Ask Not What Your Country Can Do for You

Stop right there! We definitely need to ask!

OK some background stories out of it. Remember Lisa? The German Lady from my walking tour in Estocolmo? We had lunch together before visiting Vasa Museum, she said that everything in Germany is not much cheaper than in Stockholm, they are kind of on the same level, Germany is getting “more expensive” (with the inflation). Look at this, I bought a 72 hours public transport ticket, it cost me 30 Euro. Yes it is still more expensive than Germany but not much anymore.

After hearing the price of the public transport, I feel quiet weird because every time I tap my Master Card it’s written 0,09 SEK = 0,10 Euro… Automatically I felt I have the Vorteile of not buying it as it only cost me 10 Cents each time. I am not the type who put fuel on the fire, so just let it be when Lisa said it, I won’t say “btw I only paid 10 Cents” reason: a. it’s not helping; b. this is so not true at all! hahaha

Fast forward to end of the month, Erin need to renew her monthly card, to which I asked “why don’t you just tap like me?” see it’s always 10 Cents. I actually don’t understand why because if I eat in the restaurants, the real value is there directly, for example dinner 1390 kr = 119,94 Euro or 980 kr = 84,43 Euro. All are correct other than public transport one.

Moment of truth ladies and gentleman!!!! I was completely wrong the whole damn time! I have 0 idea why, SL (the public transportation) need 2-3 days until the real value came up to my Master Card. It all depends on the exchange rate sometimes one way fee was 3,33 Euro or 3,44 Euro or 3,67 Euro. Verdammt! She was right! Rrrr should’ve trust the Germans for sure she did her research before! Aaargghh! had I knew it, I would have bought that damn 30 Euro card! I used all public transport like no one ever just to know it hasn’t been charged completely!!!

Fuck fuck fuck! what can I do? Now it’s not lohnt sich anymore to buy the 72 hours as my trips approaching the end. On top of it, I already visited all the necessary sightseeing with always tap tap tap tap #Running out of money! What can this Scandinavian country offer me? Erin sent a link “free museum in Stockholm” aha! that’s what’s I’m gonna do for the rest of my trip with the rest of the money I have. How about public transportation? Nope, I’m gonna walk the whole damn day!

We will reveal it one by one:

First: The Medieval Museum

I chose the locker number that represents my age 😉 then I read a sign there will be an English tour whoaaaa There is a part where I remembered clearly is about a punishment for adultery, the woman need to carry a 30-40kg of weight on her shoulder while the man’s private part will be tied on a string and they have to walked all the city. However! most man will get away by paying the money while girl doesn’t have much money to begin with. What?! I hope I understand that part wrong except I wasn’t…. Oh see the brick wall? that was the real wall from ancient time, they found it when they dug die Erde to make this Medieval Museum.

Second: Moderna Museet with Erin

The free entrance was 2 hours before it’s closing. We did went through all exhibitions, sometimes our reaction were only ‘hmmmm’ didn’t think I understand it 😉 I do however understand one paint with thinking “are we in Asia?” once I got close yep! inspired from Thailand 🙂

Moving on to one part where they provided us a book of a conversation between Rashid Johnson an Kevin Quashie called ” Thinking-In-Action” in Swedish and English at a corner called “please have a book”. We happily taking the book thinking “oh we got ourselves a souvenir!” Only to find out they didn’t put the Q and A on the right page, or maybe this is still a part of the art? where I need to guess on which page the answer will continue?

Third: The Jewish Museum

I came exactly at the hour when it’s free for public. Followed by many people after me, hello not paying customers 😉 #I’m not the only one

What really strucks me was this videos:

The first lady’s family were hosting Jewish girl from Berlin when she was 9-15 years old. She didn’t like her at all, according to her the Jewish girl came out of a sudden to her family and everyone need to feel sorry for her. She gave her a real hard time. Then they met again at age 40ish. She asked her about her experience on living with her family? To her surprise the Jewish girl replied “that’s the best year of my life”. Then she said “you know I was hard on you”. The Jewish girl didn’t felt and never thought of it. She is not religious person but she prayed to God for forgiveness for hating her.

The middle lady remembers a Hitler songs in German: “if a Jews’ blood drip from the knife then life is twice as good” I could still see the fear on the video when she recite it.

The third man said when he got older he understood the reason why every time he visit his classmates’ home there will be coins on the floor and it’s to see if he will take it. That’s when he felt what is the meaning of being offended.

Fourth: The Swedish Holocaust Museum

This Museums tells the story about 7 Jewish survivors who came to Sweden. They have the part where we can ask questions with AI’s help unfortunately by the time I came we can only ask in Swedish.

I bought a book from them, it’s very…. I can’t read it in one go, not because its too think, rather the content is just so wow in a negative way.

Fifth: The Living History Forum

There’s one corner about the story of Per Anger, a diplomat of Swedish Embassy in Budapest who issued a fake Passport for Jewish people. He saved so many Hungarian Jewish, there was a time he went to the train full of Jews asking “who has Swedish Emergency Passport?” only two people has it, then he spoke to the Hungarian if they have any receipt whatsoever anything that looks like legal? The German officer won’t understand it anyway. They did have that and Per Anger talked with the German officer “their Swedish Emergency Passport just got delivered, here is the receipt”

Thank you very much for standing up Sir! That’s why your name and your best friend’s Raoul Wallenberg are still be remembered to this day.