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

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)

Austrian Truths

Again we camped. This time in Vienna, the captial of Austria. It was a short trip, but for some us it was too long.

We were staying in west Vienna and on the afternoon we arrived, not a whole lot happened. Willy found an air matress after nights of sleeping on the ground, and Xanthe cooked us an awesome vegetarian nachos for dinner as we sat around out tents, chatting and drinking a few local beers.

We had only really given ourselves one day to look around Vienna. It was probably not long enough, but we weren’t really sure what there was to do anyway. The morning after we arrived, we took the bus and train into the town centre. I guess you could say that we spent the morning looking at the stuff that every other tourist does. The National Opera House, Butterfly House, National Library, Parliment and more. It was a terribly hot day (days that we are now missing), but we endevoured to keep walking and see all that we wanted to.

National Library

One more museum

After these inital sights, Xanthe and I decided to visit the Sigmund Freud museum which was actually housed in the clinic which he had used before he was (possibly) exciled to the United Kingdom. After walking up a flight of stairs, you had to ring the doorbell – it almost felt like you were there to visit Dr. Freud for a psychoanalysis! To be honest, the museum was only mildly interesting. There was little on display about the work and ideas of Freud, and a lot of pictures of him or collections of the pipes he smoked and then a huge section on the work of his daughter. I was a little disappointed but all in all I think it was worth seeing.

Door to Freud's clinic

After this we wandered along the road (for about an hour) to check out a huge apartment building with a facade designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. This was pretty cool, but unfortunately the museum inside was a little dear for me to enter so Willy and I made our way back to the camp ground.

Hundertwasser Museum

And this is where the stereotyping begins. I’m sure all of you know about the history of Austria and sexual deviancy and crime. Remember the basement incident not long ago? As you can probably well imagine, much joking about the state of Austria was made during our stay there, but when Xanthe and Ollia made it back to the camp ground and said “yeah, we’re over Austria” it was clear that something had happened. As it turns out, Xanthe and Ollie were on the train, minding their own business when and old man (65ish) comes and sits down opposite Xanthe. The trip continues until Xanthe shifts her eyes and realises that this partucilar old man is learing at her, penis in hand, furiously masturbating. She froze and he shuffled off before Ollie had the time to do anything about it! Gross but possibly more expected here than anywhere else in Europe?

The next morning we promptly left.

Munich and Close By

On the Monday after our exciting weekend at Adenau and the Nurburgring, Ollie, Willy and I headed for Munich where we were to pick up Ollie’s girlfriend Xanthe and stay for a few nights. The drive was long and blocked with traffic – not the autobahn we had all heard of with people doing max speed – but we finally made it to Munich train station where Xanthe was waiting after her trip from Zurich. We all packed into the Peugeot and headed off to find another campground.

The ground which we settled at was in an outer suburb of Munich in a nice tree-filled area containing a zoo and golf course and river and more. For this leg of the trip we had decided to stay in the campground’s ‘cabins’. These turned out to be nothing more than caravans parked up in a back corner of the camp ground. Two rooms and four beds to each caravan.

Camping in style

That evening, Willy and I decided to walk up to the shops which we had seen earlier to try and find something to eat. I wouldn’t say the idea was a mistake, more so we made a mistake in choosing the direction to leave the campground. And after over an hour of walking passed abandoned houses, corn maizes and roadside life-size crucifixes, we had to ask someone where to find food. This led us on another walk for 20 or so minutes until we found what turned out to be a rather marginal Italian restaurant. After dinner we took the metro into the city and had a good walk around, scoping out the place for future referance so we could make the most of the upcomming days. We decided to taxi back to the camp ground – we had no idea how to get back that would take any less than a number of hours.

The following day we got up early and headed out to the BMW showroom and museum. The showroom is an architectural marvel designed by Zaha Hadid. The museum itself was amazing. The presentation and interior design was immaculate and the information accurate and very entertaining. They had one of almost every type of BMW you could think of from E21s to Isettas to DTM race M3s and CSLs, M1s, motorbikes and concept cars. Of most interest was the Gina concept car which appears to morph rather than swing open doors and bonnets. It is truely amazing.

BMW Museum

Gina

That afternoon we headed into town to take a look around. The first thing which you notice about Munich is that it is an amazingly walkable city. Almost the entire CBD-kinda area is pedestrian friendly with very little roads. And there were shops selling anything and everything you could want – finally I could buy some ledahousen (not that I did!). The clothes shops I found to be the most interesting because there was many outfits which were purely German in style. We also managed to check out some of the more historic sites including the town hall and square, and many of the crazy statues of Lions that Europe has to offer.

Red flowers and buildings

The following day it was time to leave Munich and head for Vienna. We decided that we would leave in the afternoon after taking a visit to Dachau, the first of the German concentration-camps used in World War II. Dachau was full of history, but bleak and grim in its atmosphere. I dont think that either Willy or I said one word to each other the entire time we were there, it almost felt disrespectful to talk when you were standing in one of the cruelest places in modern history. Just being there as visitors, we were unable to really understand the experience of what it would have been like to be taken from your home and family and housed there against your will. Still standing are the solitary confinement and special prisoner bunker, one of the sleeping houses and the crematorium and gas chamber (which thankfully was never used at Dachau). We returned to the car still almost in silence.

Dachau

We commenced the trip to Vienna. The day was about to brighten up as we were taking a detour to Schloss Neuschwanstein in Fussen, the castle of Mad King Ludwig II which was the inspiration for the Disneyland Castle. It was set up in the mountains of southern Germany and was absolutely amazing. Although only built around 200 years ago, it had the feel of a real medieval castle, complete with towers and walls and forest surrounding it. It was definitely very cool to see a real castle of this type!

Schloss Neuschwanstein

That night we camped not far from the Austrian border, it had got late and we decided to continue our trip to Vienna the following day.

Natural History & Piping

During one of the past few days, I figured that I would check out the London Museum of Natural History. I have now fully aquainted myself with the subway system which is just as convenient as the one in Hong Kong, just more packed, less air-conditioned, grimier, and slower. But it works, and that’s the main thing. Using this new-found skill, I navigated my way to the appropriate station of which I have now forgotten the name.

Once you step out of the Tube Station, the Museum is at once imposed upon you, casting a shadow over it’s surrounding not unlike the hundreds of other ‘vintage’ buildings in the city. Although this building is definitely old, it feels like it has been renovated at some stage in the near past, as on the sills of all the exterior windows sat a gargoyle-like depiction of the natural world, which I’m sure would not have been there on initial creation.

London Museum of Natural History

The inside was just as majestic as the exterior, with huge arches, staircases and tiled floors. Oh, and the exhibits! There was much in here which was similar to the Hong Kong Museum of History, a large amount on geology and the creation of the universe and earth, but there was much, much more. The Hong Kong Museum turns into an exhibit of life past in Hong Kong, London has a separate museum for this which I will come to in another post.

TheLondon Museum of Natural History had taxidermy! Lots and lots and lots of it, I read somewhere that there was 22,000 pieces! And I could believe that. They had separated the animals into what they eat or what family, order or class they were from, and it was all very interesting. I have never actaully seen a real Anteater before, nor a mountain goat or manatee. Crazy. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any photos in these halls as everything was behind glass and every photo I was trying to take reflected 40 Spanish tourists back at me through the lens.

They also had DINOSAURS! I haven’t seen a dinosaur skeleton since I was 5 years old in New York, so this was particularly exciting. The museum had a huge collection including Triceratops and T-Rex skeletons, alongside a number of the larger plant eaters of names which I can not now remember. Although it was a very cramped linear exhibition, I managed to get a few photos, some even of thee mechanical life-size T-Rex robot!

Triceratops Skeleton

Robot T-Rex

Later on that day, it was about time that the famous shisha bars were found. I had heard there was one on Edgware Rd near Marble Arch, so after Adam had finished work we headed over there. What I found was a street riddled with piping establishments! Prasnaglava, take note – Edgware Rd, Marble Arch Station – you will be needing this advice when you come to London next.

We never did find the place I had been reccommended, so we just ended up at a random bar. The shisha in this city is very expensive, you will not get change from £10 for a pipe, and in our situation, not a very good pipe. It was exciting to walk in the door and see 30-odd pipes all ready to go, being  instantly offered a choice of apple or pineapple, but this is where the excitement ended. We chose apple and they brought it out. The coals guy came along with a bucket of coals and proceeded to put 4 large coals right in the centre of the tinfoil. It tasted good for about 1 minute then  it got so hot and started burning, there were no tongs available for the customers to use so we had to stop until the coals-man could come and rearrange things for us. I’m not sure if his english was bad or what, but instead of taking a coal off and putting them on the edge, he put another one on! It was too much to smoke, fly to me Spirit of Christmas upon the back on Constable Habeeb and calm me for my nerves are not well.  So all in all, not the best experience. Who are these Middle-Easterners trying to kid?

Adam Smokes the Pipe