Thanks to a very generous host, I’ve just spent a week in Sweden. Read on below for a detailed, and some might say, exceptionally boring, essay on what I did there.
\nI’d like to think of it more as a journal of my time. Others might simply conclude that it’s “What I Did In My Winter Holidays” without a teacher asking me to write it.<\/p>\n
\nSweden 2005
\nDay One
\nWhen I awoke at 6.00am I immediately knew that things weren\ufffdt going to be going too well today. For a start my carefully made plans necessitated me catching the 5.28am train to get to Stansted in time for my 8.35am flight to Stockholm. Getting the 6.28am train really wasn\ufffdt going to cut it. The check-in desk would have closed and I\ufffdd be facing surcharges and possibly a 24 hour delay if I still wanted to get there that day.
\nPlan B was to get straight on the phone to a local taxi company and bite the somewhat more expensive bullet. They were very fast in getting to me, but my Pakistani taxi driver told me that there\ufffdd been just about no business that night, and that he\ufffdd been glad to get this job. He then told me far too much personal information about himself that involved an ex-wife locally, who\ufffdd earlier that night called the police to help in throwing out one of their sons from her house. He didn\ufffdt mince his words telling me, trapped in the back, what he thought of her. Then he told me about his current wife who lived in Kashmir (she, and the rest of his family were OK, earthquakewise). It transpired that he was also divorcing her. I think it was sometime after learning this information that I decided against making any more smalltalk with the driver.
\nAs it turned out, I arrived at Stansted at pretty much the same time as I\ufffdd have done if I\ufffdd made my train \ufffd just a little lighter in the pocket.
\nOne of the downsides of taking a cheap Ryanair ticket (one of my journey legs was just 5p plus tax) is that they have some rather stringent baggage rules. As well as charging for just about everything on the flight, they only allow one piece of checked in baggage weighing a maximum of 15kg. This isn\ufffdt very much. To give them their due, your hand baggage can weigh 10kg which is twice what some airlines let you carry. Basically, they trying to get you to take everything with you onto the plane rather than pay expensive baggage handlers.
\nSo when I placed by rucksack on the scales and saw 27kg show up, I feared the worst. Their website tells you that they charge \ufffd4.50 per kg over. So I was facing a massive potential surcharge. And I was pretty sure that my hand baggage was over the 10kg allowed too.
\nAs it turned out, they didn\ufffdt weigh that, and they ignored the overweight bag and let me through.
\nWhat with my early start, I hadn\ufffdt eaten anything for breakfast, and made the schoolboy error of going through customs and the security check before getting anything to eat. The cheaper food is always before this point. As often as not, you\ufffdre faced with only a sit down restaurant airside. In this case there was a Pr\ufffdt A Manger, as well as somewhere I could get a toasted sandwich.
\nThe plane left on time, and I had a window seat. Since I last travelled Ryanair, they\ufffdve managed to find a few more frills to remove. First off, there\ufffds no seat pocket in front of you. I suppose that\ufffds to help them turn around the planes quicker without the need to empty the pockets seat by seat. Similarly, the seats themselves don\ufffdt recline (a few quid saved per seat no doubt, but as a tall person, I\ufffdm all in favour of the people in front of me not being allowed to recline their seats), and they\ufffdre made of something that looks a little like leather, but is probably some kind of plastic. Again it makes it easier to wipe down seats if there\ufffds any mess.
\nAmusingly, Ryanair were touting for advertisers who might want to use their fleet to advertise their products. Exactly what form this would take wasn\ufffdt made clear. And Ryanair are certainly the first airline I\ufffdve ever seen that sells scratchcards. Apparently, I stood a good chance of winning a Mini. Amazingly, I actually saw them doing business selling these.
\nThe timely flight arrived in Stockholm on time. I say \ufffdStockholm\ufffd, but this is Ryanair we\ufffdre talking about. Now considering I\ufffdd left from an airport officially called \ufffdLondon\ufffd Stansted, I\ufffdve got to be careful what I say here, but Skavsta airport is around 120km from Stockholm, and an eighty minute coach ride away. Still I knew what I was letting myself in for, and having quickly claimed my baggage in the charming little airport, I headed for the bus stop. The price of the ticket was 199kr, and I paid cash. The machine ate my two 100kr notes, and then, instead of immediately delivering my 1kr change, it offered to let me donate it to the Red Cross. 1kr is only 8p, but it\ufffds a nice touch that still leaves the coach company with an attractive price-point (I don\ufffdt know how it works psychologically, but work it must given the shops worldwide that do it), while earning a small, but worthwhile income for charity.
\nAs I left the airport at around midday I noticed just how low the sun was in the sky. Daylight hours are, of course,
\nDid I mention the snow?
\nNo?
\nWell as soon as we started flying over Sweden, it was obvious that larges swathes of the country had been recipients of a decent fall. I was just hoping that the west of the country would also have snow. No problem there as, to my eyes at least, even the runway we landed on still had a decent dusting.
\nOn the coach into Stockholm, I was pleased to see a van driving in the other direction emblazoned with \ufffdLatvia Biathlon Team\ufffd. Ah, biathlon- that great winter sport that eats up quite literally hours of weekend morning airtime on Eurosport.
\nStockholm is fortunately terrorism free, and as a result, luggage lockers are not a thing of the past. If you\ufffdre passing through the city and have a couple of hours spare, you\ufffdre quite able to leave your baggage in a locker and look around the locality. I had a bit of shopping to do in a fine department store that had something akin to a cross between Waitrose and Harrods food hall in its basement. A couple of shopping bags later, and I was back at the station trying to negotiate the complexities of the Swedish transport system.
\nIt\ufffds very evident that after someone had introduced a ticket system into some deli section of one of their supermarkets, everyone immediately thought that it was a completely brilliant idea and fitted them into wherever they possibly could. While it\ufffds true that in some stations in Britain you still play the queue lottery and try to work out which of the many queues is likeliest to move the fastest, in most big stations, there\ufffds a single queue and when you reach the head, an illuminated sign and vaguely annoying voice, tell you which window you should go to when one is free.
\nBut why not do away with the queue part and introduce a ticketing system? Well it does mean that everyone hangs around without getting into an orderly queue. And there are lots of little bits of paper kicking around, which does seem wasteful in a country that prides itself on its recycling regime. I actually saw one person arrive at one of the ticket offices (it took me two attempts to find the office that could sell me tickets to my destination) and on seeing all the people who were ahead of him, he started picking used tickets off the floor to see if one of them might let him queue jump!
\nA shortish train journey later, and I was still on schedule with my carefully crafted itinerary printed from an excellent Swedish website \ufffd in English no less. I was pleased to discover that there was still snow on the ground, and if anything it was thicker and heavier now. Then it was straight onto a bus and a few stops later, it was to be a change to a connecting bus. Evidently, not many of my fellow passengers were making this connection. There was one other guy. The connection was supposed to be one minute later, which was always going to be a worryingly short time. But then a bus arrived, except that it was bearing the wrong number, and had the wrong destination. I let it go. That was probably a mistake. I had it in my head that there were buses every hour. And given that my bus was now fifteen minutes late, the worst case scenario was that I\ufffdd have to wait forty-five minutes before getting the next one.
\nBut it was getting cold now. And it was now very dark. A further fifteen minutes passed by before I took another, this time more careful look at the timetable. Oops. The next bus wasn\ufffdt due for another two hours! There was no choice but to bail out with a taxi for the second time today. And, as it turned out, it was nearly as expensive.
\nBut my journey wasn\ufffdt over. In a fit of money-saving pique, I hadn\ufffdt got the taxi to drive me to the door, because the meter was already worryingly high when we reached the village and the barrier. The road beyond is protected for the use of residents only and requires a combination to get through it \ufffd a combination I did have. But it couldn\ufffdt be that much further could it?
\nWell it wasn\ufffdt exactly close as it turned out. And the bigger problem was not the distance as much as the fact that it\ufffdd snowed, and it was now very cold, and so was now really really icy. Thank goodness that in a weight-saving ploy, I\ufffdd decided to wear my big walking boots. Except that I really needed crampons to get a good grip on the ground. And now I really was thinking that I\ufffdd brought far too much stuff with me.
\nAt least I had brought a torch though! I can see that a new set of batteries is going to be an essential purchase given the importance of a torch as you walk along an icy road fully encumbered with baggage.
\nFinally I reached the house. The key was where it was meant to be. And I was in. And it was warm. The laptop I\ufffdm writing this on was still working (having survived an icy incident \ufffd I think a Terry Pratchett novel broke the fall), and I had a hot cup of tea. Lovely.
\nOne of the great pleasures of visiting another country is to find out what familiar TV programmes they\ufffdre showing \ufffd be they original versions or local remakes.
\nSo there were no great surprises to discover that Pop Idol is big business on one of the commercial channels. Of course I say that without any idea of what kind of ratings it does. I just assume that it\ufffds a big hit. It has been just about everywhere else.
\nThe obvious big American shows are all present and correct, so we have Lost and 24 both on this evening. Amazingly they\ufffdre showing the second series of Lost, and are only one episode behind the US, whereas Channel 4 in the UK are a year behind (also worth noting is the fact that this, slightly longer than normal episode, is scheduled to only last 55 minutes, compared to a standard 65 minutes on C4). I daresay Desperate Housewives is either between seasons or is airing on a different night.
\nOf course one of the reasons that Scandinavians have such excellent English is because they get to see British and American television in the original language, with local subtitles.
\nMore surprisingly Finnish TV are showing Fry & Laurie, a programme that\ufffds banished to the outer reaches of the Paramount Comedy Channel in the UK. Finnish TV also, if my eyes didn\ufffdt deceive me, broadcast a version of Have I Got News For You.
\nYou don\ufffdt know how pleased I was to discover that Finnish TV shows \ufffdVikinglotto\ufffd \ufffd a seemingly daily lottery draw. Of course the name is somewhat more exciting than the actualit\ufffd. Indeed the presenter had that look of a man who\ufffdd entered the Finnish media industry with high hopes of becoming the country\ufffds most recognised news anchor, yet due some unforeseen circumstances, had found himself in a studio the size of a storage room drolly commenting on a nightly lottery draw (with not one but two bonus balls lottery fans!). You could only feel sorry for him.
\nOoh. How exciting! I\ufffdve just seen a brief interview with a couple of people at Stockholm Central station talking about something that seemed to be to do with broken down trains in the snow. The exciting part was that I\ufffdd arrived when one of the interviews was taking place as I tried to catch my train.
\nI was also pleased to note that the weather forecasts are taken very seriously indeed and the broadcast went on significantly longer than the one we get on Countryfile every Sunday morning.
\nDay Two
\nThis morning was the first I\ufffdd properly seen of my surroundings. It\ufffdd obviously been really dark when I\ufffdd arrived, and this morning revealed the view out towards the sea (not that you\ufffdd know it was the sea from this position), and the snow covered land in between.
\nI headed straight out, camera in tow, to take some photos and have a good nose around.
\nA short while later I met my neighbour when he popped his head around to see who was in residence. I suspect that it was more this than just being neighbourly \ufffd I patently wasn\ufffdt the house\ufffds owner. Communication was a major issue since he spoke no English, and I, obviously, have no Swedish. It turned out, after much gesticulating, that he wanted to be sure that I had the code for the boon at the beginning of the estate. I proffered the two options I had written down and he was happy seemingly saying that it\ufffdd changed on Monday. Or, that it was going to change this coming Monday. Either way, I was happy.
\nAfter a leisurely morning, I decided to give the bus another go, and caught one of the four daily services \ufffd the 1430. After last night\ufffds efforts, I gave myself plenty of time to get to the bus stop. But even in daylight, it took me twenty minutes to get down there, with a certain amount of slipping along the way. The only obvious footprints in the snow were my own from the previous night, although there were plenty of properties with lights on along the way. More specifically, it now being December, all the windows sported advent candle displays \ufffd electric ones, naturally.
\nThis time around, a correctly numbered bus turned up at the appointed time, and by the end of its 12km route, I\ufffdd been the only passenger on it. I can\ufffdt help feeling that I was a rare sight on a cold dark December afternoon for drivers travelling this route. At one point, I was pleased to see an elk just eating something in the middle of a snow covered field. I was now reasonably sure that the animal footprints I\ufffdd seen in the snow back at the house were definitely deer prints.
\nI was heading for Nyn\ufffdshamn, which necessitated a change of buses at the same forlorn stop that I\ufffdd visited last night. This time around the connecting bus was there on time, and I was soon en route.
\nWhen I was in America earlier in the year, I couldn\ufffdt help but notice the proliferation of American flags. No home was complete, so it seemed, unless it had a flag pole of some description, from which to hang the Stars and Stripes. There was also some kind of unwritten competition among car dealers to see who could fly the largest one, with winning entrants looking more like sales from ocean going yachts than flags. Amusingly, Walmart makes quite a big play of the fact that their flags (they have a flag section in larger stores) are all made in the USA. As such, they\ufffdre pretty much the only products sold that are made there. In Britain, and England in particular, there was a sudden rash of St George\ufffds crosses at the last European Championships with every car and house seemingly sporting at least one flag. A few houses still do fly them, although they look pretty bedraggled these days.
\nBut Sweden must run both the US and England (when in the throes of a major football tournament) a close run thing, with the blue and yellow flag being seen everywhere. I quite like the \ufffdstreamer\ufffd variation which you see hanging from many properties. They look like they belong on the tower of a mediaeval castle rather than a recently built wooden building.
\nIt\ufffds December in Sweden and with less than two weeks until the shortest day, it obviously gets dark pretty early. So by the time I arrived in Nyn\ufffdshamn it was dusk. It was only 3.30pm, but already you psychologically felt that everything must be shutting down and that it was time to head back.
\nAfter a leaflet collecting trip to the tourist office, where I was again, surely, the only visitor they\ufffdd seen that day, it was off to explore this small town. It\ufffds a harbour for the most part with ferries going to all sorts of places. Well they would, except it\ufffds now December so it\ufffds pretty quiet in point of fact.
\nI did finally get to understand the bus\/train ticket situation. There\ufffds really absolutely no sensible reason to buy singles on buses (as I\ufffdd done) when you can get tickets practically half-price if you buy them in blocks of five. I immediately did as much, making my return journey cost me 16kr instead of 60kr it had cost me on the way. The return trip seemed to include bus transfers.
\nAfter getting a snack, exploring a few shops, and picking up a few supplies including some batteries for the ever-essential torch, it was getting on time to be heading back. The weather forecast had vaguely threatened snow, but now it was raining. Actually, it may have said rain too, but I only really understood the word for snow. Well that, and the all too clear negative temperatures.
\nThere was still time for a drink in a bar. Except that I couldn\ufffdt see any obvious bars. There was the odd restaurant, and for all I know, it\ufffds the done thing to have a drink in a restaurant without eating, but I guess it\ufffds that British reserve in me. I did see a bar in what proclaimed to be a pizzeria, but it was so small as to put to shame the average guest house\ufffds bar, so I went on until I found something a little larger.
\nI ordered a beer and got a pint of Falcon. Well, not really a pint, because they\ufffdre obviously metric over here \ufffd as indeed they are in all of the rest of the known universe. The pint glass felt funny in my hand. Small really. Wow. I must really know the difference between the 568ml that make up a pint compared to a paltry 500ml I had now. But that couldn\ufffdt be it could it? I\ufffdd been told that beer was broadly speaking the same price as it was in London. The Falcon I was drinking shouldn\ufffdt be mistaken for similar sounding drinks to be seen in corner shops across the land back home \ufffd that\ufffdd be Kestral. But I still felt that even though 35kr is around \ufffd2.70, I was still being short changed.
\nThen I saw the marking. 0,4l. 400ml! No wonder. They really don\ufffdt like to make it easy to get drunk in this country of long summer days and winter nights. You\ufffdd go bust trying.
\nBut the last bus of the day was rapidly approaching and I headed back out into the rain to catch it. The rain was doing a decent job of melting the ice, but it was still very dangerous out there.
\nThe bus journey back proved smooth, although there was the entertaining spectacle of sitting on a bendy-bus as it attempted to gain traction as it climbed a still very icy hill. Because another car had stopped for some reason on the climb, the bus also had to stop. And regaining that momentum proved pretty tricky, with the bendy bit in the middle really not helping matters.
\nThis time around, my connecting service was sitting there waiting, and there were even three fellow passengers, although I was the only person travelling to the end of the line.
\nFrom the bus stop it was still a twenty minute walk through the woods to the house. And as the bus headed back the way it\ufffdd come, I was left in the pitch black. I pulled out my trusty Maglite, and loaded it with the fresh batteries I\ufffdd bought in town earlier that day.
\nLast night, as I\ufffdd been walking alone through those woods, all I\ufffdd been thinking about was how much further it could possibly be. Today, with a much lighter pack, the stillness and darkness really came home. Although there were lights on from time to time, it was still very very empty. And mine were still the only recent tracks, although one or two cars (more likely SUVs) had made the trip. It must be said that were it not for the expense, hiring a car would probably have been a sensible option, except, I\ufffdd have very likely ended up in a ditch or up against a tree given some of the sheet ice.
\nThen my torch stopped working. Surely, my newly purchased supermarket own-brand batteries couldn\ufffdt have run out already could they? Well there was still life in those old Duracells that I\ufffdd replaced. I unscrewed the torch and put the old ones back in. I knew that this was incredibly unlikely to be the problem as torches dies slowly \ufffd they don\ufffdt just stop working. Nope. It was the bulb.
\nOne of the great things about Maglites is that they all carry a spare bulb hidden under the spring in the base of the battery compartment. That would have been the solution except I\ufffdd already used that bulb before and never gotten around to replacing it.
\nFortunately it was only another two or three hundred metres, and I\ufffdd left a light on purposefully to guide me in. A bit of fiddling with the key and I was in. No prizes for guessing what\ufffds on the shopping list for tomorrow.
\nMy torch may have failed me, but I\ufffdve just been very pleased to discover that my vacuum flask still has drinkably hot tea in it, eight hours after I filled it. Well worth \ufffd6.99 from Milletts.
\nTV highlight for me this evening was surely Mat\/Tina, the translation of which escapes me. It features a pretty blonde cook Tina Nordstrum. At least I think she\ufffds a cook, since she spent a lot of this show singing at some kind of outdoor concert earlier this year in Stockholm. Maybe that was Mat she was singing with? I don\ufffdt know.
\nIn the now typical TV chef manner, she was preparing all the food out in the open, and although I didn\ufffdt really understand everything she was saying (if truth be told, I understood just about nothing of what she was saying), I must admit to being a little suspicious of her culinary skills since one of the dishes she prepared seemed to be a chicken and mayonnaise salad sandwich. And she didn\ufffdt show us how she\ufffdd cooked the chicken.
\nStill, she bounced around cooking while a middle-aged crooner sang a song, which, if I\ufffdm not mistaken, seemed to be all about tea. Then she joined in.
\nGood wholesome entertainment from the network that still shuts down for three hours in the afternoon when they\ufffdre willing to face up to the fact that, no, there\ufffds really nothing worth showing just now.
\nDay Three
\nI decided that today would be a good day to pay Stockholm a proper visit. I could have got the first bus at 6.55am, but for sleep related reasons, I felt the need to catch the 10.30am bus. Even then, I had to hurry to miss it, mainly because as the snow\ufffds melted the road to the bus stop has become ever icier and more hazardous. Were it not for the fact that I don\ufffdt actually own one, I\ufffdd have done well to have brought a couple of ice axes with me.
\nToday on the bus I was joined by a couple of other people on the last third of the trip. That made a change, although by now I was coming to think of the bus as my own private taxi service, albeit one that was running to timetable.
\nIn Stockholm, there was still plenty of ice on the road, and it was now midday with little more than three and half hours of daylight left. I quickly decided that today would be my shopping day, and that I\ufffdd save the cultural delights for another trip. That way I\ufffdd give myself a little time to decide exactly which museums and exhibitions I should try to get to see.
\nOf course high on my agenda to begin with was getting a replacement bulb for my somewhat less trustworthy Maglite torch. The first place I went to was mainly for fully equipping hunters of all descriptions. I was pleased to note that Barbour is held in high regard here. No luck, but the assistant pointed me in the direction of somewhere that might help. The second place again had no luck but due to the Argos-like nature of their linked computers he said that I should try their \ufffdbig\ufffd store around the corner. The \ufffdbig\ufffd store must have had at least three or four more square feet of floor space than the previous one, and they\ufffdd just sold their last spare bulbs. The assistant in this branch assured me that they were very hard to get hold of in Sweden, so since I needed a torch one way or another, I bought a cheap torch and batteries that wasn\ufffdt quite as cheap as I\ufffdd hoped. Still, at least I\ufffdd be able to make it back to the house in the evening. Never before have I considered a torch to be so essential.
\nOf course the very next shop that I visited, Clas Ohlson, had torches with batteries on special offer in the doorway for about what I\ufffdd just paid for batteries alone. And it turned out that this Swedish cross between B&Q and a department store also had a massive range of Maglite torches and accessories including the much needed bulbs.
\nI wouldn\ufffdt want you to think that I didn\ufffdt do anything in Stockholm apart from shop for torch accessories, since I also visited every bookshop I could. The first bookshop I\ufffdd been in had been when I was looking for somewhere to shop for groceries on the day I\ufffdd arrived. When I saw that they had a very wide range of English language books, I\ufffdd assumed that it was just because I was in the centre of town right near the main railway station. But in fact the selling of books in English seems to be the norm in even the smallest of bookshops. And it\ufffds not as though all the major titles aren\ufffdt available in translation either. In fact one shop had The Sea, the Booker prize winning novel, available in paperback well before that edition\ufffds published in the UK.
\nIt seems that crime fiction is enormously popular in Sweden with plenty of British crime writers appearing in translation including Ruth Rendell and Minnette Walters. And there\ufffds plenty of home grown fare including Henning Mankell (of course) and Liza Marklund. Also widely available are other Scandinavian authors including Norway\ufffds Karin Fossum and Iceland\ufffds CWA Gold Dagger winning Arnaldur Indri\ufffdason.
\nThere\ufffds nothing I like to do more than wander around a city without too much regard for where I should be going. I find that you begin to get a better grasp of the city\ufffds layout and a feel for the place. In Stockholm you can also play \ufffdcount the H&M stores\ufffd since there seem to be more branches in the city than London or New York has Starbucks (incidentally, not a chain that seems to have reached these shores).
\nHot Dogs are awfully popular in this country with stalls selling a variety of different types all around the place. They look somewhat more appetising than the rubbish you see being sold near Oxford Circus tube of an evening. Unless there\ufffds some kind of issue with bakeries in this country, I don\ufffdt quite understand the reason for them being sold in rolls that are roughly one third the size of the sausage they\ufffdre containing. It also seems to be the norm to wrap them in a small square of greaseproof paper which doesn\ufffdt really help when you\ufffdre trying to mop up any remnants of ketchup or mustard.
\nOne excellent service that many shops supply is a gift wrapping service. At some counters in a couple of the department stores, assistants were spending more time gift wrapping purchases than they were selling them. In other shops the wrapping is self-service, and you\ufffdll find large rolls of paper, shears and tape for you to wrap your gifts with. A really nice touch.
\nIt being December, Stockholm has a nice selection of Christmas markets, although I must admit that I didn\ufffdt really think that Ryanair would look kindly on me if I attempted to bring home the stuffed reindeer I saw being sold in one. And I wasn\ufffdt exactly taken with, what I\ufffdm sure I must have correctly translated as sealskin gloves and hats. Still some of the markets have nice open braziers to let you warm yourself in the cold.
\nIf you do ever find yourself in central Stockholm and feel the need for a drink, you\ufffdd be best to avoid visiting the state run Systembolaget branch near the railway station at around 4.30pm on a Friday. I guess that London\ufffds not the only city where a reasonable proportion of businesses let their employees head home a bit earlier than normal. And it being cold, dark and Friday, they head to buy drink. Lots of it.
\nThe queues to the four cash desks were enormous and it took a while before I got served. But I counted myself lucky when I left the store. As the clock edged closer to the 6.00pm closing a security guard had been posted on the door, and there was now a queue to enter stretching back around thirty metres. Incredible.
\nThe supermarkets do carry beer to a strength of 3.5% which until relatively recently, would have been pretty standard for beer in the UK. But now tastes have edged nearer 5% and to get this, wines or spirits, you have to go to a branch of the state shop. Indeed some of the beers they had were well over 7%, but I tend to equate beers of that strength as being tailored for the domicile-less segment of society. I do enjoy remembering something of my previous evenings the following morning.
\nIt strikes me that making your clientele work a little to get to these shops, the average customer probably stocks up more so than they\ufffdd do if they just had to pop into the local supermarket.
\nIt\ufffds nice to see that some things aren\ufffdt at all localised. Metro carries daily Sudoku puzzles and on the train back I saw a man ask if he could tear the puzzle out of another\ufffds paper if he didn\ufffdt mind. The bookshops are also full of compilations of puzzles. The other craze that seems to be as big here as it is elsewhere is poker. There are latenight TV shows, and in the main station today, I saw people out recruiting candidates to enter their Poker School. I\ufffdm not sure what the legalities of betting are in this country, but lotteries are very popular, and I did see at least one branch of Ladbrokes in Stockholm. And I\ufffdm guessing that the horse and trap racing (I don\ufffdt know what it\ufffds actually called) is mainly run for people to gamble on it.
\nOn the very smooth journey back to the house, a Swede came over to me to congratulate me on reading the latest paperback Terry Pratchett novel, Going Postal. It transpired that he\ufffdd read the entire series and was a massive fan. He\ufffdd waited for Going Postal to come out in paperback, and I mentioned to him that Thud had recently appeared in hardback in UK shops. I heard him afterwards attempting to describe to his colleague what the books were about. I heard \ufffdscience fiction\ufffd and \ufffdfantasy\ufffd but I\ufffdm not sure that his colleague was convinced.
\nI actually had a fellow passenger all the way to my final stop this evening. As the bus pulled away and we were left in total darkness, he strode off down the street without any kind of torch. If there hadn\ufffdt been snow, I\ufffdve no doubt my eyes would have adapted after a few minutes, and I\ufffdd have been able to follow the outline of the track. But with ice all over the place it would have been lunacy. He quickly disappeared around a bend, not to be seen again.
\nTV4 were showing the final of Idol 2005 (i.e. Pop Idol) tonight, and it\ufffdd made the front cover of Metro today. Free papers seem really popular here, and I wonder how the paid for titles do, particularly as some of the ones I\ufffdd seen didn\ufffdt seem to offer all that much more. They certainly didn\ufffdt offer the difference a \ufffdbroadsheet\ufffd does in Britain. I\ufffdm also assuming that TV4 are going to be showing a version of Strictly Come Dancing very soon, since they\ufffdre running teaser trailers showing a pair of people doing a tango, along with the tagline, Let\ufffds Dance.
\nIf two pretty people singing Karaoke in front of a screaming audience isn\ufffdt your thing, and watching injured skiers get air-lifted off the piste is a little morbid, then there\ufffds always interpretive dance set in a police station. State television, in particular SVT2 reminds me of Channel 4 or BBC2 from 10-15 years ago. SVT1\ufffds answer to Idol was a kind of cross between \ufffdThe Medieval House\ufffd and \ufffdSurvivor\ufffd. Basically you have two teams \ufffd the serfs and the gentry \ufffd with task set to both sides, until at the end someone\ufffds kicked off the show. At least I think they were. I wasn\ufffdt really paying attention as Agnes was singing \ufffdThis Is It\ufffd with great gusto.
\nI keep watching the weather forecast, but no matter how many I watch, there still doesn\ufffdt seem to be any chance of more snow. At least not for a while.
\nDays Four and Five
\nA somewhat quieter couple of days, spent mainly in the house. I get more and more disappointed that the promised snow on the TV weather forecasts doesn\ufffdt come. I\ufffdve actually gone to a big map of Sweden to ensure that Stockholm is actually where I think it is on the map.
\nOne of the advantages of the lack of snow is that the snow that is around is melting. Well, I say that\ufffds an advantage, but I much prefer it with the white covering all around me. But at least you can walk around without slipping fatally on the ice.
\nI\ufffdm finally able to climb up onto the top of the big rock at the back of the house since it\ufffds no longer covered in ice. Climbing it is still a bit tricky, as the rocks are clad in water soaked moss, and it can make finding your footing tricky, but eventually I get to the top and the promised view.
\nOf course, the downside of potential snow is that it\ufffds pretty overcast. Add to that, the fact that we\ufffdre rapidly approaching the shortest day, which means that at this latitude it\ufffds only getting fully light at around 9am and has pretty much set by 3pm. And in the few hours of daylight, as I\ufffdve already mentioned, the sun never gets that high, so streetlights have to remain on nearly all the time.
\nThe peacefulness and loneliness is wonderful. And it\ufffds not as though you are that far from civilisation.
\nI read a lot, and am now much better versed in contemporary Swedish cinema via my host\ufffds DVD collection.
\nDay Six
\nMy penultimate day, and still no slow. By now, in fact, the melt is well and truly on. In the city centre I noticed that workmen are out and about on rooftops pushing snow off the roofs before the snow and ice melts just enough to fall on pedestrians below. I\ufffdm guessing that a significant number of people are injured by falling ice each year.
\nNot so out in the sticks of course, although I did note a team out on the little road in this part of the road, scooping up snow from the edges of the roads, and clearing the drainage ditches to ensure that the melt clears away without freezing on the road.
\nNight and day, you hear a drip-drip sound. More than once I\ufffdve gone to check that I haven\ufffdt left the taps on.
\nI went for something of a walk today, heading out to the local village shop for some food for this evening. I\ufffdd been told that it was something like a forty minute cycle ride to the shop. Despite the melt, I still wasn\ufffdt ready to risk life and limb by taking to bike myself, so it was a walk for me.
\nNobody was out on the water, although there are plenty of boats around. Most are under tarpaulins or housed in boat houses at this time of the year. I haven\ufffdt seen anyone out fishing the entire time I\ufffdve been here.
\nIt took me an hour to reach the village shop which is run by a little old lady who, I\ufffdd been warned, speaks no English. Needless to say, the choice wasn\ufffdt exactly up to that of a supermarket. I picked up a few bits and pieces and paid for them. Through a complete lack of planning I\ufffdd managed to time my exit from the shop to within a few minutes of the arrival of one of the few buses for the day. It was also pretty dark by now, and walking along the road wouldn\ufffdt have been great.
\nBack in the house it was more book reading, and very little planning for Stockholm tomorrow.
\nIt also occurs to me that despite bringing a video camera, a digital camera and a video camera with me, I\ufffdd taken barely any photos and not a frame of video footage.
\nDay Seven
\nIt’s my last day, and given that I’ve been particularly lazy over the last few days and sleeping in pretty late, I set multiple alarms for the morning so that I got up in plenty of time.
\nI needed to make sure that the flat was in a decent state, and there was much unplugging and cleaning to be done. Plus, I was facing the prospect of another Ryanair flight so I needed to pack very carefully. My plan was to load down my backpack while I was traveling, leaving my small rucksack with just the “essentials” while I was traveling around Stockholm. Then I’d repack at the station, making my backpack much lighter when checking it in. Fingers crossed, they wouldn’t weight my now extraordinarily heavy and densely packed small rucksack. We’ll find out later how successful this gambit was.
\nThank goodness that Stockholm Central Station does have lockers. I don’t know how I’d have coped otherwise.
\nHaving ditched as much as possible into a locker (I was very pleased the other day to discover I could squeeze my backpack into the smallest, and hence cheapest sized locker) I checked out the times of the coaches back to the airport. It’s as well that I did since the last one went well before my flight arriving the full two hours before check-in.
\nI was left with around six hours to squeeze in as much ‘cultural’ stuff as I could.
\nI like to think that I’ve got a very international pallet; wherever I go in the world I always try the local option in McDonalds. You know, the burger that they don’t sell back home.
\nFirst stop after eating was the Kulturhuset but there wasn’t anything too exciting to look at, so I moved on to the Nobel museum.
\nThis coming weekend marks the big dinner where all this year’s Nobel Prize recipients will receive their awards. The Nobel Prize is something that Sweden is very proud of, and over the last week or so, Swedish state television has been running a series of portraits of the winners. Can you imagine British TV running a 30 minute documentary about a chemist or a physicist? Maybe on Horizon, but what about an economist?
\nI knew where the Nobel Museum was because I’d walked past it the the other day, but when I got there a notice informed me that it wasn’t going to be open until later in the afternoon – too late for me.
\nOK, let’s try the technical museum. A bit more foot slogging across Stockholm and it was onto the 69 bus which headed out of town towards the museum. This time I went in, and had an interesting afternoon learning about the history of telephones, robotics and early Swedish transport and engines. There are at least two Ericssons one (Lars) of phones fame and the other (John) an inventor who’s greatest ambition was to harness the power of the sun.
\nI managed to tear myself away from the shop, and decided against going up the television tower. This is a pretty high building which I’m sure that on a nice day affords some spectacular days. Deep in the winter on an especially grey day, I really couldn’t see it was worth the bother. Save it for a nice sunny day. I headed back into town.
\nOne kind of shop I didn’t manage to find the other day was a decent sized CD and DVD shop. The best I found was in the basement of \ufffdhl\ufffdns which in fact turned out to be pretty good in the scheme of things. But I found a better place today and finally relented and bought one of the TV4 adaptations of Mankell novels, having carefully established that there were indeed English subtitles – Before the Frost.
\nThen it was onto the tube in search of a bar I’d been recommended. I suspect that this is one of those places that are great fun late in the evening. At 4.30 in the afternoon it’s not really buzzing. I sipped a beer, rested by feet and read my book for a bit before heading out to get another snack to eat. Anything would be better than the fare that was likely to be available in the airport.
\nBack at the station it was time to repack my bags, take stock of the fact that I’d singularly failed in my cultural afternoon (I spent far too long watching episodes of Seinfeld just out on DVD and nicely set up in the shop I’d been to).
\nThen it was onto the bus for the trip back to the airport, where I was to play the baggage game.
\nI always find the trick about not letting on how heavy your hand baggage is, is to have it slung right around your back so it’s barely visible. Then, no matter how heavy it really is, show no sign of it at the desk. But I knew I was on a hiding to nothing when I saw the authoritarian woman who was checking in my queue. For a moment I really did consider switching queues to avoid her.
\nFirst of all she offered to sell me plastic wrapping of my big backpack that I was checking in. Yeah right. A tenner for a waste of plastic. When I declined this very kind invitation she made me sign a disclaimer of some description. I think it was to say that Ryanair aren’t going to responsible if the bag gets shredded. Hmm, they managed perfectly well on the way out (more than can be said for the baggage handlers at JFK who pretty much destroyed my baggage there recently). Then she told me I was 2kg overweight and would I like to repack.
\nNow on the surface repacking my bag seemed an option, but I quickly declined it. If I pulled 2kg of weight out of my backpack, my carry-on case would surely be weighed and I’d be completely screwed. I wasn’t completely sure that my carry-on wasn’t actually the heavier of the bags!
\nSo it was to another desk to pay the excess which was in Krona, and used up much of my remaining currency. Not that they liked me paying cash. Couldn’t I pay by card? No. I mean, I could, but I had cash to use up.
\nIt could have been worse, and next time I fly Ryanair, I’m really going to have to reconsider my baggage.
\nOn the plus side, I was one of the few passengers to go round to the back staircase boarding the plane, and I was able to quite easily get an emergency exit seat. In fact, I had the full range of these seats to choose from, so I wasn’t too sure what the passengers who’d pushed to the front of the queue had been doing if it wasn’t to get one of the prized seats with extra legroom.
\nAt the Stansted end it was a relatively painless and cheap late night journey home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thanks to a very generous host, I’ve just spent a week in Sweden. Read on below for a detailed, and some might say, exceptionally boring, essay on what I did there. I’d like to think of it more as a journal of my time. Others might simply conclude that it’s “What I Did In My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}