An Aussie writer stumbles around Sweden, part 1

Surprise! : )

In my last post, I hinted at change on the wind, and here it is. We’re in Stockholm for a month – my fella’s work has sent him here, and I’ve tagged along.

When we got in on Friday afternoon, there was a slight hiccup with our reservation. After barely sleeping on the plane, we had to try and solve the problem or otherwise we wouldn’t be allowed into our hotel room. STRESS. Thankfully, the fellow at reception was fantastic at customer service and bent the rules to let us stay while the issue was unresolved. He even offered us free coffee and a game of ping pong (I kid you not) while we were standing at reception frantically phoning the people with the authority to fix our case. Legend. Shout out to Rasmuss!

Anyway, the issue was all sorted on Saturday morning, thank goodness, and we were able to explore the neighbourhood, including the local big shopping centre and grabbing a burger for lunch, and made a trip into the city centre. There was a lively Indian festival going on and we met up with some friends for coffee. For dinner, we had poke bowls. Mine had diced mango and shredded coconut along with the more usual ingredients, which was different, but tasty.

Yesterday, we went to Skansen, which has an open-air museum that essentially recreates the olden days of Sweden. Think Swedish Sovereign Hill. There’s also a zoo, aquarium, and science centre. The queue to get on the tram to the area was packed, man. Not knowing any different, we assumed it was like that all the time. It was on the weekend, and on a lovely summer’s day, after all. In fact, we’d accidentally chosen to go on family fun day. On Friday, they’d had 2,000 visitors. On the day we went, they were expecting 18,000. Yikes. Screaming kids as far as the eye could see (and ear could certainly hear). We enjoyed it, but under other circumstances, I feel our enjoyment would’ve been far greater. At the zoo, we saw a wolverine, which I didn’t know that was a real animal, and he didn’t look a thing like Hugh Jackman. Ripped off.

In the afternoon, we walked down the road to the ABBA The Museum. We saw mini-docos about them, replaced their mugs with our own in cut-out murals, did a silent disco experience, saw bedazzled costumes, and practically cleared out their gift shop. Ramen for dinner and then back to the hotel.

As for writing, I finished off writing the second half of a short story while flying here and skidded in just inside the deadline of entering it in a competition all bleary-eyed once we finally got inside our hotel room on Friday. If nothing comes of entering it, I’m proud I managed to finish it and somehow remain focussed enough to get it sent in on almost zero sleep. Things have been much more sedate since then.

It also hasn’t taken me long to suss out the local library. It’s much like the city one in Adelaide. Large, light-filled, and literary-flavoured (as you’d hope!). I expect I’ll be spending a decent amount of time there over the coming weeks.

Anyway, that’s enough for now. Let me know how you’re doing in the comments. : )