A Swedish Adventure

Ooh la la, what an adventure we had. It all started off with a deliciously pleasant train ride from Copenhagen to Malmo, Sweden, where we would transfer to a train that would take us the rest of the way to Stockholm. But what’s an adventure without a challenge! As it turned out, the first train ride wasn’t too deliciously pleasant. It was a 40-minute train ride that was scheduled to depart at 4:00 PM, and it nailed that timing. Gold star. However, after we got started, the train made long, frequent pauses where we were just holding still bathing in our own sweat.

Our next train was due to take off at 5:07 PM, so thankfully we had 27 minutes to spare. So much extra time!! Well, I started getting a little nervous when the clock struck 5:06 PM and we were still slowly moving along on the train that was supposed to get there 26 minutes prior. But, luckily for us, they were going to hold our next train (to Stockholm) for all the people on this train who needed to catch it.

That’s what the conductor told us would happen. That did not happen. Everyone darted off of the train, left small children and luggage behind, sprinted up the stairs, and ran onto the platform in a desperate attempt to catch that train. No one made it. So, we purchased seven tickets for a night train that would be departing almost five hours later. We had missed the train by 10 minutes.

Our next train arrived on time, at 10:00 PM, and we successfully got on. We lucked out (not) by getting the one car without air conditioning, which had been baking in the hot sun all day. It was probably low 80s Fahrenheit. BUT—since we got first class tickets as a whoopsie doo apology gift from the train people, we got a free breakfast that came with the ticket.

After asking around a little for how to find the breakfast, we were told that our breakfast awaited us in Stockholm at a Radisson Blu. Well, we in fact got no free breakfast, not even a lick of free toast. Kind of amusing walking into a nice hotel and asking the receptionist for a free breakfast that doesn’t even exist. “Ah, but you see, we have first class train tickets.” *Wink* They had no partnership with the train lines, no deal, no nothing.

So, off we tottered, hungry as ever, in search of breakfast. We ended up finding a scrumptious place where we went nearly every morning, which had pancakes, eggs, bacon, avocado toast, all the classics.

In other Stockholm news, one day we went to go see Vasa, a giant 2.65-million-pound ship that wrecked 40 minutes into its maiden voyage in 1628. Somehow it was in really good condition, given that it wrecked 400 years ago. and was at the bottom of the sea until 1961. Vasa was well-preserved in part because there isn’t shipworm (a bivalve mollusk that bores into submerged wood) in the Baltic Sea, like there is in warmer waters, and also because the part of the bay where it sank was really polluted, which made it impossible for microorganisms to survive and cause the wood to break down. Here are some pictures!