Travelling to Sweden - What A Trip

Right so I have come to realise it is pictures you guys want (as mundane as they are and will be in this blog) and no whinging and I guess, who am I to refuse you? I guess my last blog about Sweden was less than satisfactory but it was also, to be honest, a representation of what my first night in Uppsala was like - less than satisfactory. But hey, things can only go up from there, right? And they have. So everyone can calm down and be content with knowing that....ANNIE IS OK!

And it's from the beginning we go! The trip to Sweden started with a rather overstuffed bag... well two. A gigantic suitcase pretending it weighed less than 23kg and a backpack which looked about ready to explode. Notice how the top flap hardly closes over the thing with things coming out the sides, and the straps are at their max.

Needless to say, it was hard yakka getting my mass of luggage to the airport and getting around not knowing the language was fun. Of particular note was the way that Netherlands handles check in luggage. They really are all about you doing everything yourself! We get to check it in ourselves - into these awesome like futuristic spaceship pod-like things. It looked something like this.

You then needed to scan your barcode and it would weigh it and all that and it printed out a sticker label and you had to stick it on your luggage. Now, I was pretty worried cause my luggage limit was 23 kg... bad because coming to Amsterdam in the first place my limit was 30kg and I had hit around 27kg. So getting my luggage down to 23kg was rather difficult seeing as I had bought so much in the last few weeks. And lo and behold, it's a miracle! No joke...

I can't believe how exact it is! On the dot. And best thing, they never weight my carry on.... because that's where those extra kilos went ;)

The plane trip was relatively normal and short - only an hour and 40 minutes! Some amazing views from the plane though.

The plane was arriving at 4pm and I thought I'd get some lovely shots of Stockholm but forgot that oh hey, it gets dark at like 4. So I arrived in Stockholm to find it was night time dark and you could only see where civilization was by the lights. It was amazing to see how sparsely scattered civilization was! Looking down from the plane when it was still light, the terrain looked like little rockpools of water, land, ice, snow, mountains.. it was really interesting to see but unfortunately hard to capture on camera.

Me being an ambassador for KLM airlines as we arrive in Sweden...look how dark it is outside!

After picking up my luggage and navigating my way to the place to catch a train. I asked for a ticket for Uppsala and the man said it was leaving in 3 minutes. I asked, will I make it. He said, "sure." So I went on through, to discover actually, the platform is like 3 escalators away with a couple revolving doors in between. And that is tricky when I have a giant suitcase on wheels that is nearly half my weight...as well as a equally heavy backpack and handbag and big jacket. There was a brief incident where my briefcase went rolling down the escalator and I had to go with it and ended up sitting on the escalator to stop myself falling. Classy. All this in a hurry to get to the bottom to find the right platform. I made it just in time too. And lugged all my luggage onto the train and found a seat next to a grumpy lady on the phone who didn't like how much room I was taking. Here is a photo of my train ticket.

The train trip was about 20 minutes and as I dragged my mound of luggage out of the station, I realised that the instructions I had so carefully noted down from the hostel website of how to get there, were completely nonsensical and incompatible with what I was looking at. The question I was asking was do I take the left exit or the right exit? The website had said, take the "new central passage" exit. Ohhh, ok.... I went left in the end. Instinct. And as I came out, I found that I was a little cold. It was about 1 degree.

As I wheeled my suitcase randomly away from the station - walking in the direction I believed to be correct, I found that the wheels on my luggage were starting to...well, not roll. Crap. Was it frozen? No.. turns out the rocks or salt on the ground of which the floors were covered, were jamming the wheels to the point where they were unturnable. So drag my suitcase I did... for like who knows how long. It felt like forever. It was hard work. Stuff the gym. Just do what I just did and you will have had your workout for the day. As I neared a street sign, I found it was not at all the street sign I wanted and thus began my aimless walk around looking for a street sign I knew. International roaming was not working and so I couldn't text/call for help. I had no map. I was so lost. I found a map sign, but for some reason, none of the roads had names on them..just blank roads - how helpful. There was a table underneath but it was all in Swedish. Stuff that. I kept walking and eventually found a road that made sense to me and from there ...I found it!

By then, my face had frozen and I was C-C-C-C-COOOOLD!!!!!! So nice to walk into a heated hostel room to find they have a bed waiting for you and a hot shower. Except that bed waiting for me in the dormitory wasn't filled with awesome fun new friends...it was filled with one guy. An older guy and later on another older guy with a little kid who was quite unfriendly. The first guy was perfectly nice but gee....so much for a room full of students! Still, I attempted to make the best of my situation and chatted with the guy in the room and after a while, headed out on my own into the blistering cold to find some food and some friends.

I found food but no friends. I made my way to an Irish Pub Restaurant called O'conners - after quite a while of wondering around trying to find people. The hostel had been empty, and so was the city apparently. Turns out coming a week early to a student town was not such a good idea. Still, the pub was a cool place and the waitress was super nice, spoke English and got me a Hamburger and a Pear Cider and I sat down to study some maps which were in Swedish.

There was a Irish Band playing, or well, sorta playing. They'd sorta get up and sound check and then get down and have a beer. I was there until nearly 9:30 and they never played more than 2 songs in one standing. I think they were more concerned with drinking. Mainly the pub was filled with old guys, and there were a few couples on dates. Turns out the meal was fair expensive. I never bothered to check the price cause krona is so confusing and not at all close to Australian money. So that sucked a bit. But at least it was filling! Then I went home, and went to bed. Day 1 over.

Tomorrow - I will talk about today. ALL IN GOOD TIME KIDDIES :D

P.S I apoligise for the quality of these photos, most were taken on my phone cause I hadn't the heart to take my SLR out when it was so cold and I was so trying to find out where my hostel was and stuff.