregulated leading to visitors unwittingly paying extortionate rates. A yellow sticker on the back window of each car will tell you the maximum price that the driver will charge therefore, if you have a choice of taxis, choose

the one with the lower rate. A few unique things to see in Stockholm include the Nobelmuseet, the Nobel Museum, which tells of the creation of the Nobel Prize and the creativity of its laureates, and the Spiritmuseet, where you can learn about the nation’s complicated relationship with alcohol. Sweden is associated with design (and not just Ikea) and many shops sell Swedish‐only design. Oudoor activities in summer include hiking trails through the islands and archipelago. Winter activities stretch to cross‐country skiing, ice skating and snow hiking. Nightlife is expensive, cover charges to bars can be high and, bizarrely, the minimum age for drinking varies in an arbitrary fashion as it is up to each establishment to make its own decision – it can be anything from 17 to 27. So take identification with you. There are two airports serving Stockholm. Arlanda is 40 kms north of the city and serves main airlines. Skavsta, 100 kms to the south, serves the budget airlines. Both airports have coaches to take visitors directly to the city centre. Downside: Many independently owned restaurants and cafes close for holidays between July and August which can limit the range of places to eat. To read: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. This trilogy of a financial journalist and the tattooed genius with a motive to fight the dark right‐wing forces of Swedish society romped through the bestseller lists.

His two brief trips to attend the party congresses in Stockholm and London in 1906 and 1907 were, by the way, his first exposures to foreign life, and it is doubtful that he spent much time outside the meeting-halls. A six-week sojourn in Cracow and Vienna at the beginning of 1913 was his only other known venture abroad before he traveled to Teheran in 1943 to confer with Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt on the war against the Axis.

— he said don't call police. I promised I wouldn't. — it would make us in more trouble. — he left. We heard car. I remember this part, too. I told Sara he was right; we shouldn't call the police. Somehow, even then, I felt him as a victim. I told her that they would put him in prison, that prison would not reform him: It would make him worse. Was this a kind of Stockholm syndrome? Does it happen that fast, in the space of an hour? Sara was more afraid than I, but also more alive. She picked up the phone. No dial tone. He had cut the wires. How would a rapist have time to cut the phone wires or know where to find them in the dark, dank basement? How long had he been in the house? How long had he been plotting this crime? "He kept saying he wouldn't hurt us. He kept saying to listen, to be quiet." I was quiet. I listened. I'm still listening now. I hear a rush, in my mind's inner ear, of insistence. A kind of aural premonition, but a kind of premonition that goes both backward and forward, the soundless protest of all the raped, shamed, and silenced women from the beginning to the end of time. 'He hurt you, he altered you forever,' the chorus soundlessly insists, grating on my inner ear — the ear that wishes not to be reminded of feeling. I respond to that chorus: 'Hurt' is not the right word for what that man did to me. I feel a void. Something got cut out of me in that hour — my capacity for pain and fear were removed. There is no more tender flesh. It's quite liberating to have feeling removed, the fear and pain of life now dulled. Nabokov once said, 'Life is pain.' Buddhists, too, believe that to live is to crave and to crave is to feel pain. Had I not been catapulted, in that one hour, halfway to death, and therefore closer to enlightenment? Later, of course, I would come to reject this understanding of what happened to me that day. Yes, I was partly released from the pain of being alive. But my spirit had traveled, not toward the infinite divinity of enlightenment, but toward the infinite nothingness of indifference. Instead of fear, I felt numb. Instead of sadness, I experienced a complete absence of hope. Indifference is a dangerous disease. 'He kept saying to listen, to be quiet.' I have listened, and I have been quiet all my life. But now I will speak.

— He said don't call police. I promised I wouldn't. — It would make us in more trouble. — He left. We heard car. I remember this part, too. I told Sara he was right; we shouldn't call the police. Somehow, even then, I felt him as a victim. I told her that they would put him in prison, that prison would not reform him: It would make him worse. Was this a kind of Stockholm syndrome? Does it happen that fast, in the space of an hour? Sara was more afraid than I, but also more alive. She picked up the phone. No dial tone. He had cut the wires. How would a rapist have time to cut the phone wires or know where to find them in the dark, dank basement? How long had he been in the house? How long had he been plotting this crime? 'He kept saying he wouldn't hurt us. He kept saying to listen, to be quiet.' I was quiet. I listened. I'm still listening now. I hear a rush, in my mind's inner ear, of insistence. A kind of aural premonition, but a kind of premonition that goes both backward and forward, the soundless protest of all the raped, shamed, and silenced women from the beginning to the end of time. 'He hurt you, he altered you forever,' the chorus soundlessly insists, grating on my inner ear — the ear that wishes not to be reminded of feeling. I respond to that chorus: 'Hurt' is not the right word for what that man did to me. I feel a void. Something got cut out of me in that hour — my capacity for pain and fear were removed. There is no more tender flesh. It's quite liberating to have feeling removed, the fear and pain of life now dulled. Nabokov once said, 'Life is pain.' Buddhists, too, believe that to live is to crave and to crave is to feel pain. Had I not been catapulted, in that one hour, halfway to death, and therefore closer to enlightenment? Later, of course, I would come to reject this understanding of what happened to me that day. Yes, I was partly released from the pain of being alive. But my spirit had traveled, not toward the infinite divinity of enlightenment, but toward the infinite nothingness of indifference. Instead of fear, I felt numb. Instead of sadness, I experienced a complete absence of hope. Indifference is a dangerous disease. 'He kept saying to listen, to be quiet.' I have listened, and I have been quiet all my life. But now I will speak.