Stockholm, Ethiopia

The day I arrived in Addis Ababa, I had plans to meet with some
acquaintances, D and A, for dinner somewhere in town. Since they were
staying down on Bole Road, the main strip, I took a taxi down to meet
them. They said they'd be at a restaurant called Stockholm, near the
Friendship Shopping Center. In the past year and a half that I'd been
visiting Addis, I've gone to a lot of restaurants, but I'd never heard
of one called Stockholm, especially on Bole Road, so I called Dereje and
asked him if he knew it. He said he didn't, but would ask around and
call me back. Five minutes later, Dereje called to tell me that the only
one he could think of was a place called Amsterdam over by Meskel
Square. I knew that wasn't it, so I thanked him for checking around and
called back D and asked for better directions. "It's across the street
from Lime Tree cafe, and there's a yellow sign out front." So I took a
taxi down to Lime Tree, and then looked around; it was dark on that side
of the street, but I made out a small, dark blue sign that said
Stockholm, saying that it was on the first floor of the Dabi Building,
which was on the corner. I walked to the corner, and up the side road,
where I found Stockholm, which did indeed have a yellow sign above the
door. There were no customers seated on the first floor, so I climbed
the steps leading up to a bar-loft, and I found D and A sitting up there
in the back sipping drinks. I joined them and ordered a St. George. They
had ordered food, but A, who had been to the real Stockholm many times,
said that there was nothing even remotely Swedish on the menu. It was
obvious that the decor of the place was hardly influenced by anything
outside of Addis. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was great; a softly lit
bar with a food menu, and low tables surrounded by comfortable sofas and
chairs, and plenty of locals socializing around us.
The next day when Dereje asked me if I'd found Stockholm, I told him I
had, but wondered why it was named as such. He said that, like
Amsterdam, there are plenty of restaurants and bars around town owned by
people who'd spent time overseas "in exile" during the Socialist years
of the 70s and 80s, and the owners of Stockholm had probably been in
Sweden. I don't know when they managed to establish their restaurant,
and it's understandable that the signboard for the Embassy of Mozambique
slightly covers their small sign on Bole, but in the end, it was nice to
see a bit of Scandinavian flavor in the Sub-Sahara.