Ion Ciorici

Yesterday the City of Stockholm and the Stockholm County Council had the pleasure of my company at a reception with buffet at Stadshuset (City Hall).

(this picture was attached to the invitation, so I suppose I have all the rights to post it on my commercial blog )

I suppose, that they organized this event in order to bring together all the international students and guest researchers and not because of future elections of the local mayor . Anyway it was a great honour to be invited by mayor in the same hall, where the Nobel Prize Banquet takes place.

In my travel guide is stated that Stadshuset (City Hall) is one of the best examples of modern architecture in Europe. The picture above shows how beautiful the building is and how it fits into the rest of the architecture in Stockholm. What makes Stadshuset extraordinary, however, is the interior. There are two courtyards, one uncovered, called the Blue Hall, which is actually Brown and one covered, called the Golden Hall.

The Blue Hall of the Stockholm City Hall was supposed to be painted blue, but the architect changed his mind when he saw the beautiful red brick walls. Although he decided to not cover the brick with blue plaster, he kept the name Blue Hall since it was found on all the plans of the building. The Blue Hall is the City Hall’s largest room, and the Nobel Prize Banquet takes place here on December 10 every year. On this occasion, around 1,300 guests enjoy the Nobel Dinner, listen to the toasts and speeches and witness the evening’s entertainment. The Blue Room also has one of Northern Europe’s largest organs with over 10,000 pipes and 138 stops.

Then there is the incredible Golden Hall: a huge room with walls entirely covered with handmade mosaics (18 million pieces). Formed from gold foil pressed between two layers of glass, the Golden Hall is truly golden, and the warm glow makes the room intimate despite the vast size. The mosaic figures on the walls represent important events in Sweden and the world.

The City Hall is not so far from the Main bus/train station, but because it’s located on the next island it’s a little bit complicated to get there. Since we were going for the first time, none of us knew the right directions. So we played a little bit the game “sheep-man and all the sheep following him” . Anyway after some 10 minutes all the students were at the destination, somebody took the taxi, others crossed the highway, more brave ones swam .

The reception was well prepared including short welcome speech (excepts Richard’s ):

…tasty food…

food enough for 700 hungry students :

Just a simple question for those who were there, have you read the descriptions of dishes, which were in front of each plate I doubt that you did .

and as usually Moritz was the hungriest one

As I see Kim liked the sausages and Andrea as a proud Italian was degustating some pure Swedish wine:

Armen finally bought a suit and as usually showed his Spanish passion for every friend:

Anyway was a nice evening with nice people:

and I hope next time they will provide some ABBA songs, because Gergely and Christina were very much looking forward to dancing :