Last year, during the Stockholm Tap Festival, we attended a performance of some wonderful dancing featuring talented tappers from all over the world. The Tap Festival is a yearly thing, and so we decided to attend a show this year as well. The festival was set to finish this weekend, so we booked for a performance for tonight. The tickets were booked, and the date put into the calendar.
Being Easter, this weekend has also featured a pop-up chocolate shop in Trosa, something Nicoline alerted us to. We decided we’d visit it before heading into Stockholm. Then Mirinda decided it would be a good idea to get a Swedish phone which required a trip to Telia in Stockholm and, given it was Easter and everything closes early, the chocolate shop took a back seat as we headed for the station instead.
As we drove towards Vagnhärad, I discovered the trains were not running due to, I assume, track work. There was a bus instead. Unfortunately, the bus was taking a lot longer than the train. We decided to drive to Södertälje syd and catch a train from there.
There was a bit of sitting around at the station but this plan worked out and we made it into the city with time to head for the phone shop and, subsequently, buy a new one.
If the train situation was annoying, it wasn’t as bad as the Telia shop which had had a power outage and so, while it was possible to buy a new phone and contract, it wasn’t possible for it to work until Thursday. Mirinda is due to leave for Portugal on Tuesday and we were hoping she’d have an EU roaming phone by then. This is mostly because O2 has decided to go against what it promised and has started charging a lot to use our UK phones.
It felt like the day, while beautiful and blue and not at all cold, was turning from good to not so good with every step we took. We stopped for a coffee in a handy Fabrique.
The café was very narrow; really only wide enough for one person. There were three stools at a bar across the back wall and one small table with two chairs up against an ancient, metal spiral staircase. However, looking up, there was an awful lot of space. As Mirinda noted, if you were to turn the place on its side, there’d be masses of room.
We then headed for Åhléns so Mirinda could buy a new handbag.
This was not to be any old handbag, however. No, this handbag would replace the blue and white striped, oversized handbag she bought a while back to take to language classes and, generally, to use whenever she had to take her laptop anywhere.
The old one hadn’t lasted very long before it was rendered useless. The replacement would need to be a bit better in quality and, therefore, price. She succeeded on both counts.
The bag managed to restore some semblance of pleasure which the lack of an active phone had forced upon us. It really is a beautiful handbag. It should last a lifetime. Preferably a lot longer than the one that the blue and white striped one had.
Following this success, we headed off to find some early dinner before the tap show curtain.
Ages ago, I was walking down Drottninggatan when I spotted a tapas restaurant. I always check out tapas menus in case they serve berenjenas so, obviously, I duly checked this menu and stored the knowledge somewhere in the back of my head.
Leaving Åhléns, I suggested we try the tapas place and I am so glad we did.
Not only was the food exceptional, the staff were amazing. Full of energy and happy to be working. Or so it seemed to us. The guy that served us was from Chile and he went through the nationalities of all the staff. The chef, for instance was from Grand Canaria.
And, the berenjenas was delicious. As usual, it was slightly different to any other berenjenas we’ve had but still bloody good. Denise would have loved it. In fact, it was so good, we had seconds.
Suitably full, we decided it was time to head for the theatre.
The little theatre was closed up. This was not unusual. When we went to the little Strindberg theatre, we realised that theatres in Stockholm don’t always open more than 20 minutes before a performance. We were an hour early so we found a small place and had a drink.
When we returned to the still dark and deserted theatre we discovered something rather important. We had the wrong night. The performance is tomorrow. With heavy hearts, we went home.
