Firstly please forgive the continuing absence of photos to accompany these blog posts at the moment - I will upload photos when I can but it's going to be dependent on the facilities to hand in any given place.
I'll have arrived in Jordan by the time you read this, but this was written on my phone during the long journey from Stockholm via Heathrow. The change is going to be immense to say the least, so best to tie up blog entries on Sweden before getting to Amman...
Since my last post, further music-related activities in Stockholm included:
- Heading with most of the rest of the British schlager contingent to a British pub which we'd persuaded to show BBC1 for Your Country Needs You, the UK's Eurovision selection. The pub was a bit confused when we initially rang, asking whether Eurovision was football or rugby! The less said about the quality of the BBC show, and the contrast with Melodifestivalen, the better...
- Meeting two more schlager acts, Lovestoned (now contenders for the accolade of my new favourite Swedish band!) and the fabulous Nanne Grönvall.
- Seeing the Melodifestivalen final at Globen, which was an amazing, memorable show even if I'm very unimpressed with the winner "This Is My Life" by Anna Bergendahl. I'm still not quite sure I understand, or want to understand, exactly what Alex claimed about his fear of heights to get our booked seats about half a mile up in the rafters swapped for good ones virtually on the arena floor, but we were all very grateful nonetheless!
- Going to Club Paradise twice (if I find a club anywhere in the world on this trip which I love as much, I'll be amazed) and the compulsory culmination on a boat called Patricia, with its legendary gay nights on Sundays.
To get some multimedia into this blog as I can't upload my own photos yet (...is that a good enough attempt at an excuse? :-)), and as a final word on schlager (I promise) until Stockholm Pride in late July, here is my favourite song from this year's Melodifestivalen. It's called "Jag vill om du vågar", which translates slightly awkwardly into English as "I want to if you dare". It's about as good an example as you can get of the Swedish schlager I love, even if it didn't exactly come close to winning.
Managing not to be schlager-obsessed 24/7, I also:
Managing not to be schlager-obsessed 24/7, I also:
- Popped along briefly to a Couchsurfing social, my first one in Stockholm but something I envisage beng a semi-regular feature of my trip. If you've not heard of it, Couchsurfing.org is a worldwide community of travellers, centring around the provision of a free couch to sleep on at each other's places ("couchsurfing") but also individual and group meet-ups. There's a group meet in Stockholm every Friday, and there must have been around 50 people there, a mixture of locals and visitors.
- Went to Uppsala for an afternoon, Sweden's fourth-largest city - although that mainly shows how small and scattered Sweden's population is, as Alasdair and I reckon we "did" the city (cathedral, castle, university and river) in all of an hour and a quarter. It was pretty, but the highlight was seeing the river completely frozen over, something I've never seen before anywhere.
- Caught up with my British/Irish friends Karl and Richard who are now living in Stockholm and Uppsala respectively - they're both thoroughly enjoying living in Sweden and I'm rather jealous, although our chats did rather press home that with my circumstances it'd be challenging to say the least for me to follow in their footsteps.
- Had a bit of a holiday romance! I met a lovely guy called Phillip at Paradise on Friday night, and ended up seeing him again on Sunday and then Monday. He's flatteringly disappointed too that I don't live in Stockholm, and it certainly seems like I may have an option on further dates when I'm next there - we'll see!
Phillip is originally from Chile, not Sweden, which I suspect may not be a total coincidence. Although Swedish boys are utterly gorgeous (to the extent that hoping to find one to marry could be one motivation for moving to Sweden *blush*), they also, frankly, often seem a bit difficult. Body language and rules of engagement, at least in gay clubs, seem quite bafflingly different to anything I've ever learnt, doubtless connected to the infamous Swedish reserve - a source of discussion and some late-night bitching with my British friends on successive trips! If anyone reading this can provide any tips for future reference, they'd be very gratefully received...! I do need to put on the record though the loveliness, warmth and humour of all my Swedish friends and acquaintances.
I've done a fair amount of slipping and sliding around, as after a particularly harsh winter in Sweden (repeated lows of at least -14C I'm told even in Stockholm) the thick snow is now in retreat, but often only to reveal thick sheets of sheer ice which had formed underneath - much more treacherous I imagine than when the snow was there. When Rob, Chris J and I decided on Friday to climb to the highest natural point in Stockholm to admire the view, we quickly regretted being clad in trainers rather than something more sensible! However I only slipped over once on the whole trip and thankfully without injury, unlike one member of the extended London schlager contingent (who probably wouldn't want to be named!) who I believe is still in pretty serious pain from bruised ribs.
Outside Stockholm the scenes are still totally snowy, and the train ride to Uppsala, and the view through the window on the departing morning flight, were rather beautiful as a result.
I've done a fair amount of slipping and sliding around, as after a particularly harsh winter in Sweden (repeated lows of at least -14C I'm told even in Stockholm) the thick snow is now in retreat, but often only to reveal thick sheets of sheer ice which had formed underneath - much more treacherous I imagine than when the snow was there. When Rob, Chris J and I decided on Friday to climb to the highest natural point in Stockholm to admire the view, we quickly regretted being clad in trainers rather than something more sensible! However I only slipped over once on the whole trip and thankfully without injury, unlike one member of the extended London schlager contingent (who probably wouldn't want to be named!) who I believe is still in pretty serious pain from bruised ribs.
Outside Stockholm the scenes are still totally snowy, and the train ride to Uppsala, and the view through the window on the departing morning flight, were rather beautiful as a result.
That's pretty serious snow...
On the subject of trains, is it just me or is there a trend at least across Europe for modern trains to be much less comfortable than the older trains they replace? The old-fashioned train seating between Stockholm and Uppsala felt relaxing and almost luxurious, something I definitely don't remember being the case in my previous travelling within Sweden (Stockholm-Rättvik-Örebro-
Anyone with even the most cursory knowlege of Scandinavia won't be surprised to hear that I've spent rather more money than I would absolutely have liked, even with a basic hostel, basic food and very limited alcohol. On top of the intrinsic expensiveness, especially of alcohol, what is the real killer is the weakness of the pound now. When I first went to Sweden in 2006 you got 14 kronor (SEK) to the pound; now it is 10 and still falling. Low points were spending around £7.20 (72 SEK) on a glass of wine, a scarcely believable £8.80 (88 SEK) on one vodka and lemonade, and perhaps worst of all, £4.20 (42 SEK) on a glass of orange juice in a cafe - not even in Stockholm but in Uppsala. Granted it was freshly pressed in front of you, but you'd expect gold leaf in it for that price!
One thing that I've noticed before when travelling is that your relationship with eating can quickly change pretty drastically. Basically I've somtimes literally been forgetting to eat, and then sometimes I've been eating just because I feel I should rather than because I've actually felt hungry - and sometimes only twice a day at that. I think that hunger, at least for me, is largely driven by daily routine, daily stress and circadian rhythms - the first two of those have now vanished, and the latter completely changed by all the late nights in Stockholm clubbing. But combined with the obvious fact that it's relatively tricky to eat healthy nutritious food as a budget backpacker, I do need to keep half an eye on not arriving back in London in August as some kind of skinny, emaciated wreck, even before you factor in the risk of serious digestive issues at some point in Asia.
Thank goodness for 7-Eleven though - the ultimate in convenience stores that actually sells healthy things like fantastic salads, fresh fruit and smoothies, day and night. They are everywhere in Stockholm and will be also in many of my other destinations, but are nowhere to be seen in the UK. Why not? Boo. It's also always striking in Sweden that the general standard of food to go, especially cakes and even burgers, puts the UK to shame, although that's doubtless not saying much...
I found it a little bit emotional to say goodbye to my last two London friends left in Stockholm, Rob and Dushyan, on Monday night (after a lovely, laughter-filled evening at Torget with our Swedish friend Axel), as from that moment I am cut loose and officially travelling solo. The real experience/adventure (/slight nervousness) starts here...
Anyone with even the most cursory knowlege of Scandinavia won't be surprised to hear that I've spent rather more money than I would absolutely have liked, even with a basic hostel, basic food and very limited alcohol. On top of the intrinsic expensiveness, especially of alcohol, what is the real killer is the weakness of the pound now. When I first went to Sweden in 2006 you got 14 kronor (SEK) to the pound; now it is 10 and still falling. Low points were spending around £7.20 (72 SEK) on a glass of wine, a scarcely believable £8.80 (88 SEK) on one vodka and lemonade, and perhaps worst of all, £4.20 (42 SEK) on a glass of orange juice in a cafe - not even in Stockholm but in Uppsala. Granted it was freshly pressed in front of you, but you'd expect gold leaf in it for that price!
One thing that I've noticed before when travelling is that your relationship with eating can quickly change pretty drastically. Basically I've somtimes literally been forgetting to eat, and then sometimes I've been eating just because I feel I should rather than because I've actually felt hungry - and sometimes only twice a day at that. I think that hunger, at least for me, is largely driven by daily routine, daily stress and circadian rhythms - the first two of those have now vanished, and the latter completely changed by all the late nights in Stockholm clubbing. But combined with the obvious fact that it's relatively tricky to eat healthy nutritious food as a budget backpacker, I do need to keep half an eye on not arriving back in London in August as some kind of skinny, emaciated wreck, even before you factor in the risk of serious digestive issues at some point in Asia.
Thank goodness for 7-Eleven though - the ultimate in convenience stores that actually sells healthy things like fantastic salads, fresh fruit and smoothies, day and night. They are everywhere in Stockholm and will be also in many of my other destinations, but are nowhere to be seen in the UK. Why not? Boo. It's also always striking in Sweden that the general standard of food to go, especially cakes and even burgers, puts the UK to shame, although that's doubtless not saying much...
I found it a little bit emotional to say goodbye to my last two London friends left in Stockholm, Rob and Dushyan, on Monday night (after a lovely, laughter-filled evening at Torget with our Swedish friend Axel), as from that moment I am cut loose and officially travelling solo. The real experience/adventure (/slight nervousness) starts here...
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