Drivers
Very patient and considerate. Cyclists get a whole lane’s berth where possible, but nearly always at least a car’s width. Oncoming traffic will slow down to let the overtaker give you room.
Where the road curves at a T junction, the driver on the main road will often signal to indicate he is NOT turning, I think this goes back to the “give way to the right” rule which applies at junctions without marked priorities.
In towns, pedestrian crossings are often right by junctions. When you get the green man you may find traffic approaching from your left. Be bold! It will give way to you! (should :-) )
Drunkards
Scary. The Swedes at home are like the Brits abroad. Alcohol seems to lead to chanting, where there is an MC and a call-and-answer type arrangement going on. One group was singing “we’re gonna bring you HATE we’re gonna fsck you UP” which I didn’t fjnd intimidating no no no yes.
Girls
Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of fit girls in Sweden, they dress well and there is a preponderance of blonde pigtails (though there is a LOT of bleaching going on), but they seem a little on the neurotic / anorexic side to me. Give me the wholesome open smiles of the Dutch any day.
Boys
I’m not sure how LP is on blond hair, but I think he might have been a wreck in stockholm, foaming at the mouth. That’s if he can get through the whole socks-and-sandals thing, which even the hippest young things do here without shame or remorse.
Folk
Friendlier than Germans :->
Language
Less funny but more bonkers than Dutch. You can see the connections between northern English place names and Swedish, e.g. Many districts are called (something)lund, and many coastal areas are called …sund; so Sunderland may mean something like land of the river mouths.
The word “by” means village, and they have �by, mj�lby and even a sleby, so a Swede should feel at home in Yorkshire, with Selby, Huby, etc.
They shorten “ja” to “a” and sound like Yorkshiremen. I have heard them say “hallo” for goodbye. I still don’t know how to say “hey!” in swedish, since hej is hello.
They emphasise the wrong syllable, so words that look easy are hard to listen for, eg: centralenstation sounds like “cenTRAALenstaCHOWM” where ch is as in loch, and Hagakyrkan sounds a bit like “HAA-agaSHEWRkan”. Also the pitch varies with emphasis.
The ee sound can have a slight L in it, like throat singing.
Verdict
Recommended, unless you are poor.
10:11 It takes half an hour to walk from the cycle hire place to the bus stop. Allowing half an hour for the talkative lady at the bike shop meant i was pedalling up the hill at 930 with backpack on, getting funny looks from the postie and other motorists. After exchanging pleasantries the lady offered me a lift to the bus stop so now i am 5-0 down at abologne and wishing my ticket was valid on the earlier bus.
Can now say “tack se mycket” - thanks a lot - and can nearly hear the numbers. It was weird at the salsa class where the counting misses out 4 and 8 anyway: “ett, tvo, drie… fem, sex, sju” where sju is pronounced more like “hugh”.
The weather has finally given up and admitted it is autumn. Perfect timing for me, i get to acclimatise to september before getting on the plane… And i get to wear the warm waterproof i bought especially for the trip and has lain at the bottom of my rucsack ever since.
11:39 heh, this small-town railway station has nothing on it in the way of benches or shelters, just a bunch of college kids sat around cross-legged or with legs dangling over the edge of the platform. By the time i took the photo the bell had rung to signify the train’s arrival, and everyone had stood up.
14:52 the change of trains at Gborg went smoothly. Unfortunately my “window” seat is next to a support pillar 2 feet wide so i can only see out the window if I lean forward at some improbable angle. Ho hum. 1 hr down only another 2.5 hrs to go. Working on some compering ideas… Thought of a great joke last night but can’t remember it at all today…
19:15 ah this is the life, back in bonnie old Stockholm, booked into the boat-hostel AF Chapman and spending the rest of my krona on a swish meal. Got chatting to a hot looking swedish lass on the train, but she was too young and too tall for me so I didn’t try anything, even when she said she would like to see Manchester… I’m having a little trouble writing this as the service keeps popping up with another task - taste the wine, choose some bread, no some more, here’s a wee appetiser… The walls are decorated with tasteful nudes (ie no nipples) and a theatrical theme. The ambience is only tempered by the pickup that just pulled up outside the window advertising “club priv�: striptease, massage, bubblepool, erotik dusch…” dang! I just spent my last Krona on food :-)
19:39 i have to keep telling myself I am the customer, I must be right, but I can’t help glancing surreptitiously around to see who is usinq what fork, where they put their butter, and how they wear their napkin. The trouble with polite society is though they know this stuff they’re too polite to say…
20:17 just got the bill. Whoops, perhaps the glass of wine was a little extravagant @ ukp6.50 ho hum, that’s got rid of my last kronas anyhow!
20:55 there was a moment of tension when i put no tip on the slip- i had kept 50kr back for that and a further 20 in case of the need for a trip to the bathroom whilst still in Sweden. Good thing too: the wily old fellow who slipped my coat off on the way in stung me for 10kr to get it back again on the way out. I’m now down to loose change so it could work out pretty well. I’ll end up saving the change for my next trip and then Sweden will go Euro…
11:09 well i have seen about as many rock carvings as anyone could want to see in a day. I read in the guide book that the carvings are often made where water runs down, and facing the rising sun, providing a “treat for the early riser”. So i set my alarm for 5 and retired early to my cabin. At 5 the cabin was freezing so i put off getting up for as long as my bladder would allow, getting to my first rock-carving @ c.08:30. From the special treat point of view it was a bit of a let-down as there was very little running water, but the carvings themselves were really cool, 2300 to 3000 years old, with explanations by them. Most had been coloured in with red paint by researchers, but a few were not. (it’s not known whether they were painted in their day)
Startled a mink about 2m away from me, it had legged it by the time my camera was out :-(
11:37 Now loafing around a closed-for-the-off-season resort (tanumstrand), sunbathing and trying to gather the courage to bathe in the still waters - having seen a couple of Swedes screech in horror upon jumping in…
This afternoon is hopefully when i finally get to see my rune stone! Unfortunately i left my guide at the cabin or i might have taken on something a little more adventurous, but I hear there is a stone near the church at tanumshede.
13:45 just freaked out - while i was sat on the can i felt a nibble at the back of my neck. Brushed it off, and one of the freakiest creatures i’ve ever seen fell into my underwear and started making for my leg. I’m pretty sure it was a tick. I don’t know whether i felt a bite (i thought you did’t feel tick bites) or it was just pushing with its legs having been trapped in a fold of skin at the back of my neck, but i have just spent a freaky 10mins wondering about limes disease and resolving not to forget travel insurance again. The tick was not bloated so i don’t think it had drunk yet-IIRC the danger comes from squeezing infected blood back in. It’s times like this when it’s definitely better to have a travelling companion, it’s hard to examine your own neck!
14:50 made my way back to the beach and got the nerve to go in the water. Cold at first but smooth and clear. I could get into this Swedish lifestyle… Oh, i just did! Just let my things dry and its off to the rock carving museum, then me rune stone. I’m making my way around on a hired cykel (”soo-kell”) which the lady in the shop told me “it’s a Lady Bike, but i think you’ll like it - it has 3 speeds.” She seemed chuffed to bits when i tried a bit of Swedish, and i noticed she used “pr�t” in the sentence i took to mean “ah you speak a bit of Swedish eh?” - again, dutch “praat” is talk, and south africans say praat in this context.
17:25 woo hoo! Got me rune stone! I’d heard it was ‘by the church’ so first i rode round the church looking for a tourism sign like those that had announced the rock carvings. No dice. So then i followed a promising-looking woodland trail to find it went to the backs of some people’s houses. Then i saw a tourist board but that only explained the church. Eventually i was about to cross the road to get a good look at the church, when there it was by the roadside, at the far side of the pedestrian crossing! I suppose rune stones would have been next to highways in order to be read, and many of those highways will be today’s secondary roads. In Sweden, rune stones are a dime a dozen, hardly worth batting an eyelid at.
23:58 I’ve never found thunderstorms that scary, except of course when they creep up on you and the flash and the bang happen at once. But when you are butt naked, alone in a 2m x 3m wooden box on a hill next to a tree and all you have to go on is a wee diamond-shaped window in your door, and it rips you from your sleep into that surreal world before waking proper, trust me, THEN it’s scary. I’m doing my best not to let the phrase “all gods are bastards” even cross my mind since the best earth i can think of nearby is the power cable to the reading light above my head. Mummy!
9:41 well i have the rest of my transport worked out. I just have to make sure I catch it. I now have two hours to kill but the museums don’t open for another hour. This is a bit disappointing as I was hoping to see sweden’s only viking ship, but it’s a way off and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it if I was clockwatching the whole time. Time to take a few pics of the harbour i reckon. The formula for seeing Sweden seems to be to avoid mixing travel and sightseeing: use one day to get somewhere and book your next hop, maybe sort out provisions, then the next to do the sights. Pray that the second day is a tuesday to friday.
12:39 Woo hoo! En route to the harbour to take pictures I passed the stadsmueum and it was open so i got to see my viking ship. There were some very cool artefacts and tales of bloody battles. The museum lends you an english translation but the swedish is much cooler, with the word bl�d occurring plenty, and lots of k’s and y’s giving it that olde worlde feel.
I also managed to come across a booklet giving a suggested tour of the rock carvings where i am headed tomorrow.
11:03 Gborg & Shlm are very different indeed so far. In Shlm the Swedes are clearly a race apart. In Gborg the locals are just folk, though with a bias towards blond hair and the ubiquitous socks - and - sandals.
19:22 i’ve just realised i am wearing my white t-shirt, having just ordered red wine. And beetroot soup…
I’ve also discovered how hard it is to sneak 200kr out of your moneybelt at your back and into your wallet, when said moneybelt also contains a wad of english notes and your receipts for your trip so far. Tonight’s meal is in Krac�w, one of the many Polish restaurants in Gborg. My guidebook recommends the beetroot soup and pancake. With luck that’s what I’ve ordered…
20:04 mycka bra, as they say… Now stuffed full of Polish goodness and looking forward to an evening’s laundry.
20:56 ah good. Missed my laundry slot too. I guess i should just fsck off to bed and start over in the morning.
Score tally, day 7
museums: 1, closed
cool cars: 2
little girls that look like pippi l�ngstrump: 1
parents catching me trying to take a surreptitious photo of their young daughter: 2
swedish chefs: 1, in a polish restaurant