To the brim I tell ya
I can't remember what I paid. Back to the hostel we went where I tossed my stuff in my suitcase, zipped it up and was ready to go. Maria had more trouble. She's kind of terrible at packing and has two suitcases and a backpack, while I have one suitcase and my bag that I wear everyday. Anyways, we checked out and went to the train station.
Next stop, Stockholm!
Our train to Sweden was cancelled. Apparently there was a tree on the tracks. The train people had arranged for a bus to pick us up at 9:30. We hustled to the bus and it was cold and raining and windy. Our bus was late. We made friends with two girls from Washington DC and who were also going to Stockholm and just bumming around in hostels like us. Maria told them about us getting bent over by the cab from the airport. How am I going to repress that memory if she keeps bringing it up? That girl has no chill when it comes to talking about our mistakes.
Our bus finally showed up at 10. There was a group of people waiting to board and we all kinda bombarded the bus. Maria and I sat in front next to those other two girls from DC. The ride was nice. I listened to music and just relaxed and looked out the window. I even saw a fox! It was for about 2 seconds but I've actually never seen a fox in the wild before. Mostly though the scenery was nice.
Poor iphone couldn't get a good picture.
Then the novelty wore off. It got boring. There was some confusion over whether this bus was taking us to Stockholm or some train station.
Around noon we reached the halfway point of the trip. 16 days in, 16 days to go.
After 3 hours on the bus we were dropped off at a train station around 1:00. We didn't have tickets, just our eurail pass. I didn't know what to do so I just sat down at an empty seat.
I'm clearly freaking out so hard.
The ride was fun. Then the novelty wore off. Then I napped a little. I ate some snacks to pass time. Around 4:00 we were let off in Stockholm.
I don't know what to say about Stockholm. My first impression was that it's mediocre. Not pretty, not ugly, not impressive or big or small or old or new or whatever. It was a cloudy day and that bummed me out. There's a full moon tonight that I had been looking forward to seeing and it doesn't look like the clouds were going to break.
We walked to the hostel from the train station. That was rough, but funny. Our bags were heavy and one of the wheels of my suitcase broke! I don't know what to do about that because it's like ripped down the middle. Sucks to be me I guess.
Our hostel is called City Backpackers. It was kind of a cool place.
Only kind of.
They had an old Macintosh computer but there was a touch screen inside. Quirky stuff like that. We had to take our shoes off when we entered the place where our room was. Our room was named Viggsö which is an island in Stockholm. All the rooms had names like that.
We got to our room and the passcode didn't work. I went back and got a new pass and that didn't work either. Maria went back and they had to restart the door lock. We got inside our room:
I guess I call top bunk?
It was so small. We dropped our stuff of then left to find a bank. I had Norwegian krones to exchange but it was past 5 and the banks were likely closed. I ended up withdrawing 800 Swedish kronas from an ATM. We walked around a little bit. There wasn't much to see or do at this hour. We went to this little park across from our hostel where there's a big dandelion looking waterfall.
I wished to see the moon tonight
There were some pretty flowers to look at so we went over there. They had a big statue of these peasant peoples hanging out with a giant.
I found a description of the statue. But it was all in Swedish!
I can't read this.
In Norway, everything was in Norwegian but usually there was an English version too. We went back to the hostel to regroup and rethink.
While at the hostel I looked up free or cheap things to do in Stockholm. The suggestions were "go to the beach!' or 'watch the changing of the guards!'. I'm a little annoyed at Maria and myself. Several months ago when we were planning this trip, I decided for us to go to Norway and Scotland. She decided for us to go to Sweden and Berlin. I had lists of things to do in my countries. She has nothing for hers. It's annoying that I have to do this, I didn't even care about coming to Sweden and would have just stayed in Edinburgh and Oslo if it were up to me.
Anyways, I had some serious difficulties finding things to do in Stockholm. They have a museum but it's closed for refurbishing. When I start to get angry about having no plan, I remind myself that I'm still lucky enough to be here. And I feel better. At worst I can just pick any direction and start walking and see what will happen.
In the kitchen area of the hostel there's free pasta. Maria wanted to do that instead of dinner and I tagged along. Then she was angry because they didn't have a pasta bar set out. I thought that was funny because she thought there would be just free food sitting out when in reality they had stoves and pots and one type of noodle in dry storage.
So we went back outside! Maria had a food store to go to called the Taj Mahal. When she told me the name I asked "Are you sure that's not an ethnic food store?" and she said she was sure. Guess what, it was an ethnic food store. We left and stopped by a bread store. I bought us two buns and myself an oatmeal cookie for fairly cheap. Then we went to a 7-Eleven for dinner because I have no class.
I got a calzone, a Kinder Egg, 3 bananas and this little chocolate dessert thing that looks like a tree called a giant top. It all cost 90 kronas, or like 11 dollars.
We went back to the hostel and ate there. The dessert thing was basically a giant marshmallow.
Giant marshmallow, you so silly.
My wallet is looking a mess. I have 4 different currencies in there, euros (which I can use later this trip), Norwegian krones (gotta exchange), Swedish kronas, and a 5 dollar bill. Plus lots of change that can't be exchanged.
We were both so tired I kept falling asleep at my kindle. When I finally decided to go to bed around 11 it was quiet and dark. Then there was this weird sound coming from the window. A couple seconds later it crashed opened! Maybe someone was breaking in!
I jumped off the top bunk bed only to discover it had been the wind that blew the window open. It was really windy outside. The window is kind of a pain in the ass to close but I got it done and then went right back to bed.
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