In Which we Swelter one Minute, and Freeze the Next, and I Discuss Hotdogs with Europe.

The weather has been as crazy here as it has been everywhere else, it seems, fluctuating wildly between cloudy and 20 and burning hot and 33. Yesterday was a 33 day. We had plans to visit Skansen, an open air museum on the island of Djurgarden and it turned out to be a pretty good idea as it was probably one of the cooler spots in Stockholm with large leafy trees, and enough of a hill to catch the only breeze around for miles.

Still, it was exceedingly hot. The museum is a great concept – they have either recreated, or brought in the original, buildings from all over Sweden to show how life used to be lived. Sweden used to include most of what is currently Finland and Norway, so there were original Sami settlement huts, Finnish huts, a recreated town with baker, stores, post office, craftspeople etc. There is also a ‘zoo’ with so called Scandinavian wild animals including Reindeer (OK I’ll give them that one) Bison, Elk, Moose, Brown Bears, etc.

It was an informative, well-presented way to spend a few hours.

I took this shot from the top of the hill – in front is a Sami settlement hut from the North, behind it is a Cathedral in Stockholm, and behind that you can see Stockholm’s attempt at becoming a so-called ‘modern city’ – a folly of the 70s where city planners decided all the original buildings in part of the downtown core should be demolished to make way for modern office buildings. These five ‘skyscrapers’ are one of the results. They are spectacularly ugly from a distance and even worse, in my humble opinion, up close.

 

This was my favourite building – a 14 Century storehouse from Telemark in Norway. It reminded me of one my favourite children’s books, Trouble with Trolls by Jan Brett.

Speaking of trolls, this rarely seen Lesser Ginchy Bumshow was wandering loose in the zoo…

Dude, your underwear…they’re not even boxers.

On our way out, we could see the crazy rollercoaster next door at Grona-Lund theme park. These people are strapped in and spin around as the ‘car’ zips around the outside of the track. Why.

We also stopped for hot dogs.

Me: Hey, Europe: FYI, this is not a hotdog. WTF? You are usually really good in the bakery department, Europe. Think of the amazing breads, cakes, cookies, and pastries that you make. And especially those really long baguettes! So why so short in the hot dog bun department? I don’t get it. Don’t you think it looks weird? 

Europe: You are crasy! Ve LOVE our hotdog buns like zat. Zey are ze bun equivalent of ze short skinny jeans and ze europop! Zey are like zose long cigarettes ve like! Zey look like ze…

Me: Yeah Ok, Europe, Whatever. I’m just sayin. You might not want to take those anywhere else in the world. You will be laughed at.

Europe: Ok fine. Don’t vorry ve won’t! And aren’t you leaving soon?

Me: Yes, in two days.

Europe: Vell zen you can go home and eat zose huge big hotdogs as much as u vant!

Me: Hey don’t take it the wrong way. We love you, Europe! It’s just the tiny buns. And the washing machines. Oh and those bells that ring all night. Otherwise you are fabulous! Really! I love you!

Europe: Veally?

Me: Yes really!

Europe: Ok vell actually ve like you too. Sorry about ze buns.

Me: No problem. Catch you next time:)

 

 

We also spotted this awesome giraffe crane from the boat on the way back to the Old Town.

By this time, we were all melting it was so hot and humid. We decided to head to the Absolut Ice Bar. It’s not exactly cheap, but it’s original, and it was also minus 5 in there so we couldn’t get inside fast enough. They give you these huge hooded fur-lined coats with mitts attached, kids are allowed, and those of us who don’t drink are served these lovely fruity concoctions, in ice glasses of course. We loved it. After our body temperatures had dropped to a more reasonable level, we were ready to go although it felt like a furnace again when we stepped outside.

The entire place is made of ice that is cut in the winter from a river 200km north of Stockholm. You can see evidence of this in pieces of river weed stuck in the ice.

Glasses made from blocks of ice. Bit chilly on the lips.

  

The ice counter.

Jacob’s first time in a ‘bar’ and probably the first and last time he will even allow himself to be in a bar with his mother.

My little ice princess.

We walked home to the Old Town and saw this Gold Guy along the way. (I checked to see if it was Eric from True Blood – nope) and Zoe entertained us all by not understanding that he wasn’t real until the last second…

 

We stopped at the grocery store and I was delighted to see that they have pic-n-mix muesli bars here!

We slept well, despite the bells. That rang all night. Have I mentioned the bells?

Thanks for reading -

Cheers,

Jane

Stockholm – I Think I Love you: Part 1, the Apartment

When you arrive somewhere late at night after travelling all day, who really cares what the place looks like. As long as there is a bed and I can make a cup of tea, I don’t care where I am. In the morning, however, I get a bit fussier. Waking up in Stockholm on the first morning was a rather drawn out affair owing to the bells which insist on ringing every fifteen minutes (did I mention that already? 62 times?) and the daycare. But once I was up and could take a good look around the apartment, I fell in love with its funky charm.

My bed. The duvet is a huge sheepskin. Big sheep they have here…

Love this spice cabinet with little glass drawers…haven’t seen this at IKEA.

Freezer on the bottom, Fridge in the middle, and Vodka up top!

 

The view out the kitchen window across the courtyard.

Looking down into the courtyard. I can’t believe I took this picture. Some of you may recall I have a bit of a fear of heights. So even looking out from the 3rd floor I feel like I’m going to toss myself over the edge.I did envision myself bleeding on the flagstones, and I did have to stretch my arm out and take the picture without knowing what I was taking a picture of, but I still did it! I will not, however, let Zoe go anywhere near the windows, even though the sill is a foot thick, without snapping at her to Stay Back! and Be Careful! and Don’t Hurl Yourself out the Window! like she was going to but won’t now that I have told her not to. She just sighs and Jacob tells me to settle down.

The window sill.

How about this for a fireplace! I can’t imagine getting this up the stairs…

Scenes from the kitchen.

This is the washer, which, like all washers over here, takes forever and a day to finish a cycle. What is going on in there? Just fill the thing up with water, swish it around for a while, drain rinse spin and let’s all move on. Civilisations could rise and fall while I’m waiting for my underwear to come out of the wash.

Anyway – this one doesn’t actually have a dryer in it, instead you must hang your clothes on the heated rack above the washer. So today it was 33 degrees in Stockholm, and as I don’t  know how to turn this rack off, it is approximately 52 degrees in the bathroom. At least the clothes will dry quickly.

Once we were able to drag ourselves out the door, we went for a walk through the old town.

The daycare on our ‘street'. Such great toys for the kids – so those must have been screams of joy.

It didn’t take long for us to find the ice cream. Love this picture.

 

Or a fishing store, for that matter. This one was founded in 1862 or something like that. Jacob loved it.

Next was the most wonderfully bizarre store I have ever been in. The owner is obviously a collector, although one is hard pressed to determine exactly what he collects. One whole wall of the store was divided into little shelves, each shelf filled with some random article.

   

Did you need a couch? Book about Shirley Temple?

Then there was the huge box of eggcups…

 

And the Abba record…

Jacob preferred Bruce Springsteen.

We then happened upon a lovely little chocolate store (how do these things happen?)

Stanger, you ask? Yes, I answer!

I have not learned one single word of Swedish since I’ve been here and this is because EVERYONE here speaks impeccable English. Seriously they are better than most Canadians. And possibly better than the Welsh. In fact, the only Swedish I do know, I have learned from the Swedish Chef on the muppets and sounds something like “hurnch ty berndy boop de booby do, hurnch shmerndy bunder be do smork smork smork!” This is entirely phonetic, of course. If it was written in Swedish, there would be lots of those letters with lines through them and ‘sm’ and ‘ss’ and everything would end in ‘ham’ or ‘fenker’ or something like that.

Anyway. We spent the rest of the day on the hop-on hop-off bus which would, I am sure, have been much more interesting if we weren’t all falling asleep, and also stuck in a traffic jam in the burning heat. I wanted to hop-off alright. Right off the top deck of the bus and into the closest fountain would have been preferable. 

I did, however, spend my time looking for Eric from True Blood but nothing yet. Disappointing, but there are many many people here who look a lot like Eric from True Blood and so that’s Ok too. Yep. Sure is fine.

I don’t even really remember the bells that night. Ok that’s not true. I did hear them once or twice. Or 62 times. But it was a good sleep.

Thanks for reading - more tomorrow.

Cheers,

Jane

Which Took a VERY Long Time

I had been dreading the day of travel between Hay-on-Wye and Stockholm as it depended upon meeting a series of connections. There is always tons of room for error in these types of situations and so I was imagining various catastrophes like flat tires, train derailments, strikes, this sort of thing.

We left the Nethouse in Hay at 8:30am, drove to Newport, dropped off the rental car, got a ride back to the station, took our time getting to the platform as we thought we would have to wait, had a chat with June in the lift after Tony had dropped her and a friend (Margery) off (they were going to Nottingham, of course) and walked right on to the Paddington train as if we had planned the whole thing.

The train ride was uneventful except for Raj and his friend Rhys who would talk about the lack of demand for computer engineers like themselves who are more trained in C++ than anyone else around, don’t you know. I will observe here that there is a charming similarity between the Indian and Welsh cadence. At times, it was difficult to tell them apart, except that Rhys was a lot louder than Raj and kept punctuating his side of the conversation with a loud bellowing laugh. I wanted to tell him that there was nothing amusing about C++ and in fact, one might go so far as to say that it is the opposite of amusing. But I didn’t.

We had more luck at Paddington and walked off the train and straight onto the Heathrow Express which left about 3 minutes later. 30 minutes and we were at Heathrow.

By this time it was only 1:30pm and our flight didn’t go until 5:30pm. I really hadn’t expected to be so efficient. I had been stressing about strikes, but apparently it was the either the lamest strike ever, or it was somewhere else in the airport. You really wouldn’t have even known there was strike at all. In fact, it all seemed to be running much more smoothly than usual. Weird.

Anyway, our luck continued when we found our Scandinavian Airlines check-in counter, and there was NO LINE. Nothing! I expected the dude to tell us to go away and come back in 3 hours or something but he said we could check in everything right there. So nice to do that without 300 sets of eyes boring into your back willing you to hurry the fuck up as you drop your passport and fumble with your papers or have to repack your suitcase because you brought too much stuff.

We then zipped through Security, which is a feat unheard of at Heathrow. Our only hold up was Zoe who set off the alarms and had to be searched. Never know what a 9yr old girl could be hiding. The woman seemed fixated on the rivets in Zoe’s jeans, passing her tri-corder, or whatever it is, over and over them. Finally I had to say that I was pretty sure the metal rivets were setting off the alarms and could we all move on. Duh.

We had nothing to do now except wait for 3 hours in the crammed ‘airline lounge’. We wandered and shopped and napped and then it was time to board our flight to Oslo where we were connecting to Stockholm.

The flight was uneventful and soon we were approaching Oslo airport. The landscape out the window was stunning – rolling green hills, forests, little red farmhouses, blue lakes, pink hearts, orange stars, yellow moons, and purple horseshoes:

I was kidding about the purple horseshoes.

Oslo airport is fabulous – all glass and light. And everyone was drop-dead gorgeous too. We also had the World’s Nicest Customs Officer who actually looked a little bit like Eric from True Blood (who is actually Swedish, but who cares – these are minor minor details) 

The Aquavit bar….perfect! you could get pickled herring here too!

 

My tired traveller

Salte Rockers anyone? No? You sure?

We didn’t have long to wait before the flight to Sweden which was all of about 30 minutes. We picked up our luggage on the other side – it was all there waiting, nothing lost, and just walked out. I had forgotten that once you are in the EU, you don’t need to be harassed by a border guard every time you so much as think about going to another country. Eric back in Oslo had checked us in to Europe and we were good to go! They don’t care! Hi Welcome to Europe! Go wherever you like, and guess what, we trust you! Hello, North America are you listening?? No need to be assholes anymore – you could do this too!

Anyway – more smoothness as the Arlanda Express appeared to be waiting for us as it pulled in just as we walked onto the platform, and quietly pulled away just after we sat down. And they don’t charge for kids under 17. Hello!

We got a taxi to our apartment, and fell into bed a short while later.

It was a good, but very long day, and even the incessant hourly, quarter hourly and half-hourly ringing of the church bells all night didn’t bother me. Well, ok maybe a little. Ok well actually it did bother me. A lot. WTF? There is NO CHANCE of not knowing the time here. It is sonically imprinted on your head every fifteen minutes. Dear Gamla Stan: Enough with the Bells. We get it.

I was also overjoyed to discover a daycare under our window. Yep. Drop off starts at 7am. That is the joy of these old towns with their narrow little alleys and amazing acoustics. You can hear everything.

At least they were cute. The kids, that is. Not the bells.

Thanks for reading – more tomorrow.

Cheers,

Jane

In Which We Fret about Strikes, and Get Excited about Sweden.

The UK has long been known for their spectacular strikes. There has been periods of labour unrest on and off for years but things have been heating up lately and it looks like right now is “on”. The government has been threatening to do something with pensions – I’m not exactly sure what but apparently, it is unacceptable to the hundreds of thousands of civil servants in the UK.

And so they chose June 30th to cause a fuss about it.

Normally I wouldn’t care too much – just do your thing and have your say and then get on with it. But this time, they have decided to involve the UK Passport Control people, and we are flying tomorrow from Heathrow to Stockholm. You know who they are – there’s a row of them when you come off your 23 hr red-eye flight and they are there to make sure you are not a threat to the hedgerows. Trouble is, there’s only ever a few of them, and, as Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world, there always seems to be about a bazillion people in line waiting to have their passports stamped or their DNA taken or whatever it is. The line is always atrocious and I’m pretty sure you could translate the Lord of the Rings into Klingon in the time it takes to reach the counter. And by the time you reach the counter,you are so disoriented and dehydrated that you have no idea what is going on, and you have invariably lost your passport while in the line:

Agent: Passports please

Me: Sorry just a minute…what?

Agent: May I see your passport please

Me: Are you speaking to me?

Agent (looking over my shoulder at the huge line): I’ll need to see your passport now.

Me: I’m sorry but I’ve forgotten who I am…

Agent: Are you having a lark? Are you taking the mick? Winding me up are you?

Me: Am I having a lark? No I don’t think so…Who’s mick? Am I mIck? …where am I?

Agent (into his radio) "We’ve got anufva one ‘ere, Ted, can you bring the bleach to booth #3”

Me: Who are all these people?

Agent (into his radio) “and hurry up, Ted, this one’s looking right bleary eyed. Gone all funny, she has.”

Me: Is this the way to the Underground?

Ted (holding the bleach under my nose): Just give it a moment, Lufv, and you’ll feel right as rain. We’ve had a lot like you today. Must be the wehva.

Me (indignantly, with bleach splashed down the front of me): What are you doing? Don’t you want to see my passport?

Agent (all steely-voiced again): What is the purpose of your visit to the UK?

So really, I am hard pressed to understand exactly how the progression of the line could possibly get any slower, but I guess I will find out tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes.

We spent our last day in Hay-On-Wye shopping – it is well known for having some very unique shops and I have not been disappointed. No H&M or M&S here.

I fuelled up for shopping with a delicious Ploughman’s Lunch. You can’t see them but there are two pickled onions beside the huge slices of Stilton, Brie, and smoked Applewood Cheddar. What else does one need?

I have never heard of Barry Trotter before. Apparently, he’s famous.

Then I found the best toy store ever. Love these rabbits.

And this wooden Noah’s Ark and all the animals.

 

But the Princess and the Pea was the best.

I bought a few things that I won’t bore you with but suffice to say we had to buy another bag to fit everything in.

Long day of travel tomorrow and not sure about internet access, so I will post next from Sweden. Or possibly the passport line at Heathrow.

Thanks for reading

Cheers,

Jane