‘Tis the Season

It was Christmas time, usually a time for family and friends. As I wasn’t at home, I made did with what was available to me – one friend and some surrogate parents.

In London I met up with Cat (from home and who has been living in the UK) and her friend Jess who was over for a short two month European trip. So anyway, we met up in London at the Pickwick Hall hostel, a private room for three with ensuite which was great.

The first evening we were in London, we went for a walk down Oxford Street and ended up in Hyde Park where a large German Christmas festival was being held. It was full of lights, rides, people and litres upon litres of mulled wine.

Hyde Park Christmas Festival

The days leading up to Christmas were spent sleeping and wandering around London. It was very cool to walk around a city which is so dressed up for Christmas. Everywhere you turned there were decorations and lights, stalls selling Christmas products and store windows arranged for the festive season.

Snowman!

On Christmas Eve I also had the opportunity to catch up with my friend Meri from Finland. She was in Oxford visiting her friend Lou for Christmas and New Years so I headed up to Oxford for the day. We met at the Oxford Castle which was a great idea as there was an amazing outdoor photography exhibition on called Earth From The Air which was showing beautiful airel photography by aclaimed photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. It’s an amazing look the earth from above and how it’s changing day by day. For lunch we had a great Greek meal and then went to meet Lou. Soon we were headed back to London in the car and Meri and I parted ways (again) but promised to meet up once more before she headed home.

That evening  Cat, Jess and I went to meet up with the parents of Cat’s boyfriend, Ant (another friend from home) who were to be my surrogate parents for Christmas day. We headed to a bar, had a few drinks, then headed to the only open restaurant which happened to be an Indian place – pretty nice! But soon we had to get back to bed, early night on Christmas Eve!!

The next morning we woke latish and as promised, I cooked the girls pancakes, bacon and eggs for breakfast. Accompanying that was fresh fruit,  juice and champagne, and it was all pretty great. But soon it was time to head out for the main meal of the day, Christmas Dinner. We met Ant’s parents at a hotel which they had booked the meal at. We started with presents, I can’t believe that they had even bought Jess and I presents (albiet edible ones)!

The afternoon was filled with champagne, turkey, deserts, wine, Christmas crackers, balloons flying around the room, and a hugely expensive bill which was fully paid by Ant’s parents, an amazing show of generosity. And then bloated, we headed back to the hostel to watch Love Acutally which is apparantly a popular film for Christmas.

The following days in London were rather relaxed. On Boxing Day I headed out into the shopping hoards and bought a few things. The following day I had a quiet one, but later on met up with Meri once again before both of us had to leave London. We also managed to see the changing of the guard outside Buckingham Palace on the morning before we were set to leave. It was an interesting affair but really not as exciting as everyone makes it out to be!

Changing of the Guard

Part Two

That night we boarded an extremely uncomfortable bus and headed north, destination Edinburgh. After nine and a half hours of half sleep, half candy consumption we arrived faar too early in the morning, and since our rooms weren’t ready at the hostel, we had to hang out in the common room for a few hours.

It was an unexpectedly beautiful day so after  a nap we decided to go for a wander. Edinburgh’s Royal Mile runs for around a mile between the Scottish Parliment and the Edinburgh Castle. So, with this in mind, our first stop was the castle.

Edinburgh Castle

We couldn’t actually go inside as it was incredibly expensive, but we gave it a good walk around. That night, someone decided it would be a good idea to go drinking, so that’s what we did. The hostel was full of long term Australians who only wanted to drink, so we joined them (Cat had also lived there at some stage earlier in the year). Drinking games started and soon everyone moved to what, to me, was a terrible bar – but the others seemed to like it. Backpacker bars just aren’t really my thing.

The following day I spent most of it sleeping. And while Cat and Jess slept even longer, I decided to take a walk up Arther’s Seat, a rather large hill. So after a walk down the Royal Mile towards the Scottish Parliment I began my way up.

Arthurs Seat Silhouette

As I rounded the corner, I found a very cool rock face which would have been excellent for some rock climbing had I had my shoes with me. Just beyond that was another hill which I had decided was worth a climb.

Rocks!

The weather was amazing and this place was amazing, so I kept going. My mission was to make it to the highest hill around and the climb was suprisingly steep. It might have been possible that I took a hard path, but really, that’s all part of the fun. From the top the view was exellent.

View from Arthurs Seat

Soon the sun went down so it was time to head back to the hostel for an easy night, best be resting up for New Years Eve tomorrow!

The day was new years eve and I spent most of it sleeping. I wanted to be ready for the evening. In the afternoon we took a trip to the local supermarket which was more packed with people than any other supermarket I’ve ever seen.  We were mostly there to pick up alcohol so I grabbed some wine, a Hoegaarden and one of the new Kronenburg Blanc beers (absolutely amazing). The evening was started (as it usually does in this hostel) with drinking games which caused me to finish my entire bottle of wine far too fast. But it was fun, and everyone was enjoying themselves and soon it was time to head out.

Each year in Edinburgh the council holds a massive street party with live bands and DJs and around 100,000 people partying it up. So after all this drinking, we headed out into it. Almost at once I lost Cat and Jess but luckily I was hanging out with a Canadian called Zach. And this was about the last I remember. Much to my embarrasment, all the alcohol hit me at once and most of the night is lost in my muddly brain but apparantly I did participate in the count down. This is the first new years that this has ever happened and I blame it on the fact that I wasn’t with my good friends :P

Fortuntely, the next day I awoke and was feeling fine! I had wanted to do the walking tour of Edinburgh that day and Cat and Jess agreed but by the time we got there it was totally full. This was crazy, we didn’t expect there to be so many people willing to go out and tour around the city on New Years Day, so Jess and I enlisted Cat to tour us around the city which she lived in a few months ago.

It appeared that Cat has forgotten most of the city but took us to two of the more interesting places. First was the Edinburgh Graveyard. This place is full of old grave stones covered in skulls and crossbones and skeletons and such.

Gravey!

The second place which I remember was Caton Hill. This is probably the second largest hill in Edinburgh (other than Arthur’s Seat). On the top of it they have a monument which waas supposed to be a replica of the Athenian Acropolis but for some reason they ran out of oney while building it and it never got completed.

Caton Hill

That night, Cat and Jess went on the New Years Day pub crawl. I decided not to beacuse the following day I had to catch a flight back to Luton to get ready for my next adventure, Morocco!

Stockholm!

I arrived back in Stockholm at around 4pm on a Tuesday. My next Couchsurfing host was Karl. He was busy working on a student radio show that evening so I made my way to his place using the instructions which he had given me. I always worry a little bit about using the local public transport systems, but as usual, this one was indcredibley easy.

I took the metro four or five stops and then met a bus. I asked the driver if he went to where Karl lives and how much the ticket was. He replied, “one thousand.” I said, “how about I give you two.” He laughed and then asked, “American? Canadian?” “New Zealand” I replied, and he told me to get on the bus and that he’d take me there.

I arrived at Karls apartment building, entered the door code and headed up to his place, found the key and let myself in. Nort knowing what to do, I looked through Karl’s bookshelf and spent the night reading a book until Karl arrived home.

Karl arrived home at around 9:30, and straight away we got along. He was a friendly guy with what I thoughht was an American accent. I later found out that he was purely Swedish but had lived in California for a year when he was 17-18. He didn’t seem to realise, but I think that the accent atoning his english was influenced from this experience – and network TV! That night we chatted about all sorts of things ’till late including Whatipu’s tunnel of wind (some of you will know of this amazing place on Auckland’s West Coast).

The first proper day I spent in Stockholm was beautiful, sunny autumn day, so I decided that I would just start walking and see where I ended up. So I headed across the bridge from Liljeholmen to Åsön. The view was amazing;

Bridge from Liljeholmen

I saw from the bridge a nice looking park which ran along the seaside, so I decided to head into there. The autumn trees were looking amazing, but the first thing which I noticed were these crazy little houses set into the hillside. I thought they might be something like a retirement village, but after inquirement it turns  out that they are summer houses which you can hire out from the government as a place to garden and hang out in when the weather is warm. A great idea for the thousands of people who live in apartments in the inner city.

Summer Houses

I continued my walk along the seaside for another hour or so and then headed into the city. I found a  cool shop called The T-Shirt Shop where I bought an urban guide to Stockholm which was to guide me to the best of the shops and other places in Stockholm for the next few days. I even found an awesome statue of Thor beating down upon a sea serpent.

Thor!

The rest of the afternoon I continued my walk around the city and in the evening headed back to Karl’s where we had dinner and hung out for the evening, him telling me crazy stories and showing me videos of mixed martial arts legend Bas Routen. Hilarious!

The following day I decided to check out the Old Town. Almost everywhere has some form of “old town” and this was no exception. Cobbled streets, ancient buildings, and hundreds of ridiculously expensive tourist shops. The palace was also on the island where the old town was located, a huge building complete with guards and everything!

Palace

Next on the list was the Swedish Parliment and a crazy round church, walking-a-tonne, and another evening of hanging out with Karl.

Swedish Parliment

The next day I decided to check out a few more parts of the city. The town hall which had this cool leave covered wall hiding an amazing lion statue.

Hidden Lion

Next I went to check out the Moderna Museet, but ended up not having enough time to go inside. Outside, however, were some very cool sculptures consisting of child-like giant lumps coupled with strange steam-punk style machines. Very strange but very cool.

Modern Sculpture

That evening things got more exciting. There were a number of options for the evening, but we had to choose one. At 7 we headed out to one of Karl’s friend’s place, Lena. Her and her friend Mary (I think, sorry!) had cooked dinner for us, a Swedish specialty, reindeer. The dinner was amazing and after a large helping and some crazy chat, we were ready to head out. Lena was running a club night at one of Stockholm’s clubs, but before we attended that, Karl and I headed to another club to see a gig by Californian experimental band Xiu Xiu. Later after the gig we headed to Lena’s club night, met her and Mary and had a few drinks, then headed off home.

The time in Stockholm was excellent, things just keep getting better! The next day, ‘though, it was time to leave. An overnight ferry was booked for Helsinki, and at 6pm, after only making the boarding with 5 minutes to spare I was off with the sunset behind me.

Stockholm Sunset

Further North: Bodø

The train to Bodø was old, rickety, uncomfortable, and I couldn’t afford to buy a sleeping ticket so I sat awake for 10 hours through the night, listening to music and watching the darkness fly by. I must have fallen asleep at one point, because next thing I knew it was light outside and we were careering though snow-covered mountains which slowely morphed back into green, yellow and brown autumn trees. At 9:30am I arrived in Bodø.

I had about five hours to spare before I was picked up by my CouchSurfing host, Susanne. So I found myself a map, glanced over a local guide book and set out for yet another fort, this time at the end of a small peninsula which marks the entrance to the Bodø harbour.

Fort on the Peninsula

The walk took about an hour to get there, passing some amazing mountainous islands to the north before arriving at the very end of the peninsula which looked back over the city of Bodø.

The Mountains Beyond

By this time I was wearing four layers including a marino jersey and a down jacket, a polar fleece scarf, woolly hat, gloves (thanks Mum!) and more and I was still cold. It was all the fault of the wind – it was out of control and bringing down the temperature by probably around 5 degrees to what would have been close to 0 degrees. I couldn’t feel my face at all!

But never mind the cold, there was more exploring to be done. My next stop was the marina which I walked to the end of, took a few pictures and left because it was just as cold out there was it was at the fort.

I then walked all over the seemingly-small town for the next few hours, my legs almost ready to collapse, and soon it was 2pm, time to be picked up by Susanne.

She had told me that she was going to show me a few sights around Bodø, so off we drove, accompanied by Susanne’s friend Lynn to the world’s largest maelstromm, or whirlpool. It was hard to see the actual whirling of the water, but you could tell that the current was very dangerous.

At Saltstraumen

Afterwards we drove off into the mountains to try and get close to the snow. The scenery was absolutely stunning with fjords, rivers, forests, and snow-topped mountains.

Nature!

Later we returned to Susanne’s apartment, chatted nonsensically for some time, then she left to support the local football team. I knew they were yellow, so I watched a team of yellow-shirted players live on television lose to another team. She came home, they had lost, but it turned out that I had watched the wrong game!

The next day it was raining. I spend the morning hanging out in the public library. In the afternoon the rain died down and I decided to head out to the open-air Nordic museum. This place was cool, it contained a number of very old houses and boat sheds built on the rocky shores of Bodøjorn.

Ancient Boat House

After wandering around amoungst these houses, I decided to go for a bit of a tramp up into the surround bush where I found lots of trees bearing red berries, and old bunkers.

Bunker

I walked on and found a strange and makeshift looking bridge, so I crossed it.

Little Bridge

On the otherside I found a place that appeared to be named Løveskogen. It had a chillout bivowac of sorts and a number of hammocks and swings. It reminded me of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Løveskogen

Soon it was time to go so I started my trek back towards Bodø city, met up with Susanne, had some dinner and then she drove me to the airport. I was off to Tromsø.

Norweige: Olso

From Gothenburg I was off to Norway. I decided that I definately wanted to make it far north in Norway as I could, so I’d come back to Sweden later when it was too cold to be in the far north.

I boarded a 12:45 train headed for Oslo and found myself sitting with two Canadian brothers from British Columbia; ex paper-mill engineers. Garth and Trace. We talked about all sorts of nothing and they taught me a card game which I had never seen before called Cribbage. This was probably the most fun card game I’ve ever played, if not a little hard. But in saying that, I managed to win the first two games easily, losing the third by only a small amount.

After 5 or so hours, we arrived in Oslo. Off went the Canadians and I made a phone call to my 5th couch surfing arrangement –  Bård. With in ten minutes he had shown up and we were on our way walking to his girlfriends place where I was to stay because he was also staying there. It was me, another CouchSurfer (from Solvenia),  Bård, his girlfriend Matinka (from Solvakia), and 15 other flatmates!

Now I would like to run through all the other flatmates, but I only really remember one. This guy was called Shaun-Thomas, and when I asked him what he did, his response was something along the lines of: “I do some modeling and I work in a clothing shop. I have also trained in cook, waiter and was in the military. Oh… and I’m a RAPPER!” You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought – this guy looked like a male model. He told me that he had been rapping for 10 years and had, at some stage, laid down a track with Wutang.

So he asked me if I wanted to hear a rap, and OF COURSE I DID! It was actually really good! But I was laughing throughout the whole thing, just because the situation  was so ridiculous. That night I had dinner with  Bård and Matinka and then we headed out to a club called Blå which had a free twelve-piece swing/jazz band playing. The music was amazing, the band members were really funny, and everyone was dancing like mad. Although a good time, I didn’t stay too long as I was pretty tired.

The following day I hung out with the other CouchSurfer, the Slovenian girl. We ended up taking one of the longest day’s walking that I’ve had in this entire trip. After heading to the train station to buy tickets, we made out way towards the Royal Palace.

Royal Palace

After we checked out the palace, we decided to take a look at a park which was apparantly full of statues. We walked for miles to get to this place, and all the time I was thinking, “I’ve seen so many damn statues”. But this place turned out to be pretty amazing, there were hundreds and hundreds of statues all made by the same guy – it must have taken him years to complete them all. Some were crazy, many were naked figures in strange poses, and then there was the totem-orgy pole.

A small few of many statues

Totem-Orgy

While we were at this park, I noticed something off in the distance which at first I didn’t understand. But through fancy 6x optical zoom techniques, I found that it was a ski jump! People I talked to were very surprised that we have skiing in New Zealand but do not have a ski jump!

Olso Ski Jump

We decided to try and walk to it. The 6x optical zoom was decieving because after walking for almost an hour and a half, we appeared to be no closer than we previously were. We then gave up and walked for about two hours, all the way back to Matinka’s place, where the rest of the night was relatively relaxed as we watched a few films with a few of the other flatmates.

The next day the weather was crap. I had already decided that I wanted to go down and check out the harbourside so I began to walk. The further I walked, the worse the weather got but I was determined, and soon I made it to the Oslo fort.

Oslo Fort

The harbourside the day prior looked spectacular in the sparkling sun. Today it looked so bad that I’m not even going to post a picture up here. I decided to get out of the rain so headed to the Museum of Contemporary Art. This place was  pretty cool, it was full of (obviously) contemporary Norweigian art and a few international exhibitions, one which I had seen parts of in London’s Tate Modern.

Next I visited the Astrup Fearnly Museum of Modern Art which is currently housing an extensive Andy Warhol exhibition which was absolutely crazy. I never thought that I would see some of these very famous paintings of soup cans! Then back for another night of chilling.

One last day I had, and the weather was just as miserable as it was the previous day. This wasn’t going to stop me. My first place of visitment was the newly completed Opera House.

Opera House

One last stop. The Senersen Museum of Modern Art (yes, another one). And another chilling night as the following morning I was up at 6am to catch an early train to Trondheim!

Oslo, over and out.

(I apologise for the terrible writing within this post, I’ve been walking all day after a night train on which I didn’t sleep at all)

Scandinavia Initiation: Copenhagen

After a 15 hour overnight train ride, I made it from Amsterdam to Copenhagen. I was sleeping in a little cabin on a very wobbly train. The cabin looked a little like this:

Sleeping Train

On the train I met Bob. Well, I really met him at the information desk at Amsterdam Station. I was there trying to find out which platform my train was going from as I didn’t really believe what I had been told earlier by someone else. He was doing the same thing, except he was clad in leather. Bob was also a Canadian art-director. We got onto the train, talked about all manner of things, but by far the most interesting was the fact that he was travelling around with an 8mm video camera and another oldschool 120 film camera. We’ll come back to Bob.

The other interesting character I met on the train, his name is unknown to me. He arrived in my cabin around midnight during our stop at Cologne and was the first person on this trip who has accurately guessed that I’m from New Zealand and not Australia. We got talking after having to deal with an unruley and obtrusive suitcase belonging to a travelling Jamacian who just sat there in his Timberlands eating piles of junkfood for the entire journey. The talk was definitely interesting, he was a Baroque harpsicord player who travelled once a month from Copenhagen to Cologne for lessons. We talked for around 2 hours, and I think the most intersting thing he told me was how the train system works. The night trains which travel through Germany all stop at Hanover at around 2am. At hanover, depending where the passengers are going (and they are separated by carraiges), the trains start this crazy system of swapping carriages before heading to their final destination. This is why I was initally confused. The sign for my train said Copenhagen, Cologne, Prague, Warsaw and a couple more!

After 15 hours in the wobbely train, we arrived at Copenhagen central in the rain. Although we were in different hostels, Bob and I decided to meet at the station the following day for a wander around. So we parted ways, him walking into town and me taking another train out to the damned airport! Why did I choose the Airport Hostel Copenhagen? Because it was cheap. After a 25 minute walk to the hostel from the airport, a cold shower, and a 25 minute walk back, I had returned to the train going back into the city.

(I can see this becoming far, far, too long. I might have to speed things up a bit!)

I hit the town. I saw the world’s largest carousel.

World's Largest Carousel

Then I witnessed some Mexican buskers, one of which was playing the panpipes while holding their DVD and CDs and constantly glancing over to me (and I suppose everyone else):

Mexican Buskers

Next I walked into the shopping street where I proceeded to lose a small-yet-annoying amount of money to a street gambler. Those of you who know me know that I am not one for the gambling. Don’t ask me why I did it. I only went in for a wee look at what all the fuss was about, then next thing I knew I had my wallet open and a group of Danish men crowding around it, counting how much money I had, and then I had nothing left. That was one lesson learnt the hard way.

I left that scene swiftly and went for a wander around the city. I saw important buildings, pedestrian roads, crazy churches, canals and interesting modern architecture. And statues, oh the statues. Of all the cities I have been in, Copenhagen would be the city of statues. They are absolutely everywhere. I spent a few hours wandering around, but after a restless nights sleep, I became pretty tired pretty fast, but this was ok as I was about to return to my hostel – and a huge party! Just what I needed.

The party went on, the music was terrible, and the bass reverberated throughout the entire house. I finally managed to go to sleep around 3am. This was not all an annoyance ‘though. I met some cool people from Germany, Sweden, Syria, Poland and many more places. But sleeping was a must, the next day was to be a big adventure.

I met up with Bob at the central train station at 12 o’clock and off we set for an extensive wander around the city. Our first stop was the (once) freetown of Christiania. Christiania is an old military base which was taken up by squatters in the late ’70s. For years it was occupied by free-spirits, hippies, yoga afficinados and people of similar ilk. Rules had been set, hash-trade was legal but there was no tolerace of gun, hard drugs or stolen property. This all ended in 2004 when the government raided the freetown, forcing the hash-trade to go underground and change the life in Christiania forever. It is said that within a few years that the community many not even exist, with plans for developments such as a golf course to be undertaken.

Entrance To Christiania

Turkish food was scoffed on the way back into town, and we decided to visit some of the more historical sites of the city. Half of our walk was us looking at the same things that both of us had seen the previous day. We walked down towards the river and found a street full of different coloured buildings:

Colourful!

Further walking saw us finding the statue of the Little Mermaid. We both knew about this statue but neither of us had originally thought we would see it – this happened by mistake as we were headed towards the Freidericksburg Fort, a star shaped inland island complete with bridges, cannons, buildings which was originally self-sustaining. Oh and the first proper windmill which I had seen!

The Little Mermaid

Freidericksburg Fort Windmill

We had been walking for hours and had covered most of the inner city, so after the fort there was only one placce left to visit for the day, the Royal Gardens.  As we were walking there, we spotted one of the coolest bike stores I’ve ever seen. This place made its own bikes, including the frames, and let the buy choose all the options, colours, etc. How grand!

Bike-tastic!

Then it was on to the Royal Gardens, public gardens which are locked at night and house a large number of crazy sculptures. And afterward, for me, almost an hour more walking + a train ride to get back to the hostel.  Luckily for me that night there was no party. Most of the hostel had cleared out and there was only 5 of us left – two german girls, another NZer and I, and a girl from Malta – who just chilled out and watched some well deserved films.

St. Bob and the Dragon

The following day, Ricky, the other NZer, had left. The girl from Malta was moving into an apartment with a Chinese boy, and the German girls  and I decided to have one last look around town before we all left the hostel. They were intent of buy presents for their entire extended family + friends, even though their holiday was only 4 days. So, after much, much, shopping, we decided to check out the Round Tower. I had some documentation but I’ve now lost it so could not tell you what the use of this tower was, but now if you like, you can ascend the never-ending circular ramp all the way to the top and involve yourself in a spectacular view of the city.

View from Round Tower

There was one last stop before we departed for the afternoon, that was the Almond Man. I had seen these around, and they smelt so good that I had to have some – pronto! I’m not exactly sure what these are, but they are Almonds that are coated in some kind of caramelized, crunchy and sweet coating. They tasted amazing, expsecially the hot ones, but after a while you actaully felt very ill. All three of us decided that we weren’t feeling too good after this, unfortunate cconsidering the magnitude of the taste!

Almond Man

“Goodbye,” I said to the German girls, and headed back to the airport to pick up my bags, where I then headed right back on to the train, bound for town. I had slept two nights in the hostel, but I was here for four – the next two were my third CouchSurfing experience. Mee and Mathias were both Business School students (Mathias also produces synth music for advertising, TV and film) who lived together in a pretty massive three bedroom apartment in Freidericksberg. For two more nights I stayed with them. The only full day I was at their place, I actaully only left the house to get something to eat, the rest of the time I spent planning the next stage of my trip and trying to begin to organise how I was getting to the north of Norway.

The following day at 11:32am I was off on another train, leaving overcast Copenhagen for sunny Gothenburg!