See Warsaw

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Well, I got mostly rained out of Stockholm (it poured the first night and was on and off the second day) but I'd not taken a three and a half hour train to get one more day in a Stockholm hostel, no sir. Or ma'am. As the case may be. It was also rather exciting as it was my first chance to use the little device on my backpack that covers it so the contents don't get soaked. And I got to unfold my rain jacket.

I strolled around the town, hunting down my hostel for some time, with an American couple in tow who hadn't booked a place to stay. Sadly, my hostel had filled since I booked it, so they were off to try another place, and I searched even longer through the streets of Gamla Stan (Old Town) until finally I got a map and found it. I also hunted down an ATM, because my card hadn't worked in Goteborg, only to find that ATMs here wouldn't give me money either. I had changed the last of my money from Euros to SEK and it looked like that was going to have to do me. It was worrying/frightening that perhaps I'd already exhausted my monetary supplies. I obviously had no idea why it wasn't working.

Given that it was already early evening, I went out for a quick/cheap dinner, if you can call a McTasty that. And, I assure you, I can't. I'm not one to send stuff back, but the salt to beef ratio was high enough that a cow would happily munch down on it, blissfully unaware that there was a hamburger patty at all. The second attempt wasn't much better but I definitely wasn't complaining twice, plus the woman gave me a flurry while I waited, so I was full enough by then anyway to throw out the other half.

I went out to a few bars, chatted with some guys from Africa, and then met two girls (in the washrooms' common sink, believe it or not) who invited me to sit with them. Now I know you're worried about me meeting girls in sinks, but they weren't the small imaginary variety, I promise. Anyway, I sat with them and their friends, one other girl and two guys, and wound up going to a house party with them. I'd heard the Swedish like their candles, but you should've seen this guy's house. It would be such a joke back home, it looked like a make out paradise. Except that it was completely normal for them all to just have a bunch of candles. I jokingly asked if he'd payed his power bill, and I cemented myself as most whimsical chap of the evening. Homer style. Anyway, I got home around 8 AM and grabbed two hours before checkout, then explored the town a little more. It was raining off and on again so I had little chance to take many photos, but I decided to take what I like to call, "Stockholm - the REAL story. The real people." photos instead.

Then, an overnight train to Warsaw, spending my remaining dollar (so my wallet was completely empty) on a snack that would have to pacify me until tomorrow where I HOPEFULLY would have some money again. Thankfully, I did get on the net and discovered I actually have more money than I thought, and also that my stocks have gone up quite nicely . Which means I should be okay for even longer than I'd thought! This seemed like terrific news coming from someone who thought they might somehow have been broke.

Anyway, night train to Warsaw, where I am now, leaving at 4 PM and arriving at 12 PM the next day. I was in a room with some Spanish kids, and got to catch up on my reading a little bit. Well, a lot. I bought another round of English books, having completed For Whom The Bell Tolls, How To Be Good, and Foundation by Ernest Hemingway, Nick Hornby, and Isaac Asimov respectively, thinking that Sweden would be an easier place than many others to get English books since EVERYONE speaks English. I bought Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of the Universe, a biography of Winston Churchill, a really interesting history of science and where we're at today, and some other book whose name is eluding me. I started the science history book on the train, which, again, is well written, funny, and as much about the characters that made the discoveries as about the discoveries, their meanings and implications, and am about 300 pages in of 550, so, considering I slept a lot on the train, it's obviously not bad. The train itself went pretty fast actually, and now I'm here at the Oki Doki hostel (sleeping in a room with a bunch of people who decided, with their extra sheets, that they'd make a little fort out of their bunks... I can't wait to meet them!) and will be meeting a few Contikites that went to Russia tonight who happen to also be in town. This is the beginning of my southern trek to Greece, I'm very excited to get there and see the fam as well as Johnny boy, not to mention Greece. But Warsaw seems cool so far, and I'll let you know all about it soon.

<Sweden Part Deux Photos>
<Warsaw Photos>

Sweden or Bust(s)

Our Contiki tour wrapped up nicely with a few days respite in Copenhagen. I stayed in a room with Nick, Steph, and Jess and hung out with them as well as Chad & Martymer for the next couple days and also got some serious updating done to my internet presence. The first day I mostly slept, awaking in time to get in on a pizza delivery order and watch part of a movie with Gene Hackman and Hugh Grant that looked spectacularly awful. The next day was a little more eventful. Chad cooked up a nice chicken dinner, and we went out for Marty's birthday to Absalon in Copenhagen. The barmaid took care of us, and the live acoustic act certainly catered to us, not to mention chatting with some Swedish girls in town for the night. All in all, it was a much needed breather, let me assure you.

It was sad to finally leave the campsite, I think that's when it hit that I'm alone again, but by the time I'd made the trek to the train station to get back into the city, the music was going and I'd forgotten my sorrow. I took off to Malmo, which was much less lively than expected, partly because it was too early in the week and partly because the students all go home over the summer. They have a good and well-renowned music scene generally. I met a Dutch guy named Inga (who is aware of his name's female implications in all languages except Swedish), who turned out to be a writer for a Dutch music mag and a bit of an electronica enthusiast/writer. We had a great time at the pub chatting but I'd decided it was time to leave Malmo by the end of the night.

So the next day I was off to Lund for a few hours, a nice place but not much to see, and then I went up to Göteborg (yoo-te-bor) and found my way to a hostel. Which turned out to be the only one with an all night reception, but no rooms. He did offer me the coveted janitor's room, however, which I gladly took. It actually wasn't bad at all. I didn't get woken up, I had the room to myself, and, I slept better than I had in some time. I upgraded to a dorm the next night, and spent the day exploring. It's quite a cool city and very alive, I'd definitely recommend it to anyone travelling through Sweden in July. I took a guided tour on a boat and wound up in a café chatting with two guys and two girls for a couple hours. One of them offered me a ride to Stockholm today since she was heading that way anyway, but given that it's a 6 hour drive and a 3 hour train ride, I had to pass. I went to Liseberg, the largest amusement park in Scandi, since I had free admission, and did splurge on one ride - a wooden rollercoaster. Well worth the 40 minute wait and the 60 SEK which, for my own sanity, I will not translate into dollars.

I made my way back to the hostel to change for a night on the town and wound up hanging around and chatting with some of the other hostellers. Big mistake. I now had three tag alongs, one of whom was drunk out of his tree, the other two who didn't want to go where I wanted to. So we walked along a street nearby and were denied access to one place because the guy was too drunk (if you look the slightest bit drunk, they don't let you in here at all), another because the other guy was not 23, and wound up at this place that I found out from some locals I saw walking by is sort of a joke, called the Red Room. It wasn't sketchy, per se, but I get the feeling they'd use it in a sentence the way we'd use the Barry or something.

And now, today, I'm going to do a little more museum stuff until my pass expires and grab the express train to Stockholm. I've given some serious thought to picking up a phone over here, just because it would be very convenient for calling hostels, orchestrating meet ups, and even checking email away from these cafés I get trapped in. But I would either be paying roaming charges in other countries or changing my number all the time, so maybe I'll hold out yet.

That's all for now. The Contiki trip blog is finally finished. Whew!

<Sweden Part Deux Photos>

Norway, Jose

We left early in the morning for a loooooong trek to Oslo. Or it felt long at the time. It turns out that once you've done the Contiki marathon through the north, the trip to Oslo is like a run to the convenience store for a really, really, REALLY quick snack. But more on that (and the whole Jose thing) in a later post...

That said, the trip was a little longer than it needed to be as I was having a particularly stupid day. The food spilling madness started with my salad dropping from the shelf and splattering all over the floor of the bus. The saving grace was that I had bought plenty of other snacks for the next few days. Then, at lunch, I left the bag of ham on my fleece during our picnic, which, of course, leaked ham juicy goodness all over it. Finally, we got back on the bus and all this spillery had developed quite a thirst, so I cracked open my giant bottle of water. Only to find it foam all over me and the bus floor again. For those who haven't done much European travel, for some reason, soda water is as popular here as water water. And if you forget yourself, you can end up with a nice, big, expensive bottle of it. Which you couldn't drink even if you wanted to because it was shaken and ended up making you look like you'd suffered from a severe bout of coachophobia (i.e. all over the pants).

Anyway, since it was a bit of a trip, we didn't really stop anywhere of note. Which isn't really true, because we did try to picnic at one choice spot on a beautiful (sacred, even) lake but were chased off the spot whilst in the coach by a certifiably insane (honestly) psychopath (I know, redundant) of, and I quote, "Epical proportions". She almost frothed at the mouth and certainly was angry that we had driven near her little stand. Aside from that and swapping iPods with Catherine, who has delightful musical taste, nothing of note, but that doesn't mean the day was a waste... au contraire, mes amis. The evening would prove to be one of the 7 Social Highlights of the Modern World, with the commencement of The Viking Games (tm)! The Viking Games basically consist of us dividing into four teams, developing a history, a chant, and donning full viking gear. Sounds crazy, no? But in our little village outside of Oslo, you might say that everyone of us is a Viking on the Roof, trying to cleave a peasant's simple head without breaking his neck. Our chant:

We are, we are, we are The Children of The Sacred Lake
We can, we can, we can demolish vikings real and fake.
We'll rape and steal your treasures at will, we'll burn your houses down
So get off our lake 'fore it's too late, you'll never be seen again. Rah!

The games consisted of relays, pudding eating, bizarre beer up/down pants games, and running around a pole until you get dizzy and then attempting to sprint, punctuated by some fine punch and an egg throw. We had a campfire that night and the group really began to click a little more this evening, some more than others...

Some also drank more than others, and I ended up helping Naomi with a little bit of relieving action and then helping Melissa track down Danielle which actually culminated in a nice walk through the surrounding woods at 1 AM in the rather light dusk. Darren, who also thought I wasn't doing so great (though I was fine) also tracked me down and gave me two water bottles. A "topis blokis" if I may quote him. And even if I may not.

<Viking Games Photos>

Canada Day Away, Eh?

July 1. Canada Day. In Stockholm. Our tour guide, Chad, is Canadian, and Chris actually had some Crown Royal, so it promised to be a good day for the three of us (Gord wound up disappearing elsewhere). Before that, however, we toured Stockholm whilst playing some Canadian music and, on one of the longer drives, some Canadian stand up comedy as well.

The tour took us to the Vassa museum, a massive ship built in the 1600s which was so tall that it capsized immediately after leaving the harbour. They pulled the ship up, remarkably preserved, and stuck it in this museum with a whole bunch of exhibits. It was a really nice change from the art and history museums that have occupied much of the last two months. We also visited the Town Hall, built in the 1900s, and quite remarkable. I always complain that we haven't been building things with an eye to art and meaning in the past few hundred years, just function, and this is a great exception. Very clever design, AND functional. It beats the heck out of Saskatoon City Hall, that's for sure. We also wound up in an ice bar, where you don parkas, grab a cocktail in a glass made exclusively out of ice, and sit around the ice tables drinking and chatting. Very neat stuff.

Completing our stroll, the Ice Bar was next on the agenda, a bar built completely out of ice, right down to the drinking glasses. Everyone got parkas and mitts before entering and they had some good cocktails on tap as well as some ice sculptures inside. After chilling for 45 mins, I walked with Darren, who would quickly become one of my better friends here on the tour, and with Melissa, Danielle (Australian twins), and Lee (who joined our tour a few days late and just today got mad at me (not really) because I had left a blank in the journal as I didn't know her name at the time). We strolled up to a former castle with some great views and then sat down for a drink on one of the many islands that comprise Stockholm and watched the ships and amusement park across the water (also named Tivoli).

We went out for dinner and a Swedish Smorgasbord (this is a Swedish invention) with some of their famed meatballs and other great foods. Then we sat around and talked for a while there before heading back to camp and a beach party on the lake nearby. It was an early morning for our long trek to Oslo, so we didn't stay out too late. Well, it didn't feel like it at any rate, given that, while the sun does set, it doesn't get much darker than dusk here. You can still see things quite fine in the twilight. It's like night is perpetually 10:30 back home.

<Stockholm Photos>

Copenhagen to Stockholm

The Contiki tour of Copenhagen was fairly quick, but we got a little history and, though we did see much of the stuff I'd seen the day prior, we got some interesting background and also some things I'd missed like the Little Mermaid statue (H.C. Anderson wrote the original that Disney based their version on).

We also got to check out the famed Carlsberg brewery, which was quite interesting in that it showed the history of beer drinking in Denmark and the development of modern beer brewing methodologies over time as related to Carlsberg. Some things they haven't changed, however. For example, they still use big Clidesdale horses to haul beer kegs from place to place and they have a stable of them for this purpose. Then it was time to taste the fruits of their labour, a nice sampling of beer at noon in true Danish style. An intersting way to start the day. After that, as is par for the course on Contiki, it was free time time. Time.

I took a canal tour which took us near many of the sites of Copenhagen by water but, unbeknownst to me at the time, was unguided. So it was a little, shall we say, dull, if not relaxing. I grabbed myself some lunch (a cheap hotdog - food is pricey!) and an ice cream (well, to wash away the hot dog taste - even if I accidentally ordered rum & raisin) and I walked with Emma and Naomi to this church that resembles the tour of Babylon. There's a big black and gold steeple with a winding staircase on the outside that was a lot of fun to climb, and climb we did. Naomi is apparently a little frightened of heights but she did alright regardless and we snapped a few photos and took in the scenery from the top before heading down again and splitting off. Them to shop, me to Tivoli. I actually did shop a little for a t-shirt since in the morning the weather had been very overcast and cool and it had warmed up considerably leaving me stranded in a sweater and black jeans.

Now, I hear the few of you who made it this far asking, Tivoli? No folks, that's not a typo. Or a type of beer. It's a little amusement park in the heart of Copenhagen and the first one in the world. In fact, it is the park that inspired a man by the man of Walt to build a park by the name of Disneyland some time ago. It was neat in there, a few rides (which were far too expensive to think about riding) and all sorts of themed areas, restaurants, and games. A group of us met up in Tivoli, though I can't remember many of the people that were there at this point, but we hung around for a few hours and then went back to the hostel and hung out in someone's room and chatted while I uploaded some of my pictures which you undoubtedly have viewed many times.

The next morning, we left for Stockholm, Sweden. I sat with Allison on the bus, which was interesting. You see, we have a morning song which is slightly punkish in leanings and inspires her to head bang like crazy. Which is all good, I admire her lack of inhibition, but when you're sitting beside her at this point, those two ponytails are potentially lethal and definitely frightening as well as life-altering. As time progressed, however, the morning headbang would become more integral than the song itself.

It was a long bus ride with the occasional stops and not much for scenery, so we were feeling a little antsy when we arrived. So much so, that I went for a jog (yes, you read that right) with Naomi and Gord for a couple k. At which point I finally had to give up. We went looking for the train station but invariably went the wrong way and wound up at the next stop believe it or not. We made it back in time for din-din, and then a group of us went out that night. We met up with a friend of Naomi's who lived there and brought us to a second-storie bar overlooking the square which was somewhat dead but the place itself was decent and they actually stayed open an extra hour or two for us. It was a great night with some very interesting conversation going on and we managed to make the last train back to the hostel which was a nice treat as well.

<Copenhagen Photos>