Stockholm's totally walkable

Today I walked around Stockholm. I did yesterday as well, but today I did it alone. It's interesting to see the great number of people that look just as confused as I do. July and August, I've heard, are the months that all of Sweden seems to take as vacation so I would imagine that many native to Stockholm have vacated and many from the country have flocked in. Either way, it's a cool place to visit.

After getting caught in a rainstorm today, I decided that perhaps a warm coffee in a not-so-hip coffeehouse was the thing to do. So, while enjoying a good cappuccino and my current book (Philip Roth's American Pastoral), I noticed quite a commotion across the street. There were literally hundreds of blonde-haired Swedish women crowding through two sets of double doors into what turned out to be two simultaneous showings of Sex and the City. Promiscuity and materialism, it seems, is not limited to American culture.

These women were ravenous for Sarah Jessica Parker's latest travails in the ways of love (or perhaps those of Samantha's). I still have absolutely no interest whatsoever in seeing it, regardless of my sometimes regrettable admitted materialism. I confess that I am a true hound for studio gear and boutique jeans. It is something I cannot escape. I bought boutique jeans yesterday, in fact, from a local jean shop (Nudie Jeans) that are fantastic (and fantastically expensive compared to the regular Levi's). It's something I cannot help. My calves, my thighs, my waist, it seems, are happier when embraced by quality denim in an insatiable thirst that cannot be satisfied by American chains like The Gap, American Eagle, and Abercrombie & Fitch. Tell me I'm wasting my money, tell me I'm a clotheshound, only don't tell me my jeans look bad.