Stockholm
Finally…my weekend report on Stockholm. We left Karlskrona Friday morning to arrive in Stockholm at 5 pm, just in time to make it to our conference meeting at 5:30 pm. The bus was packed - everyone seems to want to get out of the small towns and into Stockholm for the weekend. The conference meeting was part of the annual The Natural Step International (TNSI) meeting and we were invited to meet everyone and present out thesis topics. It was nice to mingle and realize how big our network is. This meeting was followed by a night out - first a tappas bar and then some irish pub - for more exciting conversations on the topic of sustainability. We also met with our couchsurfing host and he tagged along to our night out on the town. Couchsurfing, hug, what is that? It’s this new online community my fellow classmates and I have discovered, where people from all around the world sign up and offer a couch or a bed or a mattress to people to sleep on for a couple of nights should they be in that city. It’s pretty much like facebook or myspace or any other networking website, except that you offer that people can sleep at your house. And in return you get to stay with other people for free. If you are intersted check it out - couchsurfing.com. So thats what we did. Myself and two other guys stayed with Frederik, a sofware engineer who works at Ericsson and as it turned out was slightly socially ackward (how much more stereotypical can you get?). He had studied in Zurich for a year and therefore spoke German, which prompted him to talk my ear off in German. He was a talker in general, but particularly eager to practice his German. What fun for me! But he was a nice host and all-in-all I probably can’t complain. Our two other friends stayed with 20-year old Anders, who turned out to be a party king with the ability to juggle 5 girlfriends at the same time. He also liked to invite random strangers to after-parties at his house, which meant that our two friends were sharing their couch with a lot more people than expected! (But seriously, dont be deterred. Couchsurfing is a great idea and you can have really great experiences. Even the ones we had, were more entertaining than bad).
So Saturday quite a few from our class went to a tour at the eco-suburb of Stockholm, Hammarby (click on english in the link for more info, unless of course you speak swedish). Very interesting, but still not really the ideal. From there we had to run to a meeting with the Canadian representative from TNS to talk about her etool Learning Module that we tested for her. With a short night and already quite some activity behind us, we decided to go to lunch, which ended up being this nice 3-hour relaxing session at a cute vegetarian place with an amazing buffett, where we sat outside under heaters and with blankets. From there on we walked through the city a little bit, strolled through some second hand stores and finally decided to all split up, so we could go and take naps. I went with the two friends to Anders house and we all passed out on his floor. When we woke up, there were a) two more girls in the room than when we fell asleep and b) there was a ton of snow outside. Our first snow in Sweden! Admittedly, one of the two girls was a two-year old sister of one of the other girls and it was quite depressing that even though she discovered her love for me, we could hardly communicate - because I dont speak enough swedish!!! So we went outside and had a little snowball fight! The lazy afternoon was followed by another night out on the town, which included an hour walk in the freezing snow storm (the snow was coming from the bottom rather than the top) to find the party boat, which we then didnt get on. We finally decided to go home which involved taking a 20 minute subway ride to the suburb that Frederik lives in. The suburbs was part of the million houses program in the 70s to build more apartments and the result pretty much looks like a communist invasion. Of course, there are hardly any Swedes living there - except for apparently Frederik, but the topic of immigration and integration in Sweden is a whole different story. So the next morning, we all decided to leave our hosts and either go home or spend a night at a hostel. We met in the center of the city for brunch and then proceeded on to the Ecoboutique in Gamla Stan (Old city). All of us were pretty excited to go to this ecoboutique since all things there are organic, environmentally friendly and fair trade. However, as always in those situations, we didnt really buy anything - partly because it was insanly expensive. they seemed to speciliaze in designer fashion. Anyway, it was worth going and the walk through the snowy old city was beautiful. we then decided to go to the train station to check out our options for returns. The swedish train ticket system is rather complicated with last minute tickets, student discounts, etc - pretty much like the German system :) So we went and inquired abotu 4 tickets and they told us they had 2 last minute ones (about 450 SEK) and twon normal ones (900 SEK) left, which we reluctantly decided to take and split the entire cost by 4. As we walked out of the train station, however, we realized that there might also be a bus, which would be a lot cheaper. So two people go and inquire about bustickets and two go back to the train ticket counter to see whether we can return the train tickets. The train lady tells us we can return the normal tickets, but not the last minute ones. so via cell phone we tell the other two that we can return two and that they should buy two bus tickets, which they do. When we return to the train counter to return the ticket (to a different lady) she informs us that we cant return any of the tickets. This launches us into a 15 minute debate whether they have to take the train tickets back or not and who said what when. Us being American insist that we can give them back because that is what we were told and the Swedes being Swedes dont know what to do with such rebellious and not rule-abiding foreigners. We send someone to the bus counter to see whether we can return the bus tickets, which doesnt seem to be a problem, but finally we do convince the train lady and she takes the two normal tickets back although she makes quite clear how unhappy she (and her boss who is now also around) is about this situation. I decide never to buy a train ticket with my credit card again, since it is probably bacl-listed by now. After we finally decide who takes what mode of transport, two of us take the bus and my roommate and I take the train. But thats only where the adventure starts because Karma rules in Sweden. So we took the X2000, super high speed train to Haessleholm, where we were to switch to another train and then to a bus. Except that the X2000 was 7 minutes late and the regional train didn’t wait. And of course, it was the last train of the night. Thank goodness there were about 25 other swedes who were just as annoyed as we were and finally 45 minutes later they chartered a bus to our next destination, where of course the original bus had already left, so we were stranded again. Luckily, by now we had made friends with this swede who worked for the navy in Karlskrona and also needed to go there. When we got to Kristianstad the train company had hired taxis for us to go to our next destination. Except that the taxi going in our direction was only hired to go this town 10 ks from Karlskrona. The driver refused to go any further since he wasnt hired to do so. So our swedish friend argued and argued and finally we did get a ride home. which was great because by now it was 1 am and i did not really want to sleep at the train station in Kristianstad. So we finally made it home at 2 am Monday morning and I have been trying to recover ever since. All in all, the weekend in Stockholm was exciting and even though we didnt do much we walked quite a lot and saw some interesting parts of the city and of course met some interesting people…what more could you want from a city weekend?