Day 1 in Sweden - 9th September

Well today has definitely been quite a day. Very unhappening at the beginning – and then very taxing indeed in the evening…

It started out with me taking the 9.30am train to Stockholm from Oslo. All that was quite uneventful. Train journey itself was non-happening. Scenery was pleasant without being extraordinary. Bear in mind that this scenery was as good – if not better than – what I saw on my very first day traveling through denmark. You can go back and check the adjectives I used then to describe what I saw. But I guess once you go on the Bergen railway, rail travel can never be the same again….. So ya, I checked out the scene outside occasionally, but that was about it….Slept for a bit, otherwise just read or something….

Sweden in general though seems more like denmark – in terms of terrain – than Norway. Much flatter definitely that Norway. As usual, lots of forested and green areas. As I said, quite pleasant.

I got into Stockholm at 3.30, and that’s when the drama began. I’d tried to get a hostel reservation last couple of days, but somehow the 2-3 places I called were all booked. Usually however these things haven’t been a problem, so I wasn’t unduly worried. Before leaving oslo, I’d emailed a couple of hostels, expecting that one of them at least would have a space.

I got into Stockholm, and checked my email – and believe it or not, those 2 places were full as well! That was tiresome – so I got out my guide books, picked a couple of more places, and called them too – and they had no space either! This was starting to get worrying…..i went to the tourist info office – which seemed to be like a mile away from the station, pushing my way through thronging crowds out Saturday shopping, and got there 5 min before it closed at 5pm. They gave me a list of hostels in the area, but as they were closing, they said they couldn’t do any bookings – they usually do, otherwise.

Anyway, I got the list, but then couldn’t find a payphone there, so had to walk back to the station again to call these places (all this, remember, with a 20 kilo backpack on my back!). Anyway, got back, and started calling all the places on the list – and every single one of them was full!! This was unbelievable…

Anyway, I then decided it was time to get serious, and upgrade my options – so I started calling some of the hotels listed in the guide book, which are of course pricier than hostels. But the ones I called had no space either. Then instead of blowing up all my money on phone calls – these phone calls here from payphones are pretty expensive, comes to about a dollar per call – I walked around and went to a couple of nearby hotels. None of them had space, but I finally found a place where the guy knew of a hotel which had rooms – and he called them and made a reservation for me. Phew! I heaved a big sigh of relief! Of course, that hotel was another 20min walk from where I was, so had to trudge there – but finally got a room! This is a single room, and of course that comes at a price – about 3 times what I’ve been paying so far. But I guess by this time, all I cared about was getting a place! And thankfully I found one – albeit after 3 hours of random tension….

Anyway, I guess these things are all part of the experience – so its fine. Turns out there’s some big medical conference in town – along with some bicycle fair. And it’s the weekend. So I guess things are really busy!

Anyway, I got into the room, dumped I stuff and just relaxed for a while. Luckily managed to connect to some stray wireless nearby – so that’s good. Then around 7.40 or so, I set out to see some of the town – not much could be done as it was just about starting to get dark, but still…

I went to the central station, and bought a Stockholm card – this gives unlimited access to all public transport, as well as pretty much all the sights in town for 24 hours. I plan to visit couple of museums etc, so on the whole this should work out pretty cheap. Then I took the subway to Gamla Stan, which is the old town – that’s on another island. Stockholm is basically composed of several islands, all very close to each other, and closely connected by road and subway. So its pretty much like walking from one colony to another. But some of the distances can get kinda long – like walking from my hotel to Gamla Stan would take about 30-40min.


Gamla stan (remember Den Gamle By that I visited in Arhus? Gamla/Gamle seems to mean “old” in all Scandinavian languages) is the old part of Stockholm, and is very much the way you’d imagine that – all cobbled stone streets, old buildings, narrow paths. Totally delightful. It was just awesome walking around there. The place now seems to also house a lot of pubs and restaurants – so its all lit up in yellow/orange light, and looks totally awesome by night. Did some long exposure photography. Unfortunately I hadn’t taken my tripod along, so had to find suitable places to put the camera on. But some photos came out reasonably nice.

There are some pretty nice looking churches in that area as well. Will probably go there during the day sometime and see them too.



Then at one point I came to this large square in the town where there’s the Nobel Museum, which is all about the Nobel prize, of course. There are some restaurants as well in the square.

From there I walked along and came to the royal palace. This looks totally awesome, I definitely want to come and see it during the day. There were some guards around still, and they seemed a bit nervous about me standing there taking photos – cant imagine why! – so I didn’t hang around too long.


From there I walked across the bridge back to the main island, and straight into the downtown area. This is pretty amazing, and one of the best downtown areas I’ve seen. Nicely lit up, still very old townish, lots of shops and all, and quite a few people still around…..Very old feel, and at the same time kinda hip and trendy. There are also all these flags hung out above you, representing different countries...dunno why

I then slowly figured my way back to the train station. Asked a group of kids on the way back, and they tried to behave very funny or something – looked kinda drunk, and typical teenage brat kinda material…..whatever….

This is definitely the first time, though – esp on the subway ride back – that I’m seeing a lot of the punk kind of crowd. This possibly is because in the other 2 big cities I’ve been to – oslo and Copenhagen – I wasn’t really out at night in the main city areas ever. But definitely saw quite a few people with weird hairstyles, wearing weird clothes, lots of piercings, tattoos, the works…..So that was definitely a different taste.

In general, though, Stockholm seems to be the most happening of the 3 Scandinavian capitals. Lots more variety in the kind of people – one still sees fair number of Asians around – a much hipper crowd, more trendy…..It’ll be interesting to see whether that opinion changes once I spend the day out in town tomorrow….

Anyway, time to sleep now – quite tired after the long day! Hopefully tomorrow will be a much better day!