Sloppy Picture-taking

I was just thinking the other day that I need to stop being lazy about my Sweden picture taking... I often just snap a quick picture with my phone rather than carrying my much better camera around with me and taking a good picture.  This was reinforced last night when I read my friend, Monica's new blog about her new life in Stockholm and saw some of the beautiful pictures that she has taken and posted.  So, this morning, when it was time to take Coco out for a walk, what did I do but walk out of the house with my phone but not my camera on what turned out to be a gorgeous morning!  So, a few more phone pictures for today, but then I plan to really start carrying my camera!  The picture above is the view from the top of the hill in the park across the street from our flat.  This corner leads to our little grocery store so it is traversed often!

This picture is from the bottom of the hill in the park, straight ahead is our apartment building and if you see little people in safety vests in the foreground of the picture, you will see the almost constant sight seen in the park.  Swedish kids are ALWAYS outside, rain or shine with their school or their daycare.  Always on the playground and always wearing their safety vests.  Super cute, especially since you can see this playground from our front windows.

This building is the Stockholm Public Library.  The library is one of the main notable structures in Stockholm and officially opened in 1928 after being designed by Gunnar Asplund.  There is always some sort of market set up behind it with fresh flowers, produce, etc, 7 days a week.  Sweden is like France in that it is almost expected that you will bring flowers of some sort to any host.  Flower shops are plentiful and have the longest business hours of any establishments other than grocery stores!

And, this evening, my picture taking thoughts were truly confirmed when I received an email stating that I had won 2nd place in a photo contest for our hospital back in Batesville for a picture that I had taken in France... with my camera...

But, the most exciting part of today was that we FINALLY got our Swedish ID cards!!! More than 6 weeks of 100 different steps but we are finally, finally official!  We can now get library cards to that beautiful library above... (among other things).