The men were all suave and debonair in their white tux tails (Swedes call them “frack” and I’m sure the British have some other name for them as I’m pretty sure none of the men were wearing suspenders).
The women were primped and stylish in ball gowns and evening wear. The event at the Stockholm City Hall (Stadshuset) Sunday evening could easily have been mistaken for the Nobel Prize Banquet except the King and Queen weren’t in attendance. We did, however, have a Nobel Laureate among the guests.
We were attending the 100th jubilee celebration for the mechanical engineering faculty at the Royal Technical Institute (locally better known as KTH or Teknis) and I knew that this is the closest I’m ever going to get to something like the Nobel Banquet.
(Overview of the actual evening’s dinner guests)
This evening’s event was close enough that the staff have used it as a training opportunity for the newbies who will be working the true Nobel Banquet on December 10th. Our dinner had “only” 750 dinner guests. During the “real deal” there are over 1200 waiting for their hot meal. Amazingly they manage to get out the hot meal in a matter of minutes (I can’t remember the exact number but 3-4 minutes sounds right.)
Also magical was finishing up the evening dancing to the same orchestra, On Cue, who will play for this year’s Nobel Banquet, so we got a little preview on that too. They were fabulous and 3 of them (all 3 played the sax funnily enough) are also former alums from the mechanical section and the ME section’s big band orchestra Osquar Mutter.
Here’s a shot from their perspective of the guests toasting the 100th birthday moment at midnight. 
