11:20 it’s good to have all this time to myself - I’m starting to learn how my brain works, or more specifically how it fails to work. I am now on the train from Stockholm south to Nynashamn where there will be a mad dash to avoid an 11-hour wait for the next ferry to the island of Gotaland (goat land). Given that I was up at 0630 I could easily have been here 2 hours earlier, but something blocks me from thinking too far ahead and planning is a nightmare because I can�t hold facts and figures (and especially times) in my head. Had I bothered to find out the ferry times in advance I might have hurired a little - say packing my rucsack while waiting for the bathroom + but then when I hurry I make cock+ups like leaving my money behind or something. I don�t believe Nynashamn has 11 hours’ worth o fthings to do… Here’s hoping I make that ferry.

My approach to life seems about as un-Swedish as you can get. Tourist information seem bemused and even embarrassed for me when I ask about the chances of a last-minute dash for this (e.g. the ferry) or out-of-season entry to that. That said, I read in the paper on the train that a G�teborg Kanal trip (see day 0 18:09) sets off tomorrow so it seems the information bureaux are unnecessarily pessimistic.

13:54 ya boo sucks to the information people… The train arrived directly outside the ferry terminal with 20 mins to spare. After taking a queue number (a Swedish tradition) and waiting an agonising 7 minutes for the teller to count out huge wads of cash to the customer in front of me, I was told I was at the international counter and should go to the nearby domestic counter that had been vacant all along. At that counter I was told I could buy my ticket at the check-in desk (this seems to be another Swedish custom, the 3-counter manoevre) 170kr (~12quid) for a four+hour ferry trip and I was sorted. Bunged the backpack in a locker and took a fewphoties. The hostels’ phone reception doesn�t open till 1700 so for once I am busking it not because I am a slacker but because I have done everything I can do for now.

I bought a reasonably-priced coffee in the lounge and settled down to browsing the guidebook. Next to me were a middle-aged couple and an elderly uncle from Birmingham, talking about visiting York… so I barged in and had a pleasant hour-and-a-half’s chat about the island, where they have a second hmoe, and got some tips for my itinerary for the next few days.

14:14 I can tell I am entering rural Sweden now: a man with an improbably blond mullet plays the slot+machines, his blonde pig-tailed daughter begging for 5kr to play the mid-80’s jap-import pac man while vguns-n-roses blares from the jukebox.

14:22 urg. Swedish-language heavy rock on juke box. Time to find another room.

20:40 well here I am in Visby in a hostel for the first time in my life. I�m liking it so far - it�s in a converted (but not very converted) prison, but despite that it has a nice atmosphere. I nearly executed the itinerary I drew up on the ferry and hopefully got some wicked pictures of the old town. I can tell I am out of Stockholm: this morning I spent 64kr on a burger king ( and didn’t throw it down my front thatnks to the mangos’ help with the blood sugar - woo hoo!) yet just now I spent 98kr on tonight’s tea, tomorrow’s breakfast and stuff to make sandwiches for tomorrow’s lunch.

Spent the evening watching MTV with Erik who is studying computer game design at Visby U. One of his tutors is an Englishman called Richard White who goes on about what a great language english is - so I tipped hmi off about the whole countdown thing and especially the C_*NT____ tie in case he could get mileage out of it.

He was into thrash metal but had recently discovered Aphex Twin so I gave him a nudge in the Warp/Ninja Tune direction.

Score Tally, Day 3:
Skijump noses: 93
meatballs: 0
history: 1 great old walled town
brummies: one on ferry
mullets: 1
encounters with swedish rock music: 2