It’s snowing in Stockholm and the sky is grey. A great time to write a new piece about our experiences in this wonderful city.

When it comes to beautiful buildings, Stockholm is definitely in the top 10 of must-see cities. You can see a few examples on my Google+ website.

This time the Nordic Museum takes centre stage. The official reception for the Nobel Laureates and their retinues took place here last night, but unfortunately we were not invited. Despite this minor detail, we put on our big boy shoes and headed that way – after all, fortune favours the brave! Perhaps they’ll let us in anyway to capture something of the mood.

The sentry was immovable. No invite, no entry! Through the open door we could just glimpse a beautiful white Christmas tree in a blueish, church-like décor. If only I could take a photo of that!

My second attempt to get in was slightly more successful. By the grace of God I was allowed to take a photo from the doorway. I’ll be eternally grateful to that sentry! So, that photo was in the bag, although it’s not the same as capturing the mood when you are actually part of the party.

Luckily rescue was nigh! Elmer Sterken, the Rector of the UG. Although we neither saw nor spoke to him, we saw later that he had tweeted a lovely photo of the reception area with the Christmas tree in the background. The photo shows Tineke Kalter, Ben Feringa’s incomparable secretary, at the head of the receiving line. I’ve taken the liberty of adding Elmer’s photo to this blog – hope he doesn’t mind! It makes it feel as if we were there after all.