While Absolut may be Swedish, the local hard liquor is aquavit. Like vodka, it’s distilled from potato or grain, but flavored with herbs such as caraway seed, cumin, fennel and coriander. It burns like turpentine on the way down, then explodes in a subtly flavored bouqeut. The name, derived from the Latin aqua vitae, means ‘water of life’. Which, in short, pretty much sums up my overall view of all vodka’s relatives.

The Swedes also have a number of local beers, most notably Spendrups, a light lager. The city’s formerly strict licensing laws led to a slew of beers with relatively low alcohol content, but the recent easement of such restrictions has birthed new, visually and gustatively identical, brews, which contain up to three times as much alcohol. Makes for great games of liquor roulette.

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Supposedly, Stockholm’s subway system is copied off of New York City’s – down to the width of the rails and the wiring of the electrical system. Still, the cars and platforms are new, perfectly operational and exceedingly clean; in other words, absolutely nothing like New York’s at all.

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As I had hoped, there’s a certain type of tall Scandinavian blonde female that abounds here. Unfortunately, there are as many ugly tall Scandinavian blondes as hot ones. What a disappointment.

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As my brother and I walk one way, a beautiful six-foot-tall Swede walks past in the opposite direction. I turn to my brother and say: “quick, you hop onto my shoulders, and we can go back and hit on her.”

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Sure, the allegory of Babel might imply it’s a sign of impending doom, but for lazy Americans, the world standardizing on English as lingua franca makes things far, far easier.

Plus, the resulting conversations never fail to thrill me. Earlier today, in the Royal Palace, the exchange between a Swedish guard and a Chinese tourist, about the age and origin of a nearby tapestry, put even the best Laurel and Hardy routine to shame.

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Finally, Stockholm and Sweden itself: I don’t know why I never noted this before, but it seems this city and country aren’t a real land mass at all, but rather a loosely confederated archipelago of small wooded islands. Twenty-four thousand – 24,000 – small wooded islands. Excuse me?

Despite this lack of solidity, Stockholm is remarkably beautiful – often called the ‘Venice of the North’, it looks to me more like Amsterdam, though with wider, prettier canals, and fewer pot cafes.

Other parts of the city remind me nearly of Toronto or Vancouver – quieter and friendlier than American cities, but a real city nonetheless. A city with a feel and daily flow comfortable enough that I could even imagine escaping here on a more extended basis. No, I’m not expatriating to Stockholm any time soon. But, when I leave tomorrow, head across the Kattegat and down into Copenhagen, Denmark, I’ll be more than a bit sad to leave this little collection of islands behind.